After a rather bumpy 10 hour coach journey from La Paz to the south of Bolivia, we arrived in a little town called Uyuni! It was like a town from a wild west film, with really wide sandy streets and with hardly anyone around, it was really early in the morning though so it probably had something to do with it!

We joined our tour of 4 other people and our guide Oscar and driver Raul, in Uyuni. Setting off on our three day adventure was really exciting! Our first stop was a ´train graveyard´where there were loads of abandoned old trains that were just sat rusting in the desert, of course it was a great photo opportunity against the cornflower blue, cloudless sky and the snow peaked mountains in the distance, so we climbed aboard! We then visited a little village called Colchani where they process the salt that they mine on the nearby salt flats. Lunch of local quinoa, llama steaks and a snickers bars (?!?!) was served in an impressive salt hotel that was full of six foot polar bears, snowmen and santas carved from salt! After lunch we climbed to the top of the watch tower, the views were amazing you could see for miles but it was bizarre as from every window was a different landscape- salt flats, desert, mountains! Me and Alice had been planning our salt flat pictures for EVER and had bought loads of props for the ´perspective´ shots, but when we arrived on the famous Salar de Uyuni, the great British weather had followed us :( It was still amazing though! Our accommodation was miles and miles and miles (!) away, the drive through the desert was beautiful. As the sun set, the rocks ans sand around us turned into a amazing reds, yellows, oranges and purples before it turned pitch black and we could see every star in the sky!

On the second day we visited the rock valley which was spectacular, before driving higher and higher up into the mountians! We drove for hours, but it was worth it as arrived at THE most beautiful place ever for lunch! The snow capped mountains in the distance were reflected perfectly in the gorgeous turquoise lake in front of it! That explanation doesn´t go close to doing it justice at all! Typically, the weather once again turned, even though the rainy season finished weeks ago, and we ended up escaping the hail stones to eat our lunch in the jeep! Our next stop was the ´red lagoon´which is red because of the colour of the algae in the lake, because by this time it had been chucking it down for hours, the algae had all been disturbed and so it was more a ´mucky brick red lagoon´! Oh yes, and the famous flamingos were no where to be seen! We had been told that our accommodation on the second evening would be a ´refuge´so we were all expecting the worse, when we arrived at the tiny village at 5000 metres above sea level we were happily suprised! Our tour operator was really good and had got the best out of a bad bunch for us!

It was like Christmas when we woke up on the third day! It had snowed! We actually had an excuse to wear our wooly alpaca things! It was mega early in the morning when we left, after driving for half an hour or so we reached the crater of the volcano we were visiting. As soon as we got out of the jeep we could smell the sulphur. There was no lava unfortunately, just massive pools of boiling mud and steam shooting out of the ground. There was absolutely no health and safety what so ever and so we could go as close as we wanted (sorry mum! hehe) Next we went to some hot springs and stayed in the water for ages, the view was amazing, it was right next to a lake and mountains surrounded us, bearing in mind it was only about 8 o clock in the morning at this point, it was certainly a nice wake up! Because we had travelled so far from Uyuni over the last couple of days, we had a long drive back- it was fine though because by this time we had all gotten to know each other and took it in turn to embarass ourselves with sharing the music off our ipods (fortunately, mine was back in Uyuni)! The highlight of the trip was half way through the journey back. We pulled off the desert road and up to (another!) lake. As we walked along the shore we spotted a huge flock of Flamingos. We watched them for ages, then all of a sudden one started flying, then the whole flock followed, flying in a line, one after another from right to left. It was absolutely magical, they were reflected perfectly in the lake! AMAZING!

Anyway, despite the weather, it was a fantastic trip and I saw so many things I will never forget! :)

Lots of love xxxxx