...salt, rocks and deadly treadlies...

My brother so kindly wrote at the beggining of the year "What a beautiful Shithole Bolivia is!"...so i didnt really know what to expect.

But he´s right.  It´s beautiful...and it is a bit of a shithole...in a good way.

Death Road?....Pfffft!

Our first taste was a 3 day trip through the Solar de Uyuni, which is a combination of salt flats, desert rock formations and lagoons a plenty.

The beginning of the trip was pure desert, and at 3300m+ above sea level, it was bloody cold.  Frio!!!

The landscape started out very vast, dry, and a combintion of reds, oranges, greys, whites (thanks to the snow!) and blacks.  We stopped off at three lagoons, one blue, one green and one red...all with flamingoes roaming about, doing their thing.  It was sort of surreal to see flamingoes at such an altitude, but they were beautiful and placid (til the wanka tourist scared them on account of wanting an in flight photograph).  We parked in a tiny little village for the night in the middle of the desert and bundled p in our woolies to try and beat the chill.

The second day was de ja vu Outback Aussie.  red rocks.  More red rocks.  Scattered everywhere.  Beautiful  Crazy!  It´s like these formations have just been randomly dropped into the landscape, and there were little funny creatures running about, though i only saw the ears of one, and plenty of childhood memories to revisit whilst i climbed all over and on top of giant rocks and boulders and other sorts of toys.

The last day, we ventured into the actual solar de Uyuni, which is apparently the biggest salt flat in the world, and i would definatly beleive it, as its huge!  There is no horizon at times, and all you see is white against blue sky.  Then, random of all things, a cactua Islad pops p to greet us, offering yet more amazing views, and more confusion and awe of the whole spectacle.

Drop off was in the township of Uyuni, which is a poo hole.  We checked out an old train cemetary (yes! a cemetary for trains) which was pretty cool really, and then wasted the day as we waited for our overnight nightmare bus across the desert to La Paz.  Fun times, flat tyres, no toilet...13hours...lovin it!

La Paz is a sweet city, built into a huge valley! Huge Valley! And surrounded by snowcapped peaks! Ahhhh! Sigh.  Cool windy streets, little markets everywhere  and a good opportunity to get lost and work on my Spanish.  We did a day trip down the Death Road, mountain bike riding down he worlds most dangerous road.  34km on asphalt, starting at 4700m above sea level, then onto narrow dirt road with 600-800m cliff drops the whole way (for 30km).  Now, sounds scary eh?  Add torrential rain once we hit the dirt, thunder and lightning right above us, and minimal vision.  UNREAL FUN!    Highly reccommend.

After that we booted it to a lakeside town called Copacobana...on, suprise suprise, a lake (Lake Titicaca)!  A huge one in fact, and the hihgest navigable lake in the world, so they say.  The town is cute, bright, cruisey and sunny (except the morning we woke up to snow)!  Spent a few days chilling, Island Hopping and just soaking up the sun (hopefully not the bad sort).

All in all, Bolivia is a damn cool country....spacious, wild, crazy, dirty, bumpy...awesome people....ah, yes, i will be back.