We´re sitting in La Paz bus station having been here since 6am. It´s now 7.30 and we still have an hour and a half to go until we can collect our backpacks from the travel agency where we left them as there was no point in taking them on the longest day trip of our lives!

So on Saturday night we boarded a `tourist´ bus to Uyuni..This meant that it was double the price of local bus and full of Gringos like the four arrogant loud annoying public schoolgirls on their gap year. They got their comeuppance though which was quite brilliant....A meal was served on board and one of them futher down complained to the whole bus about them not having enough vegetarian ones. Her friend behind us was given the only vegetarian meal and promptly dropped it all over her lap onto our provided blanket and the floor. She put it all back into the container and gave it back to the steward. He, oblivious to what had happened, then took it down the bus to the very rude complainer and said "here your friend doesn´t want hers so you can have it." She tucked in and only noticed the hairy bits at the end when she went ballistic..on marching back to her companions to mouth off about "the disgusting company" they worked out what had happened and provided amusement to all of us they´d been annoying.

Anyway that entertainment aside the bus journey was long, uncomfortable and worst of all 4 of the 11 hours were on unpaved roads which were incredibly bumpy with stuff flying everywhere and being thrown upwards in your seat just as you had dozed off. We got to Uyuni at 7.30am and staggered off the bus in search of breakfast. At 10.30am we climbed into a jeep for a day trip to the salt flats.

Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat at 10,582 km⊃2; (4,085 square miles).It is located in the Potosíi and Oruro areas in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes, 3,650 meters high. Some 40,000 years ago, the area was part of Lake Minchin, a giant prehistoric lake. Salar de Uyuni is estimated to contain 10 billion tons of salt, of which less than 25,000 tons is extracted annually. The people who do the backbreaking work of extracting it are paid very poorly and only live until 50 maximum because of the health problems. There´s no plant or anything just people using shovels to put it into trucks. It also contains 50% ofthe world´s Lithium which is not yet being harvested. Sadly with the developmet of things like electric cars this is not going to last long and soon the beautiful plain is likely to have mining platforms all over it- I only hope it is a Bolivan company and not the Americans or Japanese exploiting them which is more likely.

The flat itself is just amazing and difficult to comprehend- as far as the eye can see it´s just salt that look like snow! We drove through it just taking in the beauty and then stopped at a hotel that had been built of salt. In fact all the buidings around the flat are all made of salt but this was exactly like the ice hotel we had been to in Lapland...salt beds, tables, chairs, sculptures etc. After stopping there we carried on driving and could see a smoking volcano in the distance amongst the mountains that all looked as if they were floating because of the mirage of the white. We were driving towards an island called Isla de Pescado (fish island) which is the only island in the world surrounded by salt. It was amazing- covered in huge cacti some of which were over 1000 years old. After clambouring up to the top we came back down to the salt to have a Llama and Quinoa lunch prepared by our driver (llama is eaten everywhere here and tastes like pork.) Then it was the oppurtunity to take cool pictures usng the salt to trick the eye and perspective...take a look they´re all genuine!

After spending 3 hours there just taking in the beauty we got back in the jeep for the 3 hour journey across the plain back to Uyuni, stopping on the way to sit and watch the spectacular sunset over the salt. We arrived back in town at 7pm with just enough time to grab a toasted sandwich befoe getting on the `local´ bus at 8pm for our 10 hour journey back..as I said before we had been warned about this bus and sure enough within 2 minutes amongst the chaos of everyone getting on the people in front of us shouted "my bag" and it turned out whilst they were organising themselves someone had just walked on and snatched it. They were devastated as it had everything in it and we were sure to attach our bags by our feet with Carabinas. Needless to say the local bus was an even less comfortable one then the way down however fate was on my side. At 1am when I started to feel sick (despite dosing myself up) the bus luckily stopped a rest point and I ran out into the freezing cold air and sat there in just my vest top- of course all the locals wrapped up to the nines in 3 blankets were staring at me like I was certifiable. After 15 mins I fet brave enough to face the horrendous toilets and get back on the bus and we arrived back in La Paz at 6am. We both feel shattered after 20 hours of bus journey in 36 hours and 2 very poor nights sleep but agree that the beauty of the salt flats was worth it. Now we will collect our bags and get on another bus to Lake Titicaca- How hardcore are we?!