The salt flats in Bolivia were one of the main things I wanted to do in South America and they were AMAZING!!

We took a 10 hour bus from La Paz along with the boys and arrived into Uyuni on Saturday evening. The next day was election day in Bolivia so we couldnt start a tour until the Monday. The whole town was dead on the Sunday, all around was just tourists milling around with nothing to do, it was quite funny to see!

We went to 2 different tour companies and decided to go with one which was more expensive but sounded a lot better. I think we were conned as the guide was a complete idiot and most of the stuff they has told us before we booked was a lie....however, we didnt care too much as the tour itself was incredible...it just would have been better if we`d had a cool guide too!

So the first day we headed out to a train grave which...the president of Bolivia decided to sell off all the railway to Chile to make some money so this is a place where they just abandoned all the trains as they were all out of jobs! After this we went out to visit a salt factory to see the salt being made into the salt we use. There is one small town where the factories are and they supply all of the salt to the whole of Bolivia and all of the houses etc are made of salt! After this we headed out to the Salt lake and to "Fish Island". Before the lake was salt it used to be water so the island is full of coral and cacti. After a walk around the island (again uphill with altitude!) we had lunch and then it was time to get out on to the salt lake and take some cool photos which we were all dying to do! Armed with our props (pringles tube, dinosaurs, toblerone, action figures, spanish phrasebook, hat etc etc) we realised that we didnt have a clue how to take the photos we`d seen that other people had done so it took us a few attempts until we got it right (see photos)! We all had such a laugh doing it, it was sooooo much fun, definitely one of my favourite days ever!!

After the salt lake we went to some caves and saw some graves and then headed to our accomodation for the night. The place we stayed at was a hotel made of salt! It was a pretty nice place but there was only us and one other tour group staying there who were all alot older than us and the electricity went off about 9.30 so we had an early night, ready to be up at 5.30 the next morning!

The second day was spent mainly visiting different lakes in the area and we spent alot of time in the jeep driving around through the desert and mountains. Although not as fun as the first day the secenery was stunning! That night we stayed on a national park and the accommodation was very basic...there was nothing to do and nowhere to go so we went to the shop and bought two bottles of rum and got drunk playing cards until the electricity went off!

The third morning we had to get up at 4am and headed out to see some geysers and watch the sunrise over the desert which was beautiful! We then got to swim in some hot springs before breakfast which was amazing...there were flamingos and mountains and volcanoes in the background, very surreal! The guide then dropped us off at the border with Chile as we were transferring there. He told us a bus would be there in 15 mins to take us accross and left...2 hours later the bus came...we were sat in the middle of the desert without any food or water! Needless to say we didnt tip him!!