Salt Flats

So after a night in Wild Rover (again! That place became a second home) we spent our last afternoon in La Paz (relief) and then onto our 12hr bus to Uyuni. On the bus we met two guys Matt and Larry, who it turns out, shared a Hostel with Alice in Cuzco! Small travelling world.

Anyway half the journey was ok, but the rest on the bumpiest desert dust track ever. We certainly have had our fare share of bumpy rides. Arrive at 7am and wait until 10.30 for our tour to begin. Knackered, but what a day!

Get into our 4x4 which would be our home for the next 3 days and take one look at goup, heart sinks. 2 Bolivianas and 2 German girls that didnt appear to be all that exciting. First impressions turned out to be right bar the old boliviana, Blanca (63, ok not THAT old, haha) who turned out to be a hoot! Anyway, straight onto the salt flats. First stop the entrance, where there was a memorial for 13 people who had died in an accident in 2008. Wouldn´t say it was the most inspiring of starts, but upon seeing the flats, all scared thoughts were dismissed and taken over with WOW. One of the craziest things I have ever seen. A humungus expanse of salt, probably doesnt sound that great but its pretty cool to see. Bolivia never ceases to amaze with its variety of scenery.

So today we did the whole of the flats, stopping for lunch at this crazy island filled with tonnes of cactus. They seem like random lumps of rock that have come from nowhere, but when you remember it was a lake it doesnt seem so random. The coolest part is when you are driving along they look like they are floating in the distance.
After lunch we continued through the flats stopping off to take some crazy photos...

Its the BEST place to take photos!! It was such a surreal experience, it had rained the night before and there was a layer of water on the salt, but it looked like the water was really deep and we were driving through a lake...

A lake with mountains, floating islands and a volcanoe on the horizon. Madness. Then suddenly the salt flats end and the scenery turns to that of Arizona, dry mountains with cactus. But it really just ends out of nowhere, the back of the 4x4 is on the flats and the front in Arizona?! Odd. Ok not really arizona, although that would have been amazing- Hi Rob!

Then to camp 1 (A Salt Hotel) for the night. Here I realise I havent been to the loo loo since I finished my antibiotics in Isla Del Sol! F***. So I tell our new Boliviana friend Blanca about my loo loo trials and tribulations, and she trots off to the kitchen and comes back with the rankest smelling tea EVER. It turns out they have this plant that they put in hot water to make tea and it helps you poo... 2 days later I could do nothing but!!! A relief, but not the most convenient time to be needing the loo every half an hour.

I wont give you a blow by blow account of the trip but all I will say is that it involved a lot of amazing views and scenery (out comes the white baseball cap and bumbag!) which I wouldnt want to try to explain... But I saw flamingos, lagoons, volcanoes, rocks, rocks and more rocks all in different shapes and sizes, hot springs, deserts, gaysiers (whatever they are) and the highest we got was 5000ft above sea level (yuck).

It really was beautiful and amazing, and that means something coming from someone whos not all that into views and stuff. It is def a must-see-before-dying kind of thang, im sure fellow salt flatters would agree.

We ended on the border between Chile and Bolivia and waited for a bus to take us to San Pedro de Atacama...