Salt Flats

The Train graveyard
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On the way to La Paz I met a lovely woman called Rachael. I promised her that i was not normally quite so dappy, exhausted and generally crap as i was when i met her.  Unfortunately it turned out that i was.  Having spent a day in La Paz where we visited the witches market (lots of llama foetus) while sheltering from the rain, we took our over night bus down to Uyuni.  We´d been promised a ´semi cama´bus...which apparently meant that we´d have a bit more room than normal...we get on the bus to find that we are sitting at the back, thus there is no movement in the seats at all.  Great.  An overnight bus, with no tiliting seats, over the worst roads in South America.  Thank god we bought some sleeping tablets.  To make matters worse, they insisited on playing ´The adventures of Riddick´- the world{s most terrible action film that i´d seen the pre/seq-ual to in South Africa.

Salt flats
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When we got to Uyuni, the 3 sleeping pills i´d taken still had great effect.  We were joined for our tour by a middleaged Israeli couple, with the man being the most aggressive stereotype of a middle aged Israeli.  Plus we had a group of 3 dope spoking argentinians.  Great combo.

But the Salt flats were incredible.  We spent the morning at a railway cemetry and then a salt mine (boring!) but then we got the flats.  As far as the eye could see the expanse of white glittering in the sun was awe inspiring.  Even  better was after lunch when because of the wet season, the salt reflected the sky. It was like being in a fantasy picture where the sky is at your feet, and the whole place sparkles.

Me and Rachael - check out the reflections of the sky!
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Unfortunately started developing a rash (from the sleeping tablets??) and by that evening was covered in a prickly red rash.   nice.  Day 2 having not found a doctor, i spent most of the day sleeping in the jeep.  But we did see hundreds of flamingos and the red lake.  Day 3 we got up at 4am in the freezing cold and saw geezers - actually stood right by them, (hich health and safety wise is a disaster - one girl got burnt while we were there!) while they boiled away and shot up hot steam.  In the cold we then went to agas caliente (hot pools) which given my freezingness and my rash, i didn{t get into apart from my feet - but the water was boiling, while at 7am the outside temeperature is below feezing.  After breakfast we headed towards the Chilean boarder where the temperature in the desert rocketed upwards.  There we saw the most perfect blue lake ever...right next to the white lake.  Amazing the difference between the water over a few hundred yards and different chemicals.

Flamingos
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Left Bolivia, and entered into Chile, San Pedro being the most touristy (although lovely) little town you´d ever seen.  All cute shops, vrey expensive food and drink, and whitewashed and natural small buildings.  Straight to doctor, to get injection in my bum.  happy to be back in civilization.