Salt Flats, Atacama Desert, and high altitudes in Bolivia.

After an extremely bumpy bus ride in a little pink bus on the dirt road from Potosí to Uyuni we booked into a quality hotel for $5 a night. (The hotel owner wouldn't give us a discount on that rate!). We'd headed into Uyuni for the sole purpose of signing up to a tour of the salt flats - and when we arrived we were swamped with agencies trying to get us to sign up. In the end, after checking out a whole bunch of competitors, we came to the conclusion that the only real difference was accomodation choices, so we settled with the company that sat best in our gut (literally... they were also offering pancakes for breakfast), and settled in for a cold, early night.

DAY 1

Breakfast took forever to be served (typical Bolivian service -- we were a few seconds away from just walking away when our food finally arrived), and at 10am we went to the Andes Salt Expeditions office to meet our fellow travelers. Dan & Alex (Brits), Joe & Ben (also Brits), Rod & Michelle (Irish), and Hyunmi (Korean) made up the English speaking contingent of our adventurers, and we were also joined by Alexis & Valerie (French) and our guide and driver - the Juans (Bolivian).

The tour didn't get off to the best start as we waited around for over an hour for the company to resolve petrol problems in the 4wds, and then on the way out of town Juan suddenly remembered that after all these delays he had forgotten to fill up the tank. We returned back to town, even further behind in the schedule.

First stop on the tour brought us too the train graveyard just outside of Uyuni. Nyall had fun jumping on the huge old rusted bodies - surely there would be some safety regulations, but hey, remember we are in Bolivia!

From there we were finally on our way onto the famed salt flats. After driving about 20 minutes out of Uyuni we were hit by a blinding whiteness of a never-ending salt desert. There was a little town just on the border of the flats, which seemed to be just an excuse for a market directed to us tourists. It was cool seeing local kids playing in the salt like other kids would play in snow, though.

From there we drove out over the salt to the famous Salt Hotel... which I think is a museum and not actually a hotel at all, but I don't know for sure because it was closed by the time we arrived. The Juans set up our barbecue llama lunch while the rest of us played around on the salt flats. It felt like we were in the snow, so consequently I tried to make salt-angels... and failed. The salt is hard, and wrecked my clothes a little!

Nearly everyone goes to the salt flats to take some trick photos. So here are our happy-snaps from the flats:

After way too much time setting up silly photos we bustled back into the 4wds and visited Fish Island - a cactus ridden island in the middle of endless salt flats. Más fotografías:

The boys managed to convince the Juans to let us ride on the roof of the 4wds across the flats until our fingers began to ache from the cold.

And we arrived in another Salt Hotel (this time on the very edge of the salt flats) for our first night's accommodation. It was a surprisingly comfortable hotel, and I slept great!

DAY 2

Our wake up call was at 6am, and once again the troupe piled into the 4wds. We visited this cool looking volcano on the border with Chile, which had awesome clouds and a rock that "supposedly" looks like a crocodile. Anyway, we all climbed on the crocodile for a group photo to keep our guide happy.

We entered the Colored Lakes National Park where we became mesmerised by flamingos, Vicuñas, Llamas and all things typically South American - and a little field mouse that wanted our lunch.

We made our way across the Atacama Desert - the highest and coldest desert in the world. Nyall and the boys climbed every rock they could see, while the girls wrapped ourselves up in jackets and beanies to protect us from the extreme wind and cold.

Tonight's accommodation was in a dormitory-type room, not nearly as impressive as last night's salt hotel. It was extremely cold, and we all went to sleep reluctantly knowing that we would be leaving before sunrise the next morning.

DAY 3

As mentioned, we woke ridiculously early and huddled together in the 4wd for warmth, while the Juans loaded our bags and gear onto the roofs of the vehicles. First stop was at the geysers at an altitude of 5000m and temperatures of -15°.

As the sun rose we approached the hot springs for breakfast. The boys and Alex gamely stripped down to their swimmers to have some hotsprings goodness, but the rest of us chickened out.

The green lake was mildly disappointing because it wasn't green, and from there we made the last stretch to the Chilean border crossing where we bid farewell to our friends returning to Uyuni, checked our luggage to ensure we weren't smuggling coca leaves into Chile, and boarded a bus for the tourist town of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile (the officials somehow overlooked our Australian passports and forgot to charge us a $60 tourist visa, yipeeee!).

We had such an amazing time on our Salt Flats with tour operator Andes Salt Expeditions. In Uyuni we were quite overwhelmed with the choice of operators, and although Andes Salt were a tad more expensive (we are talking $10 more over 3 days, but that is a lot in Bolivia) we really felt that we had exceptional service. Our guides and drivers really took an interest in us, and we had a lot of fun with them. But what really counts, more so than the tour company, is the group. On a 3 day tour in 4wds you don't want to get stuck with someone you can't stand, but we really enjoyed hanging out with our group! The salt flats tour is probably one of the best things you can do in Latin America. So do it :)