Day 253, 254, 255, 256 - Uyuni & the Salt Plains tour & Bolivian sum up - Monday 25th, Tuesday 26th, Wednesday 27th, Thursday 28th June 2012

Wow Uyuni is absolutely freezing!!! We arrived in at 8am, still in our flip flops from the warm jungle of Rurrenabaque - by the time we had walked to somewhere to stay for the night our toes were suffering frostbite!! And we thought La Paz was cold……….

We found a place to stay, which as usual had no heating, and so headed out quickly to get some breakfast. Adam ordered a grande café con leche with his breakie and when it turned up it was literally a chalice of coffee! After breakie we did boring things like getting our washing done, writing some blog and wasting away some time until it was time to eat again. It pains me to say it, but the food in Bolivia hasn't been that great - mainly pizzas and pastas and when you do get somewhere that says it sells Bolivian food it basically consists of a bit of meat with chips and rice. It doesn't make for the healthiest or nicest diet! In the evening we just chilled and got ready for the next day's tour to the salt flats!

After breakie and packing up we wandered around town and had a coffee to warm up; in the café we were accompanied by the cutest little girl who drew all over our books and sat on my lap whilst chanting "HOLA" over and over again! Come 10.30 we headed to the tour office to start our three day salt plains tour. Our group was made up of us and three girls (so glad not to be the only girl in a group of boys!); Te was from London and Iris and Marion from Germany, plus our driver / chef / guide / everything and anything handy man, Ebber - from Bolivia of course. Once loaded up we jumped in the 4x4 and headed to our first stop of the morning - the train cemetery. It's just outside of town and is a strange old place. The story is that the trains were used for years for the transportation of goods from the mines but then in the 50's they were just left, quite literally to rot - what's left is basically lots of rusting old trains! Ad and I played around, climbing the trains for about thirty minutes and took lots of stupid photos before it was time to get in the car and head to our next stop, the town of Colchani. Colchani town exists for two sole reasons it seems, firstly they process the salt from the nearby plains and secondly, they sell lots of alpaca stuff to tourists! After seeing how the salt was processed, we spent a bit of time looking around; including seeing a huge Llama sculpture made out of salt, and ended on buying a very colourful pair of oven gloves for home. Back in the car and Ebber was blasting out some classic nineties songs as well as the odd Bolivian one - our favourite song also had a play and we attempted to sing our version of it "nosa, nosa, I see your sexy mama" - definitely not the words but it made the rest of the car laugh! After an hour or so and a quick stop to see the mounds of salt, we arrived at the Inca Huasi (Fish Island to you and me). Here we had lunch, followed by a very yummy but broken up apple pie (Te dropped it) before setting off to explore the island. The Island is a surreal place; it's set quite high, is surrounded by the endless white of the salt plains and covered in giant trichoreous cacti. Apparently the cacti grow a cm a year and there was one that was nine metres tall meaning that it was over nine hundred years old - it was a monster! The views from the top of the island were pretty spectacular; all we could see for miles around were the salt plains with a backdrop of snow-capped mountains. The salt plains are the largest in the world at 12,106 sq km and were once part of a prehistoric salt lake which, hundreds of thousands of years ago, would have covered most of southwest Bolivia. After climbing back down it was time to get back in the car and head to the centre of the salt plains to do the obligatory stupid pictures! Ebber, our guide, was a bit of a pro and even brought out toys of a dinosaur and tiger for our pictures - we spent about an hour doing lots of silly shots! After, we got back in the car and headed to our hostel for the night and along the ride watched the sun set over the salt plains. We arrived at our place only to discover it was made of salt! The walls, tables, chairs and even our beds were all carved out of salt; it was pretty cool - in all senses of the word! After dinner and chats with everyone we headed to our (quite cold) bed and tucked ourselves up with three blankets, two sheets, and a thermal sleeping bag - the minus ten temperature wasn't going to get us tonight!!

We were awake at 7am and had some breakfast before getting back on the road. We packed the night before so quickly loaded all the bags and sleeping stuff on to the roof of the jeep and headed off. We travelled through the Chuguana desert area where the scenery was amazing; there were so many extinct volcanoes, which are now covered in snow and nestled below the backdrop of even more snow-capped mountains!! There was also the view of the grand Ollague, which Ebber described as "semi-active". I asked him when it last erupted, he said 5000 years ago - semi active hey?!! As our jeep rumbled on we passed by some of Chile's high altitude lagoons. These lagoons were surrounded in salt (obviously, being as we were in the salt plains!) and are home to three species of flamingo. Soph got her super zoom from the jeep and took some amazing photos. The flamingos were nowhere near as pink as I thought they would be; I really thought that they would be a bright vivid pink but apart from their tails they are pretty pale! Next up, we were back off down the bounciest dirt track in the world and through the desert of Siloli to the "tree of rock". Now I had never heard of it before but as soon as I saw it, I recognised it from photos. The rocks surrounding it are all very similar, big at the base and very thin at the top - like a mountain. The tree of rock however is the reverse, really thin and weak at the base but it supports a massive mass at the top (like a tree!!). It's strange to look at and we captured some great photos. The day was starting to get late and we were losing the light, so for our final destination for the day Ebber took us to the "Laguna Colorado" which was an amazing red coloured lake that was also covered in flamingos - don't worry though, that's not why they are pink!! The water in this particular lake is red due to the algae - it's really weird to look at! We arrived at the hostel for the night and tried to keep warm with some pretty crap tasting Bolivian wine and some amazing Chilean red wine washed down with some shots of Pisco but, seeing as the rumoured temperature was minus twenty degrees, I doubt this got anywhere close to numbing our senses! Fully clothed and comforted by a hot water bottle and several million sheets, blankets and sleeping bags we attempted to sleep.

Ok, ok it wasn't that bad last night, the temperature was apparently minus twenty but we all slept pretty well - maybe the wine and Pisco mix worked!? We were up early today, very early, 5am to be precise!! And off to visit "Sol de Mañana", this is an area near the border of Chile and the Atacarma dessert where there is the most volcanic activity. When we arrived there was smoke and steam everywhere!! We got out the jeep and made our way over to some of the vents, there were geysers everywhere and the steam and heat coming off them was immense. As the steam cleared you could either be looking at just a crack in the ground or a bubbling mud pool. It really reminded us of the North Island in NZ - it smelled like it too, just like rotten eggs - this is because of all the sulphur, not people's bums! After we headed to some hot springs where we relaxed in the warm water pools, it was awesome, but also strange and quite hard work getting undressed in the freezing cold of the morning. It's crazy to think you can get forty degree temperatures in the water pools but outside its minus ten degrees!! Soph got out of the hot pools first as we only had one towel, so I just paddled around but didn't dip my head back under as I was just chatting to David, then he got out and noticed that my hair looked like it had been gelled back. When I got out I realised that the water on my hair had dried and turned to ice - that is how cold it was!! Once we were all dried up, we all had breakfast in the little wooden shack next to the hot pools and headed off to the "Dali desert" to see the "laguna Verde" where we saw the green mineral waters of the lake at the foot of Volcan Licancabur. From here we got dropped off by our Ebber, said our goodbyes to our group who were headed back to Uyuni, crossed the Bolivian border (here we got our passports stamped and the little Bolivian man behind the desk said "OK Inglesa, Adios from Bolivia") and then got in a little bus that transferred us to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. Once there we stamped into Chile - simple as that!! We arrived into the town of San Pedro de Atacama and along with Sandy and David, a really nice German couple we'd met on the trip, went looking for a cheap hostel. The first we came to was £50 per night!! Wow Chile is going to be expensive! We eventually found an HI (hostelling international) place for £10 each per night with free WIFI and breakfast for a four shared dorm. Once in, we quickly unpacked, showered and dressed so we could make it to a bar for the Germany v Italy game. Now seeing as Sandy and David were German we did this with some speed and found a small restaurant to eat and watch the game. First problem, the restaurant didn't sell any beer, second problem Germany lost 2-0 - I was gutted for David, especially as I kept saying that Germany would win?!! After food and the game we found a little bar on the plaza where we shared a jug of beer and some Pisco Sours whilst watching the start of the processions of the weekend San Pedro de Atacama festival - apparently it happens once a year and just so happens to be this weekend! After the bar we headed back to the hostel and grabbed a few bottle of red wine too, after an hour of drinking and chatting we were joined by Mario and his girlfriend - from Southern Chile. So we headed back to the shop and came back with five bottles of red wine and a litre of Pisco. Then we were joined by another five or six people and before we knew it, we were all pretty drunk, huddled around a blazing fire and trying to talk a mixture of English, Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan!! It ended up being a really good drunken night and Soph even got videoed singing her "new" favourite song - nosa, nosa asei vose muta!! It turned into a very drunken but fun night!

Bolivian sum up

We had a short a sweet time in Bolivia so here is our sum up, Adam style!!

Food - Not good, either fried or re-fried! Also pizzeria's everywhere!

Weather - Warm and wet in the jungle, cold and dizzy in La Paz and attitude

Tours - The Amazon, Pampas and salt plains were amazing and gave us a better view into the diversity and landscapes of the country

People - Warm and friendly, with slow Spanish so easy to understand

Animals - Amazing we saw so many (not just stray dogs!!)

Another great country in South America!