Hi there people. Just spent 3 days driving over the Altiplano in Bolivia which has been very cool (can someone email me some more 'adjectives' as I ran out long ago). 5 of us got a guide and 4WD in San Pedro in Chile and piled in. We were a little nervous of the altitude on the first day as it meant sleeping at over 4,500m and after my bus trip the day before I had some idea how it was going to feel. It didn't let us down either, as by the time we were getting dinner in some little mud house we all had varying levels of altitude sickness. Mine was mild with just a throbbing headache, but the others were having digestion problems (at both ends) and getting blood noses etc. Add to this temperatures well into the minuses with the windchill and a room with no heating, and it was hardcore. But this aside, the altiplano is amazing. We got over the Bolivian border early and drove for hours along this huge deserlet plain coming past geysers, rock formations and colorful lakes hosting hundreds of Flamingos. The guide had promised us a drop in altitude for the second day, but not before going even higher for the first few hours. We got up after getting a terrible nights sleep and put on as many layers of clothes as we could (which most of us had slept in anyway). We did go higher and had a number of 'vomit' stops and found it a little tough to get too excited about more lakes and mountains. Finally we headed down though and started to enjoy some releif as we had lunch on some old lava flows beside an active volcano. From here we headed to our second nights accommodation at a hotel constructed completely of salt at the edge of the Salar de Uyuni. The hotel was luxury compared to the previous night and a (semi) warm shower and dinner had everyone smiling again. The local kids entertained the 'gringos' with some (terrible) attempts at traditional music and instruments (for a price of course) and I went to sleep early in my salt bed. The last day was a drive across the incredible Uyuni salt flats. Before that though we headed to a little cave nearby where a local tells the tale of some mummies in some caves dating back to 700BC. Not sure about the accuracy of the 'carbon dating', but he had me convinced. Thanks to security a little way short of the London museum, I can even say I've touched the leg of a chick that's over 2,700 years old. Then it was onto the famous Salar de Uyuni. This place was amazing. It is 12,000 square kilometres of salt flat. It was like driving on a solid ocean, with the occassional island, for hours and hours. The glare from the white salt was heavy duty (as was the potential sunburn). It was a wild experience and I don't think any of my photos will really capture the place. As far as you could look in nearly every direction, the horizon was just white. The locals mine the salt (as well as building houses as we experienced) and I think there's an industry there for them for a few more years. After arriving in Uyuni (my first town in Bolivia) we thought we'd get straight into the Bolivian experience and get a night bus to Potosi. It was everything I'd expected and hoped. It was a small bus with all your baggage thrown on the roof and an excessive number of people thrown in the bus. You've really got to fight for your leg room in these conditions and a few times I felt my good manners left me in a very poor and uncomfortable position. It was again soooo cold, but we had come prepared considering we were heading to the highest city on earth (over 4,000m). We arrived at 3.30am (after hearing a tape with only 4 songs on it repeat for hour after hour) and I breathed a sigh of releif as my American buddies had found a taxi by the time I got off the bus. A quick cab trip (past a huge fiesta filled with locals staggering home) had me tucked into bed in need off some heavy sleep.