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Day One
We woke early and quickly got showered and changed. The tour company came to pick us up at 7.30am that morning, we were first on the bus. Later after we had picked everyone else up we headed to the border. We stood in the queue awaiting our exit stamp from Chile, we then boarded the bus again and we were on our way into Bolivia. There was snow on the mountains and the volcano but San Pedro De Atacama was cold that morning, but dry. The closer we got to the Volcano the more snow started to appear, by the time we got to the Bolivian border and to meet with our 4x4's we were in thick snow. Trying to eat your breakfast outside when its snowing is an experience. We queued for our entrance stamp into Bolivia, and found out which jeep we would be in, who we would be teamed up with and to meet our driver. We were grouped with 2 Swiss girls, Alessandra and Vivian. They spoke English which was great and they could speak Spanish which was even more of an advantage considering our driver only spoke Spanish. With only 4 in the jeep, it was spacious and our bags could be bundled into the back rather than on the roof. A sigh of relief considering it was snowing heavily. Once we were done with the formalities, we were off into the snow covered Andes. We visited various lagoons, Laguna Blanca and Laguna Verde (4400m above sea level) , although the first two seemed white to me because of all the snow. We visited Desierto De Dali, again not possible to see or imagine because of all the snow, everything was white and you couldn't see the landscape around you because of the clouds and snowfall, but it was still spectacular and different ( not everyone can experience it with snowfall, so it was special to us). We stopped at Geisers Sol de Manana (5000m) for a dip in the hot pools. Sadly I forgot about this and thought we visited the hot springs the day after, hence my bikini being at the bottom of the backpack under everybody else's bag. It was too bloody cold although the hot pools looked very inviting. And visited geisers and mud pools that bubbled away, you could walk right up to them too, not like in New Zealand. We had lunch in a building in the middle of no where, it was great food too. After lunch we headed to Laguna Colorada (4278m above sea level), the lagoon is red with hundereds of pink flamingos. The lake is red due to an algae and the more sunlight it gets, the redder it becomes. We then made our way to our accommodation for the night. We couldnt stay at the planned hostel as our guides were worried due to it being at a high altitude and the amount of snow we were getting, we didnt want to be snowed in. So we stayed at an alternative accommodation and a little lower. Sadly this meant we couldnt visit some sites on day 2, but you cant predict the weather, so our route was slightly different from the norm. That night after dinner, which again was great and 3 courses, the groups got together to do some cool photos with our phones in the dark. Hopefully I will receive them, as Felix, from the other group took them on his camera. It was around 9pm when we decided to head to bed, it was cold and dark, and it was an early start in the morning.
Day 2
We headed for breakfast at 7am and were on the road again for 8.30am. Our first stop was Valle De Rocas, huge rocky landscape. We then drove through various landscapes, lakes with flamingos, lots of llamas grazing before stopping at a hidden lake with ducks, and donkeys grazing. We stopped for lunch at a little dust town, and had lunch in a shop around a table, once again the food was great. We headed towards our accommodation for the night, a salt hotel, everything was made from salt, the tables, chairs, floor, beds everything. The surrounding area was hilly with hundreds of huge giant cactus'. The dinner that night was great and after talking amongst ourselves it was off to bed, we was not looking forward to the 6am start.
Day 3
We woke at 5.30am and rushed around packing our bags, we were ready and on the road for just after 6am. We headed straight for Salar de Uyuni for sunrise. What an amazing place. After sunrise we headed for Isla del Pescado for breakfast. A rocky island covered in giant cactus in the middle of the salt flat. The morning was spent on the salt flat, taking funny pictures with the rest of the group before heading towards Uyuni for lunch and then to the cementerio de trenes. After we were dropped in Uyuni at the office. We said our goodbyes to the driver and the rest of the group and we were once again on our own. We found our hostel and was pleasantly surprised at the huge room we got, with a 3 piece suite and huge tv. We chilled that night and headed out for a pizza. We crashed early that night due to the early start. Tomorrow we would hopefully be able to track down a 4x4 from Tupiza and ask for a lift back.
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