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Neil's Round the World Trip!
I got up at 9ish and felt like sh%t! I was so cold I couldn't even face the thought of a shower. I packed all my stuff up and asked the receptionist where the nearest ATM was. During the conversation she asked me if I was going to Salar de Uyuni. Of course I said yes and she then told me she could arrange a trip for me today leaving at 11.30am. I was happy to do it as it meant spending less time in the god forsaken hell hole that is Uyuni.
She showed me the Prodem bank and I got a cash advance on my visa as there are no ATMs that accept foreign cards. However they take 5% commission..ah well no choice. I paid $65 for my 3 day tour and then waited on my bus. I spoke to a detestable Australian girl who was thankfully ill with dysentary and wasn't going to be on my tour.
I met a 24 yr old French girl called Florence from Paris and her father Edgar from Normandy. I chatted to them until the bus arrived. I was so exhausted and tired that I slumped into my bus seat and stared aimlessly out the window after greeting the 3 English girls already seated in the back. The girls have come from Argentina and before that Brazil. The leader is "the King" called Sophie, Gabe and Sally.
We met our driver Brasil and is wife Delia who will be cooking our food. We set off for the Salar de Uyuni and within 30 minutes we were in the middle of the surreal white salt flats that go on for miles. We messed around on heaps of salt and then drove to one of the salt hotels. The hotel is made out of blocks of salt, even the tables, chairs and beds are made of salt. We stopped at a village near the edge of the Salar where they process the salt into fine salt to be used on food etc.
Later we drove to the "Ojos de Uyuni" which was small, bubbling pools of cold water that come from the huge volcano in the distance. We walked around the nearby salt crystal famous diamond shapes. The girls did a few perspective photos using tins of Pringles. Then out of the blue they stripped off revealing their thermal tights! Florence joined them in running around on the blindingly white salt plains while me and her "papa" stood bemused.
We drove to the "Isla Pescadores" which is a marooned island full of phallic shaped cactuses. We walked to the summit and took funny photos. We then had llama and quinoa for lunch. It was really good and gave us the energy we needed to continue sitting in a jeep for another 2 hours.
We reached a huge rocky outcrop off the Salar and were taken inside. The caves are called "The Devil's Caves". We spoke to the cave owner who found it nearly 4 years ago with his friends. He named it 2 star galaxy; the stars are him and his friend, the galaxy is the crazy shaped caves. The caves were impressive with egg shell thin rocky formations.
We then walked inside the cave of the devil. The story goes that a woman was taken up here to be raped by local men due to it's shelter and isolation. However everyone died a few days later of various illnesses. The most recent death was a couple who came here to have their marriage blessed. The man died mysteriously and so now there is a huge cross inside the caves. There are lots of strange pre-Incan tombs and skulls. It's so dusty and dark it really is spooky and we were all glad to leave. We joked about the curse of the "Pre-Inca tiny heads" as our jeep drove across the dusty desert towards our small hostel for the night.
We had coffee in our hostel, dinner was a hearty soup followed by spaghetti. Gabe speaks fluent French and so our conversation was stilted and sometimes when papa ran out of English words Gabe would translate. My standard grade French was useless and so I just resorted to speaking to Florence in Spanish.
We sat and played cards until the wee hours drinking Chilean red wine. We then brushed our teeth in the dim candlelight because the electricity had been turned off!
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