El Salar

I think you can't visit Bolivia without visiting el Salar de Uyuni. 

It was absolutely incredible.

The journey was a bit of a palava..

I left Cochabamba at 3.30 on Thursday, on a bus to Oruro, in order to get the tickets to Uyuni for all of us, Greta and Freddy were arriving later. However, they arrived just 10 minutes after the last bus to Uyuni left. So, we decided to go to Potosi, which is closer to Uyuni. At least we might have a better chance of getting there for 10.30, when the tour started. We left at 11pm, and arrived in Potosi at 4.30. It was completely empty, the only people in the bus station were homeless or this lady selling coffee to I don't know who... and also taxi drivers.

'Adonde quieren ir, hotel, aeropuerto, restaurante...?'

Ummmm, Uyuni?

The taxi driver offered to take us all the way to Uyuni, which is 4 hours away, he gave us a pretty good price and managed to do it in 3 hours. The ride was amazing, half asleep under blankets, the sun rising over the mountains, sand, quinoa and llamas.

Arrived in Uyuni with plenty of time, we took Sabat, the taxi driver out to breakfast, and said goodbye..

There were 6 of us in a jeep with our guide Renaldo. And doing the tour at the same time were about 15 other jeeps, I felt like such a tourist!

We first went to the train cemetery, long lines of rusty trains from when Uyuni used to export a lot of minerals I do believe, and had a go on the swing...

The salt mountains, which are made to make the salt dry out to then be able to manufacture it...

El hotel de sal...

And then we went deeper into the Salar and some crazy things happened...

It was so so beautiful, just endless salt, all of the mountains in the distance looked like they were floating.

That night we stayed in a hostel in Ataca, and the next day we piled in the jeep and made the journey south to...

A load o rocks!

And then many, many a laguna with many a flamingo (thanks to Freddy for the beautiful photos)

The tree of stone...

Where there were proper toilets...

I'm not sure how accurate the guides were. Michella who was in another group told me that Star Wars had been filmed there, and the rocks where from volcano eruptions because they were red. I just don't know what to believe any more!

The most amazing lake was la laguna colorada...

That night we stayed in a tiny tiny village in the National Park with electricity from 7-9.30 and it was the coldest I have been since England.

I have never seen so many stars in my life. It was verdaderemente increible.

In the morning we got up at half four, still frozen, to go and see the geysers in the morning light...

and swim in the thermal pool...

On the tour with us was an elderly Czech/Canadian guy. He obviously wasn’t used to Bolivian timing, and complained every time we had to wait another 10 minutes (in these beautiful places). He also wasn’t happy with the fact that the guide didn’t speak English… And on the way back to Uyuni at the end of the tour he certainly wasn’t happy with the speed at which the guide was going in order to get back for half past four. He told Reynaldo to slow down several times, in English, which funnily enough he didn’t understand, and then started shouting at him in English telling him he was pissed off and what a bad guide he was! So he stopped the car and they had a bit of a spanish-english shouting match, and the rest of the journey was very awkward. And spitefully slow.

We got home in the end, after a long, long night on a bumpy road.