Whilst in Bolivia we also went on a 3 day salt flat tour which started in the small but important town of Uyuni.

After the long 12 hour, bumpy, freezing cold bus ride we arrived in Uyuni which is a small town in the middle of beautiful nowhere. the town now is really only for turists undertaking a tour of the salt flast near by but it used to according to our somewhat sketchy english speaking guide, be a huge economic centre when salt was being shipped to la paz by trains. Our tour was done in a land cruiser where 8 of us including the guide and the driver squished into the tiny space for the next three days.

Our tour started with a quick stop at the old train graveyard just outside of town. standing ontop of these rusty old trains and looking at the surrounding area showed kilometres of nothing until you reach mountains in the very far away distance. The trains were covered in grafity from turists with messages of love and hate and for some just their name.

Next we drove about half an hour to the start of the massive salt flats. I keep writting salt flats and i hope you know what they are but just in case, its basically salt 10m deep( according to our guide, if you interested check these facts out online, because i wouldnt necesserily believe what he had to say haha, half the time he kept asking the driver where we were or what soemthing was then translating in english) that covers hundreds of kilometres and is very similar to a desert. At the time of year we went, the dry season, lots of salf was in piles all over ready for collecting and sending back to la paz (it has to go through a process of drying ect before being bagged up and ready for use) however during the wet season, when there has been heaps of rain the salt flats gets this mirror like quality that enables you to see you own reflection in the salt. Anyway we spent a while attempting to take those funny perspective photos and failing happily, it was still fun.

We jumped back in the car and drove what felt like a few hours to what is called "fish island" which is this massive "island" in the middle of the salt plain covered in cactuses. We ate lunch and walked around the island. Climbing to the top we realised just how vast and remote the plain is.

next we drove a few hours in the setting sun to our first night accomodation, which was very basic. the beds were rock hard and three squished in a room, paint peeling off the walls ect. It was located in a tiny Bolivian town in the middle of nowhere. The sunset was reallly pretty though.

The next morning we got up early and jumped back in the car this time heading away from the salt flats and towards many different coloured lagoons which had pink flamingoes in them! the were amazingly beautiful. this day also included driving through deserts to the mountains/ volcanoes that act as a border between Bolivia and Chile. We even saw a smoking volcano! which i though was pretty cool.

The whole time we are sitting in this land cruiser just looking out the window at nothing, but it was a beautiful and unique nothing. If i hadnt lost all my photos id post some more of just how remote we really were. Towards the end of the day we stopped at the famous rock shaped like a tree, it wasnt very impressive though. We did get to climb on some of these massive 10m high rocks which was fun. the last stop of the day was the laguna colorada, the massive purple lake with pink flamingoes. Stunning.

On the last day we got up at 4am "to watch the sunrise" which we thought would be over some beautiful landscape but it was just some mountains. This morning also happened to be the day i got very sick and didnt eat anything all day. I did manage to stagger down to the hot springs and watch the sun come up over the water, which had more pink flamingoes in them. They were loevly and warm, getting out wasnt.... i think it was about 3 or 4 degress outside. Finally we drove to our last stop laguna verde, the gree lagoon. Then we drove allll the way back to Uyuni, speeding past the beautiful sights wed seen over the past couple of days.

We returned to Uyuni where we caught that bumpy cold bus back to la paz. In La paz we hung out for a few ours in this childrens playground/adventure park that had trampolines and massive slides till it was time to catch our bus back to copacabana. We spent the night there relaxing, finally taking a shower and doinga bit more shopping before heading back to cusco, arriving home at 4am in the morning.

Overall, despite being sick Bolivia was an amazing country which i loved. On returing to Cusco the school celbrated its aniversay which i will go into detail next blog. As for now, im heading off to Machu Picchu ( FINALLY). We walking along the Salkantay trek which takes 5 days. Then when i get back there is only about 2 weeks left of my placement in Cusco!