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Ok...where to start??
Leaving Salta as 8...turned into 12. We crossed the Argentinain/Bolivian border together, stayed in a place called Tupiza for a night where we booked our tour for the Salt Flats. Bolivian buses are interesting...ive heard they are awful but our bus was over booked by 6 and 2 of our group were made to stand for the 4 hour journey. They dont have roads here...more gravel openings??? Very bumpy. Tupiza is at an altitude of about 8000 feet. I was veryyyyyy poorly that night. My body ached, i had a banging head ache, glands the size of golf balls bla bla bla. This was prob not only altitude sickness but my bodies way of punishing me. Needless to say i was in bed by 9 o clock.
Day.1
The jeeps can take 4 people in each, to spice things up abit Leanne and I split. I was in a jeep with Nate,Ben and Steven. Out of everyone in the group these guys are the crasiest!! We drove for 7 hours to our first nights accom. The scenery changed drastically from looking like the Grand Canyon...to momument Valley.....to what i assume the moon looks like. We stopped in acouple of villages on the way through. Im fairly used to villages that rely on horse and cart, have no electricity etc but this was worse. They make houses literally out of the stones in the mountains.
At one village inparticular we were playing with the children and exploring etc when a sand tornado (it was bigger then hurricanes in movies!!!) started heading towards us. We all shot looks at eachother...wondering if it would disperse or.....detour??? No...it headed straight for us and about 10 secs to late we all decide to race for cover. All the local children were playing dizzy dragons in it and we all RAN!! I made it into the jeep however some of the lads hid behind a wall. LOL....for days they were finding sand. They looked a picture. 2 Jeeps broke down acouple of times but the tour guides are legends and had us up and running in acouple of hours. Our first nights accom was in a large looking house???.....we were at 15,000 feet...it was sooooooooooooooo cold. I forgot how incredible the stars look from the mountains, im sure you can 100´s more in the southern hemisphere. Nobody slept the first night...funny coz we all led in the beds not moving thinking everyone else was asleep. Felt like utter s*it in the am, as did everyone else.
Day.2
We set off at 5am. The boys are I took it in turns to rotate seats within the jeep, whoever got front seat had control over the Ipod. I was worried about this...being a girl and having some crazy girly music on my ipod/choices using other peoples Ipods. No need...their choices consisted of Boyz2men, Leona Lewis...Lion King sound track??? We sang our hearts out to EVERY ballard ever wrote within the 4 day tour. Amazing, although a strange feeling being the shy quiet one within the group (that gives you an idea of how crazy the boys are). Within the day we visited 3 lakes. The lakes are really bright colours due to the minerals. One was green (obviously my fav it was stunning), one was red and one was brown. All have millions and trillions of flamingos...was cool. We went to natural hot springs (was nice after being unable to shower during the tour)...the scenery was...unbelievable.
Day.3
Due to not sleeping the first night we decided to drink... alot while playing cards on the 2nd night. If we cant sleep and are gona feel like s*** the next day when sober....what harm is drinking going to do?? We all slept alot better and didnt feel to bad for it in the morning.
We left at 8ish and visited many salt flats, an active volcano (was cool because you could see smoke coming from diff places at the top) and a place where steam shoots from the ground and the water we could see was 70-90 degress......stank of sulphur. Foul. We were back fairly early, the boys had a kick about and played basketball in front of all the giggling sch children in the village. After dinner we played cards and polished off the rest of the alc. I was teased in the AM as i was drunk and they havnt seen me prop drunk yet (dont be so suprised ppl). The hostal/hotel we stayed in was made of salt, was super cool. Good insulation as i wasnt cold at all. No hot water tho....nothing worse the a cold shower!!! I acutally wanted to cry but need to get used to it coz Bolivia doesnt understand the concept of hot Aqua
Day.4
We were up again at 5 to go to the Salar d Uyuni (biggest salt flat in the World) for sunrise. We drove about 25 mins into the middle of nowhere, you couldnt see anything other the flat salt. The sunrise with my crew was needless to say amazing. It was beautiful and we got some awesome pictures. Was romantic so Le and I got some cosy shots!! We had brekki at "fish island"......why?!?!?!? its a land island in the middle of the salt flats with lots of Cactus??!!! We made friends with a baby Osterich (dad you would have ran 300 miles at 100 miles an hour... it was UGLY). Then we went out into the Salar and took random pictures. The "thing" to do in the Salt Flats is tke deiving pics....like leaning on bottles and stepping on cars etc. We were amused for hours and got some cooooooool shots. You´l understand when you see the pics.
On the way to Uyuni (our drop off point) we stopped in a village. The boys were all walking around topless (as you do in the dessert)...a coach load of girls (im guessing from somewhere in s.a) arrived and one asked to take a group picture of the boys. This followed by one more etc....suddenly there were 100´s of girls wanting pics with the boys. Ok...granted most of them look goooooooood with no top on but....really???? The boys egos inflated 10fold and they spent all afternoon grinning like silly fools. Was funny.
We are now im Potosi, the highest city in the world. Staying one night, doing the mines tomoro and leving for Secre tomoro afternoon, we´l spend one night there then get an overnight bus (im dreading it!!!) to La Paz
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