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Neil's Round the World Trip!
We woke up around 5am and groggily got our stuff together. We drove along barren roads in the desert, our cooker fell of the roof at one point which caused a panic. However after an hour we reached geothermal vents and a man-made geyser that spews hot vapour into the air at high pressure. Our guide told us after we'd walked around that a man had fallen into the huge volcanic crater and been vapourised.
The girls pretended to be zombies and I filmed them staggering through the volcanic vapour. We then drove to the hot springs which was necessary after freezing our asses off for 3 hours. We jumped in the springs and it was so...good! Going from -10 to 38c in a few seconds is exhilirating!
We had 15 minutes in the springs and then had breakfast. Our hair had frozen and so my hair was spiked but held together by ice-incredible! Getting changed back into our clothes was difficult as we couldn't stop shivering! Delia made us some scrambled eggs on toast and coffee. We ledt her at the hot springs preparing our lunch. We drove to the green lagoon. Apparently it's normally green but when we saw it; just murky brown. Our guide and driver Brasil said it's because the copper hasn't been oxidised for some reason. It was beautiful though. We could see two mountains beside the lake, behind each one was another country; Argentina and Chile.
We drove back to the springs and picked up Delia then it was off to a pink lake with pink flamingoes. Our French friends couldn't contain their excitement and rushed down to the lakeshore ignoring our guide's shouts not to go too close to the edge.
We drove to a rocky area, at the summit of the rocky hill there were terrific views of a white salt flat. I accidently stumbled upon a Japanese woman squatting....I really didn't expect it and so stood for a second in shock. She looked up and then started mumbling "Shawry, vewy shawry". She picked up her loo roll and scarpered off into the rocks probably hoping to find a more isolated rock to do the toilet behind.
We sat on the rocks and had our lunch. Delia had obviously been taking a sneaky dip in the springs and forgotten about the food as our pasta was burnt. We were also given stale bread which after 3 days in a jeep was going a bit mouldy.
We drove to a small village and continued on through a valley where Dali painted some of his best landscape paintings. We drove on through the dusty, arid shrubland and reached an area of land with lots of rocks that seem to resemble humans and animals.
It was quite late in the afternoon and we'd heard there was a blockade on the road to Uyuni so we drove to a village where that information was confirmed. We then joined other jeeps and formed a convoy. We drove across the desert and were looking good to avoid the blockade and make Uyuni before 9. However we suddenly came across a river...hmm could the jeeps cross? Only one way to find out. Me and Gabe (or Plan B as her mates called her "Madagascar film") got our jeans off and walked across the muddy river. The water was up to our knees so the jeeps decided to cross. We stood shivering on the other side waiting with thorns in our soles (bloody little thorn bushes everywhere!) as the sun began to set. Every jeep crossed apart from a red jeep which got stuck. We had to wait a good half hour before it was pulled out.
We drove along the bumpy desert, I was sitting the opposite way in my seat with my legs in the air. Gabe managed to pull all the thorns out of the soles of my feet with tweezers (cheers!). We passed the time asking each other trivia questions. After 4 hours of driving in the dark desert Brasil suddenly shouted "Uyuni". We arrived around 11ish and checked into the luxurious Toñito Hotel. It was freezing but not quite as bad as the HI hostel or outside. Plus there was 4 of us sleeping in the same room so bound to be warmer (we hoped).
We had dinner in Arco Iris on the main strip. We ordered some well-earned pizza and hot wine. We watched an Israeli guy dance salsa with an Israeli girl and then a Bolivian local. He was really good actually made me wish I'd done a few more salsa lessons...get those hips moving and moving the girl around vigorously.
We headed back to the hotel around 12, we spoke to some baby-faced GAP year kids who told us the World Cup scores. England beat T&T with an insipid performance and two jammy goals. However Sweden scored in the dying minutes to beat Paraguay..woohoo!
We went to sleep in our luxury room..well better than a cold mud shack in the mountains.
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