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We arrived in the town of Uyuni at about one am, and went straight to find a hostel (which was freexing, despite there being about thirty blankets on each bed, and had no running water) The next morning, after spending about ten seconds in the town we realised that there was nothing to do in Uyuni and immediately set about trying to organise a tour that would leave this morning. We managed to book a tour that left at ten, so headed back to the hostel to pack. The landlady, disgruntled that we weren't using her tour company spent half an hour telling us about how all the drivers apart from theirs were alcoholics, and how we were probably going to die on the salt flats (this would have been funnier if 12 people hadn't died in a jeep crash about two days before, because their drivers were drunk). We set off at ten, and after a couple of hours' drive (stopping briefly at a 'locomotive graveyard') arrived on the salt flats. It's difficult to describe exactly what the Salar is like- basically a huge white desert. You keep thinking that it's just snow and suddenly you remember that it's salt. After spending a little time taking weird, perspective-changing photos (like having someone standing really far away, so it looks like the person near the camera is picking them up) we drove on to the salt hotel. The building, tables, chairs, beds etc are made entirely out of salt, as well as various life size statues of llamas. After a llama steak lunch, we drove further on into the salt flats (passing the remains of the two eeps that had crashed the previous day). We spent the night in tiny little 'town' in the middle of absolutely nowhere, which was also freezing (it gets down to about minues 15 at night) but had a hot shower-one of the most welcome I've ever had! The next day's terrain was completely different to the first. We were driving mainly through desert, broken up by various coloured lagoons which were amazing- one was almost purple, another completely blue. The following morning we were up at 4.30 am. Getting out of my sleeping bag, in the dark, in sub zero temperatures that morning was definately one of those moments on this trip when I wondered what on earth I was doing- getting into the jeep and finding solid ice on the inside of the windows didn't improve matters) But it was worth the early start to arrive at our breakfast spot, the hot springs in the middle of the desert, at sunrise. The pools were absolutely steaming, and although getting changed to swim was basically torture, it was like getting into a bath (very welcome seing as I've not had a bath since January!). How ever hard getting in was, getting out was ten times harder (luckily I'd kept my head dry, the girls who hadn't soon had ice in their hair) After breakfast we returned to the jeep, and set off. Today was mainly desert again, stopping off to see geisers and a few (inactive) volcanoes. The trip was almost over when, about thirty miles from Uyuni, we ran out of petrol. We tried, unsuccessfully to flag down a couple of passing cars. It was just getting dark, and cold, and past the point where anyone found it funny, when someone stopped for us. Our guide had to stick a plastic tube in their petrol tank, and suck on it to draw the petrol out, and managed to get enough to get us back to the office. After a simply incredible trip, I had fifteen minutes to run to the bus station (after finding out where the bus station was) to catch my bus to Sucre.
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