We arrived in Uyuni on Saturday, with full intentions of begining our tour on Sunday, and booked it all up that night with a lovely lady called Fatima! Next morn, all pretty much ready to go, and good old Thomas decides to have lost his passport, the fool! Genuinely bad times, and after turning his bag and the room inside-out, we decidede it was a lost cause, and much time ws spent in tinterweb cafe sorting things out. So later that night, Tom was on the bus back to La Paz, and we were packing up once again, ready for the off the next morn.
We rose early-ish, and had one of the best brekkies I have ever had, amazing banana pancakes! and headed off to Fatima’s office. We sat outside for a goodly time before our 4×4 turned up, a rather vintage looking Toyota land cruiser, but pretty standard kit by the looks of all the other companies. We loaded up mochillas on t’roof, met our travelling buddies; happy poncho man, a nice lady from Ecuador and a couple (although we weren’t quite sure what the relationship was) from the Czeck Republic, genuine happy campers!
So we were off! First stop was a rather spooky train graveyard, and then it wasn’t long until we were on the Salt! Quite a strange experiance, as it looked exactly like snow, but when we got out, it was completely solid. We had a few more stops at the ’Salt mountains’ and the illegal salt hotel, naughty naughty, then on to La Isla de Pescada, where we had lunch, and had plenty of opportunity for all the standard picture taking, abusing the medium of perspective! After lunch, we left the salt, and had a long-ish drive to our hotel for the night, another salt hotel, but we were assured this one was legal, and after a belated, but very warming dinner, accompanied by a rather interesting musical delight from the local children, we donned as much clothing as we could, and went to bed.
Second day, we rose at a reasionable hour to be greeted by a standard continental breakfast, lots of hot drinks (wonderful!), then packed up the truck again ready for our longest day of driving. Our first stop was at an active volcano, a good chance for some rock climing, then back in the van. Not for long, as it turned out, as our driver decided to add a bit of excitement to the journey, and burst a tyre. Thankfully we had a spare; always prepared, these Bolivians! So as the men were left to deal with such matters, we went in search of a suitable little girls room. Unfortunately, the thing about the Salt Flats, is they are terribly, well, flat, so some amazing teamwork and extemperisation came into play; two as a barrier from the rest of the group, as the other did whatever was required. By the time we were done, the new tyre was in place, and we were on the road again, headed towards El Arbol de Piedra, a collection or rather intriguing rock formations formed by the sands of time. We then headed to our last stop of the day, a salt lagoon full of flamingoes! Who knows why, the biology boggles, but another excellent luncheon later, and we were off to our second hostal, within the Beautiful natural park, right next to Laguna Rojo, literally a red lake, caused by minerals in the water. A freezing night was remedied by some good round the fire singing, and a bottle of rum or two, before we settled into our coldest night by far.
Day three we rose at a ridiculous hour, so we could catch the sunrise at the hot geysers, which were terribly impressive at that hour, I must say, and then we were off for brekkie at some hot springs. Being absolutely freezing, stripping down to a bikini was really the last thing we wanted to do, but we braved the chillsome weather, and after an epic dash down to the pool (surrounded by ice!), we hopped in, and thawed out instantly in the relatively boiling pool! Feeling much better, and with a warm tingly feeling inside, we headed off on our last drive to the Chilean boarder, where our bus was waiting to bring us to San Pedro, and after some of the most intense boarder conterol any of us have encountered thus far, we arrived home and dry(and not so chilly) in Chile!