We arrived in Uyuni late at night where Gemma, Eddie (Edwina) and Ollie from La Paz had been for a few days having been to a rave in the salt flats! Gemma had sorted out a tour so we checked out of our pretty grubby little hostel and left on a tour that morning, there really wasn't much to do in the town itself. The two and a bit day tour was amazing, we have seen some of the most extraordinary landscapes in this desert at the far western edge of Bolivia. Ongoing camera problems mean that we cannot uploiad our photos but it really was out of this world.
On the first day we visited the Uyuni salt flats which is an area where millions of years ago a sea dried up leaving salt across the floor of the valley. It was beautiful to speed along in our jeep with vast white land stretching out on either side, we also visited a strange island where cactuses grow b efore pitching up for a night in a tiny little village where our hostel was almost entirely made of salt. Despite a few people getting far too drunk and arguing at full volume with each other we got a decent nights sleep before heading off early the next day. We knew about the salt flats in advance and while they were spectacular the scenery on the 2nd day was probably more memorable. Our first stop gave us a view of surrounding volcanoes, including one we were told was active and appeared to have smoke coming out of it. We then visited a number of lagoons which were inhabited by flamingoes, the vistas were wonderful, especially so at the last lagoon which had red water which felt very unearthly. We also stopped to see beautiful multi coloured mountains and strange rock outcrops which sprang out of the desert. All these stops punctuated a glorious drive along huge expanses of desert where every direction brought a (running out of superlatives now) incredible and different view.
The second night was a little more peaceful and a lot more cold, we were woken at 5.30am to see the remaining sights before being dropped at the Chilean border. We visited steaming geysers which was a first for both of us, had a dip in some thermal bathes before one last stop at a beautiful emerald green lake with a perfect cone shaped volcano as a backdrop. It really was an amazing trip and hopefully we will resolve our canera problems so you can get an idea of what these words have tried to describe.
By 10am we were in Chile. We have only spent 9 days in Bolivia which is less than we would have wanted. It ois the poorest and cheapest place we have visited and these last 3 days have shown us that it has som eof the most spectacular scenery you can find, we would have really liked to stay a little longer and explore the country more thoroughly.