We started the tour at a cemetery for trains where great rusting hulks of steam trains are left to rot to nothing. A beautiful yet sad place, it made for a great number of photo opportunities and a curious start to our trip.
At a similar altitude to La Paz, there is a vast area which was once an ocean but has long since dried up, leaving this strange landscape of dead flat, dead white, well, salt plains. Rather than being small crystals, as you'd expect from your salt pot, it has crystalized into crazy geometric crystals - not unlike quarz crystals - that form a hard and seemingly impenetrable crust covering a mammoth 12, 000 sq km. It is white almost as far as the eye can see and unlike anything you can ever expect to see: bonkers.
Because of the uniformity of the landscape there are numerous opportunities for humorous 'perspective' photos and our group for the next 3 days had lots of fun with this. Our group consisted of 3 lovely Israeli lads (forgive me lads but I can't spell your names), and a nice, but alcoholic, Brazilian, Louis, plus our driver, his wife and little girl (2 years) who was a great source of entertainment.
Kieran sits on El's tongue
In the middle of the flats is a crazy island, covered in strange rocks and huge cacti - the largest being over 12m tall. It is such a random thing to find in the midst of this salt flat and climbing the hill gives you amazing views of the area.
The first night we stayed in a hotel (almost) made entirely of salt: walls, tables, chairs, and floor (crushed to resembled gravel). We felt slightly guilty as the Lonely Planet does say it is an illegal structure but we weren't about to sleep outside in protest: the days are quite warm in the sun but the nights are BBbbrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Our second day took us into the mountains beyond the salt flats and we visited a few huge lakes of various colours (made so by the minerals and algae within) and the magnificent sight of flocks of Flingos (Flamingos to non-Hayeses). They are such beautiful and elegant creatures but they are pink. I mean...pink...?????!!!???? We also came across some strange rocks sculpted into odd shapes by the wind and the sand...a bit like being on another planet.
We arrived at our second hostel at 3pm just as the sky turned white and the snow started falling. We were really glad that we purchased some long johns, Alpaca socks and extra vests in La Paz as the temperature dropped considerably. Luckily the Israeli's had some spirits and they taught us a great new card game that rapidly turned into a drinking game. Unfortunately for us, the Israelis were dab hands at it and both Kieran and I lost the first 2 rounds, resulting in having to down some dodgy black herbal liqueur. By this point the forfeit had turned into running outside in the snow naked. Kieran and I both lost this round but he gallantly stripped off to his pants and legged it outside. El Stupido!
Drunken Bet
Our last day took us to geysers, hot springs (only one of the Israelis made it into the pool but dipping our feet in felt delicious), more coloured lakes and flingos and then to a huge volcano (not live though). At this point we were at about 4900m and the volcano was about 6000m and the air was thin and really cold. We dropped off the pissed Brazilian at the Chilean border and headed back to Uyuni. It was a long trip but much fun, seeing awesome landscape and wildlife, and having great fun with our amigos (who we will be visiting in Israel, whether they like it or not).
So far Bolivia has proved itself to be a fascinating and beautiful place. Barren, yes, and yet everywhere there are plants and animals. Cold, yes, but clear blue skies and lovely warm jumpers. We are excited about the rest of our time here as we are loving it!
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