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We were lucky and managed to get our own private 4X4 for just Sharon, Steve, our new found friend Tim and of course me. Our driver was called Hernando and you'll here more about him as the days go by. So off we head into the wilderness, for 3 days of bumping around in the car, being blown about by the wind, being freezing cold constantly for 3 days long and sightseeing in Bolivia.
The first day was mainly filled with water, lagoons to be more precise, in every colour of the rainbow, well not quite. White Lagoon, Green Lagoon and Red Lagoon, the most impressive by far the green one. The contrast of colours between the water, mountains and sky made for some great photo's. Now here's for the science bit, what makes these lagoons different colours??? Well...It's all to do with the sun reflecting on the water and the elements that the water contains.
We did make a lunch stop at thermal pool (which was more luke warm in my book) but I left the stripping off and bathing to the truly mad people who clearly hadn't thought through the fact that it was about 5 degrees with a strong wind making it feel even colder outside and they had to try and dry and redress themselves in this!! We stopped at some geysers too, but after NZ these were less than impressive. That night our home was in the middle of nowhere and a room with no heating, cold was not the word, none the less it was an experience.
The next day was mainly filled with driving, so it's fitting that I should now take a minute to introduce you properly to Hernando. A very nice man, probably in his 60's, he doesn't stop working, we decided this was probably due to the fact that he has 4 wives to look after. If he isn't driving, he is performing roadside maintenance on his vehicle (this was literally everytime we stopped), or cleaning out the inside, or preparing or serving our food. He didn't talk much and on day 2 we found out he couldn't really see much either. I'm in the back of the car shouting Pare, Pare (Stop, Stop) as we are heading straight for a fallen electricity cable. Sadly his reactions weren't quick enough and we drove right at it and it got stuck on our roof, so he starts reversing and driving forward to try and dislodge it, whilst we are all trying to earth ourselves and hold onto something rubber. To no avail he just gets us more stuck, so next he gets out and removes the wire with his bare hands, he is crazy! Then we spend the next hour or so, emergency stopping when he thinks he has seen another one, but in fact it's just the sun relecting on the 3 giant cracks on his windscreen that have been stuck back together with a coin in the middle, bless him.
Other than driving, we did stop in the Luna Valley for some photo's - one of which is apparently a LLama's private part shaped rock, there's a photo of me sat on it, see what you think, I didn't get it?? On the subjects of Llama's it was today that we actually ate llama for lunch, it was quite nice a bit of a cross between beef and liver, quite a stong taste and not as chewy as I had imagined...poor little Llama.
That night we arrived on the edge of the salt flats, which for me was what this tour was all about. The town we stayed in again was tiny with only a few buildings, other than our giant and out of place looking hostel. We overlooked the salt flats and the mountains with our floor to ceiling glass windows and both sunset and sunrise were spectacular, I managed to enjoy sunrise from bed, as it was freezing outside!!
Our day on the salt flats was much fun, we had learnt that the large expanse of white was great for photo taking and with strategically placed people and photographer you could come up with some great out of perspective shots. So we spent hours thinking of different poses of mini versions of us, i think the best one by far is me and Shazza balancing on a bottle. The one of me poking out of a toilet roll will definately be on show in my bathroom when I get back home..
The majority of the salt from here is sold in Brazil, I watched them collecting it up in the trucks to take away, all done by hand with a shovel, must be grueling work, I wouldn't fancy it much and the sun is so harsh as it reflects off of the surrouding whiteness, I got a bit of a tan for the first time in months. The salt hotel was a little disappointing although was made entirely of salt. Cactus island, placed right in the middle of the salt flats was said to have been made fertile by the inca's many years ago and still looked very random today. We went through a few deserted towns (if you could call them that) on the way through, and you really are left wondering how they can survive out here in these bleak conditions.
Uyuni was the end point of our tour and the only tourist attractions were a very strange train graveyard in a rubbish strewn landscape, it all gets stuck to the shrubs on the ground I guess as it's blown about by the wind and a museum that was shut. So we entertained ourselves with the rest of our tour group 2 more 4x4 full, whom I haven't mentioned until now, but were a great bunch. In fact we are meeting up with a few of them when we get to La Paz for Sunday lunch, how very civilised!!!
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