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Hello! It's been a few days because we've been out at the Salt Flats for a three day tour, no signal, no computers...no running water. The place was as basic as basic gets, but we had a really good few days.
We caught a bus from Sucre to Potosi, and the Potosi to Uyuni. They did tell us it was one direct bus from Sucre to Uyuni, but we've learnt to never trust the people here. If they don't know the answer to a question, they don't tell you they don't know, they just make something up! Anyway, the bus from Sucre to Potosi to Uyuni was very local, lots of Bolivians on it who found us VERY interesting, but the one from Potosi was more touristy. We met three English girls (Octavia, Henni and Lindsey) on the bus who were touring the flats the same day we were and they said we could join them as there were spaces, so that's what we decided we'd do. The bus got in about 3 hours late though and dropped us in a bit of a ghost town. The other girls were being picked up and taken to a hostel as part of the tour, but we already had accomodation booked, however the lady who met them, Maria, also walked us to our hotel, where we got a whole two hours sleep before having to be up for the tour.
Day 1
We had to meet Maria at the office at 10 to start the tour, and we picked up Tavia, Henni and Lindsey and another guy called Ohat, who also joined us in our 4x4. He seemed a bit scared at the idea of 5 English chicas and himself! But he was fine. We started off driving along the slat flats, just white ground and blue skies for as far as you can see! It's amazing. We also stopped at the train cemetry, which was strange, it literally is just a load of dead trains. Next we went for a walk on an Island of Cactus! We saw a one thousand year old Cactus. Jealous? It was quite a hilly walk and Gem and I struggled a bit, it was the first time we'd been at altitude and we could really feel it, so we were quite relieved to stop for lunch. We had beef, avocado and Quinoa, which is like a cross between rice and cous-cous which is eaten alot here as it's so substantial and has alot of protein in it. We spent the rest of the afternoon taking very entertaining perspecitive pictures which we'll hopefully post soon, before being taken to our accomodation for the night. It was very basic, no hot water, and minimum electricity. Lights cam on at 7.30 and went out again at 9.30. We ate dinner of Salchi Papa and then entertained ourselves playing cards. We also adopted a local child for the night, Henni had brought balloons and bubbles and he obviously hadn't seen anything like it before, he was amazed, and got very attached to us, before I put him down and made him cry. For ages!! I felt awful. Seeing as lights went out quite early we got an early night, tooked up in every item of clothing we own, sleeping bags and four blankets each because it was so cold. The prospect of a cold shower in the morning was scary, but we decided we'd give it a go...
Day 2
Yeah the cold shower was too awful a prospect. Gemma braved it, but I couldn't face taking all my layers off so early in the morning. Nobody else was bothering, so I didn't feel soooo bad. It was insane though because as soon as the sun was up properly, it was intense and we were in t-shirts being very wary of burning! Today we moved away from the salt flats and went to visit the rock tree and other rocky looking things. It was ike driving in the desert and was definately anything but flat! We banged our heads on the roof of the 4x4 on many an occasion. We ate lunch at a lagoon full of flamingos and then made our way to our second nights accomodation which was MORE basic if anything, no water at all, and less electricity time. We had to be up at four though the next morning to see the geysers at sunrise, so everybody wrapped up again and got in bed. Seriously, getting ready for bed at the flats was a chore! And the blankets were so heavy we felt like we were being crushed, I think Lyndsey compared herself to feeling like a cheese toasty...but they were so neccessary. Gem thought if we didn't wear the blankets we might wake up dead...until everybody pointed out that if we were dead, we wouldn't be waking up.
Day 3
We went to see the Geysers this morning. All of us jumped into the car in what we wore to bed as it was still freezing. The geysers were impressive, but hard to take in when you feel like your fingers are going to drop off, however the next thing on the list was the hot spring. We had to get changed into our bikinis in the open air, taking off our million layers to put on a bikini...we felt insane! But it was soooo worth it once you were in the spring. It felt painful at first because we were so cold and the water was so hot, but onc you were used to it, it was the most heavenly thing! We ate breakfast by the spring and then dropped the other four off at the chilean border as they were moving on to San Pedro. So the drive back to Uyuni was just the two of us and our driver Donato. It was quite a long drive back, but we both relaxed most of the way after an exhausting couple of days, plus we both knew we had another night bus to catch at 8 o clock to La Paz for the start of our main tour! Can't wait.
Keep reading and leaving us messages! Miss you all! xxx
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