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Hopping the boarder and arriving in Bolivia, we headed for Copacobana and Lake Titicaca. Along with us, was Hannah, one of the Aussie girls from the Inca Trail and arriving late we checked into a hotel and grabbed some much needed dinner. the next day we set off early to Isla Del Sol, the biggest island on lake Titicaca...and probably the most boring...not that we visited any others, thankfully. A painstakingly slow boat took us the 11km needed in a little over 2 hours to the north of the island where we were left for 3 hours in the rain. Taking shelter in a restaurant we boarded the boat again when it returned to be taken to the south part, where the msot entertaining part of the trip was seeing a 150ft tree be cut down with absolutely no prewarning and to the complete shock of the 200 odd backpackers waiting for their boats. the last leg of the journey were to two floating islands, which were fairly interesting for about 2 minutes but then lost their appeal. Returning back to the mainland, we caught a bus that night to the highest capital city in the World, La Paz...situated inside a bowl of mountains, with slums rising to their peaks its a breathtaking sight, especially when the skies are clear and you can see the huge snow-capped mountains in the distance. With only 2 days in La Paz, we did not have the time to do all the things we wanted to to. That meant not biking down the World´s most dangerous road, but instead, deciding to visit arguably, the more dangerous San Pedro Prison, where we were introduced to murderers, robbers and all sorts as they served their time and bizzarely so did there, wives, children and even pet dogs. It was an absolutely surreal experience, not really knowing where to look and who you might upset. It is the only prison in the World where you literally have to pay to stay there, and the higher your rent, the nicer your room. There are no police or guards inside the prison, it is self-managed and self disciplined, and with an inner cocaine factory producing 400kg of the stuff a week it supplies La Paz, probably the rest of Bolivia and not unlikely some neighbouring countries with their addiction.
Leaving La paz, wanting to stay a little longer, we headed down south to Uyuni, the starting city for the three day Slat Flats tour we booked ourselves onto. a little after 3 hours of arriving we had started our tour. Our jeep took 7 of us and our Spanish speaking Driver/guide, who´s name I could never remember, let alone pronounce firstly to an old railway station where we saw abandoned steam trains and tracks before heading to Cochani to see how the salt from the flats is processed. We then drove through the incredible and surreal Sala de uyuni - the largest salt desert in the World and saw some awe inspiring scenery. Along the way we visited a hotel purely made from salt and then arrived at isla Incahuasi, home to giant cacti. Leaving the island we literally drove through a lightning storm with forks hitting the ground no more than 50m from our jeep. re-assured by the diver that being struck would not matter because of the rubber tyres, he made an earlier than planned stop at the closest hostel when we reminded him tht we had two tanks of petrol n the roof!
On day two the scenery changed to mountains, volcanoes and arid lands. We headed towards ´Pasa de Leon´for fantastic views of Volcano Ollagua and spent the reat of the day visiting lagoons and viewing mountanious landscapes. We witnessed flamingos feeding on the mineral rich waters before arriving in Colorada where we stayed the night. Day 3 was an early start, in the dark to visit the steam shooting geysers and bubbling mud pools at sunrise. Freezing cold it was a welcome sight when we reached the natural hot springs where we took a morning bath and relxed in the piping hot waters. starting our journey back to Uyuni we visited the bright green waters of Laguna Verde, and then with 50km to go our jeep overheated and some running repirs were needed before we could return and get a good nights sleep before leaving a short trip to Bolivia behind to cross over into Argentina, with our next stop being Iguacu Falls.
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