Day 28: 28/7/12
We didn't have to get up too early this morning. Had breakfast, went into uyuni to get water and postcards! Then came back to the hotel and watched some Olympics. I shared the room with Anna and Hannah from New Zealand so we watched the cycling and gymnastics together- didn't understand a word of it! Raging I'm missing the games!
At 11:30 we left for Uyuni. We stopped at the train cemetery first. That was weird. All the trains that they didn't need when they closed the main lines ard just abandoned in the sand. We got cool group photos of everyone on a see-saw.
Then we stopped in Colchani which was a little village at the edge of the salt flats. Here they had salt in piles that they had gotten from the salt flats and they were heating the rooms to dry out the salt. Then there was a man bagging it, ready to be sold- no hygiene regulations!
Next stop we were on the salt flats. They are huge, just crisp white everywhere you look! It looks like snow but we can drive on it! Thousands of years ago it was an ocean, then it became a lake which still had salt and then it dried up and left the salt. It was joined to lake titicaca at one stage! First we saw the little piles of salt that they make before they bring them to the village.
We drove for another half hour then until we were right in the middle of the salt flats. There was just white everywhere! We spent ages taking photos because you take cool photos playing with perspective. We took photos with people standing on each other, coming out of a coke bottle, on some playing cards, in a cooking pot, etc! It was good fun! While we were doing that the drivers of the jeeps and the cooks were preparing lunch and we got lama steak with roast potatoes and veg that we ate on the ground in the middle of the salt flats- madness!
There were no roads or anything, just jeeps driving over the white ground. There were at least twenty jeeps full of tourists doing the same route, but we just had 3 jeeps.
The next stop was on fish island (incahuasi). It was an island in the middle of the white salt, covered in rocks and cactii! We climbed up to the top of the island so we got a cool view of the salt flats- lots of camera use today!!
Then we drove off again. After about a half an hour we came to a stone road. We think the salt might have been too light either side- there's water underneath it. The road brought us to land- don't know if it was an island or mainland, but after a few minutes we came to a little old abandoned looking stone village which was like something from the famine. Round the corner from that was our salt hotel. The whole hotel is made from salt. They use bricks of salt that they cut up from the edge of the salt flats. The walls, tables, seats.... Everything made from salt!
There was a dining area and we were brought there and given hot tea/chocolate/coffee! Then we hung around chatting and we got a 3-course dinner bout an hour later. It was nice for everyone to sit around the table chatting for ages!
Then we spent about a half hour getting ready for bed because we had to put on so many layers! It's pretty cold!