We took an early morning bus on the 19th, to make the several hour bus journey from Potosi to Uyuni. We arrived in the early evening and went to settle our debt for the tour we had booked (Red Planet Tours). The girls had read that Uyuni had a place that was known for ´The Best Pizza in Bolivia´. We decided to check it out and were very pleasantly surprised at exactly how good the pizza was. The place was effectively a hostel with a tiny restaurant at the back, run by two very confused looking little old ladies. They seemed to know what they were doing with pizza though.

We set off late morning for the tour the next day. We were joined by Lashini, a Sri Lankan girl who had been living in England for some time. Turned out that she was also an accountant and also was working for Deloitte. There was a collective groan from the others as they envisaged some terrible accounting conversation on the horizon.

Our first stop along the road was the Train Graveyard. This was an expanse of land that where all Bolivian trains went when they died. There were mainly very old locomotives here, as well as all sorts of stray train parts. It was like a playground for adults. We were able to climb over and into everything there, which was a lot of fun. We spent a good 30 minutes or so here taking as many silly photos as we could. Next, we headed to a small village for lunch, which was llama meat with fries and veg, as well as an awesome apple pie for desert. The village was made almost entirey out of salt and had a few artesan stores where I managed to buy a ridiculous Siberian style hat for a bargain price.

One thing I noticed was how cold it was. I had on a t-shirt, a thermal top, another t-shirt, a thin jumper, my Berghaus fleece, a jacket, two hats, gloves, thermal longjohns, trousers over those, football socks, regular socks and trekking boots, and when I stepped outside, I was just about comfortable, with maybe the tiniest bit of cold seeping through. Annoyingly, each time we got into the car I´d have to de-layer my top half and then re-layer again each time we got out.

We soon hit the salt flats that are so famous from photos. A vast expanse of what appears to be perfectly flat, perfectly white floor, made of salt. The first stop was the salt hotel. This had been shut down some years ago as it had been found to be polluting the local area. Just in front of it was a small mound mounted by flags from all over the world. We took some action shots jumping in front of these, before heading on to the bit we had been looking forward to - where we could take ridiculous perspective photos.

Once out of the car we split into pairs, armed with props that included water bottle, wine bottle, Pringles can and toy dinosaur (courtesy of the guide). We spent around an hour or so trying to take all kinds of ridiculous perspective shots - riding the dinosaur, fighting the dinosaur, sitting on the Pringles can, drinking from the giant bottles, crushing each other, sitting on each others´ hands etc etc. At one stage, the guide broke hole into the floor, exposing water. He fished around and pulled out a small salt crystal, slightly pink in coloul. He told us that below was around 1m-2m of depth in super salty water. I couldn´t believe that a crust of salt, just a few inched thick was supporting our weight, let alone that of the jeep and all our bags/supplies. The photo-taking was a lot of fun and I think we could easily have spent all day there, but we had to move on.

We next headed to a strange island. Looking into the horizon, all we could see were mountains all around, with the vast salt flats in between. Strangely though, almost exactly in the middle of the flats was this unusual island which was covered in cacti. Some of these cacti, we were told, were hundreds of years old.

After a little more driving, we reached our camp for the evening. The hostel was built mainly out of salt, which did nothing for the temperature. It had been an awesome day. The landscapes we had passed were absolutely stunning and there was still better to come.

The following morning we drove for some time before our first stop. Again, the surrounding landscapes were stunning. The first place we got to was very unusual. It was an outcrop of bright red, volcanic rocks of all kinds of strange shapes and sizes. The highlight being one that looked exactly like a rock tree. The surroundings were covered in snow, and in the distance was the seven coloured mountain, made of rocks containing all kinds of minerals, hence the different colours and the name.

Next, we moved onto the Blue Lagoon. It´s hard to describe just how blue this water was. I´d never seen anything like it before. In the lagoon were pink flamingos. I´d always thought these existed in warm climates, yet here they were, at 4,000m or so above sea level in the freezing cold. We also saw a herd of Vicunas close up. After an early lunch and before leaving, Stevo and I showed the guide how to do a shoulder role, which he absolutely loved and kept wanting to do until we almost had to drag him back into the car.

Next, we hit a green lagoon. Here, the water was an amazing turquoise colour which I couldn´t seem to take my eyes off. Again, the backdrop of blue skies and snow peaked mountains almost made me want to pinch myself to check that it was real.

The thing that people seem to look forward to the most on the second day is the thermal hot springs. We were no different. As the day wore on, we were getting more and more restless to get to these. Stevo and I had invested in a large bottle of rum and some coke for the occasion. Before we got there, we visited some geysers. These were bubbling with an ugly-looking grey slime and throwing out plumes of sulphuric smoke. It felt like being on a different planet. Inside the geyser field it was warm and absolutely stank. We were relieved to get out despite the cold, the fresh air was a relief. Finally, we reached the hot springs. Better still, we would be staying at the hostel on whose grounds they were located. We had dinner and headed straight for the springs, with booze in hand. I left the hostel in just a towel and my swimshorts, torch in hand to guide me through the dark. I could not believe how cold it was, I was tempted to turnaround, but the sight of the others in the pool and the steam eminating from it drove me on and it was an incredible feeling to get in. The water was amazingly hot (38-40 degrees celsius I think) but it was freezing outside of it. I had dipped my head in and after a few minutes realised that my hair had frozen. We stayed and chatted in the pool for a couple of hours, polishing off our rum while we were at it. It was a great night, with a clear sky and full moon.

Sadly we were into our last day of the tour. After breakfast we headed to a red lagoon. It was coloured this way because of micro-organisms living in the water that turned this colour as a result of the sunlight. After this we made our way to a different and equally as strange rock formation as the one from the previous day. Stevo and I, after our climbing adventure in Sucre were seeing everything from a climbers´ eyes. I climbed one particularly large rock and almost got stuck on the way down. Lesson learned. We messed around here for 40 minutes or so, before getting back into the 4x4 for the final few hours back to Uyuni and the overnight bus that awaited, heading for Tarija.