We arrived at Villazon, Bolivia. I knew Bolivia was at altitudes 3500-6000m (by comparison the Drakensburg is only 3200m or so high,) so I went prepared! I had been taking my altitude tabs since the day before, but after the sun rose and we were through the Argentinean border the wheels on Luci's bus started to fall off! - nausea, headaches, pins and needles, feverish.... The rest of the trip from Villazon to uyuni and then around uyuni is a blur. I spent the majority of my time with my head in a packet at the back of a bus or down a long drop (flushing toilets were non existent). The places was also freezing! I was freezing! I couldn't feel my toes-And I have toes!! I wished I could climb down the mt back to normal altitude but the whole fricken country is at the high altitude. The tour operator kept handing me tea from coca leaves...it tasted like any other herbal tea. It never gave me a 'kick' (which I could have done with at that point) - it was hot if nothing else.

Tim's blog:
The Villazon border post was a small building which they must have cleaned out with kerosene the hour before we arrived. It made Luci so nauseous she had to leave me with all the paperwork.
Our first hurdle over for the day I set out to find a route to Uyuni. Here in Bolivia there is absolutely no understanding of English, so booking tickets was quite a mission, but finally after something like 6 hours I loaded our luggage and a green Luci on the bus and set out for the ride of our lives!
There were aisle sitters, wannabe singers (for tips), and vendors all squeezed in with us on this 11 hour bus ride. There was also no distict road! If you can imagine a greyhound bus flying over a dirt track at about 80 to 100km/hr including accelerating over the river crossings and instead of slowing for the single lane corners thought hooting (slightly) in advance was a far better warning to oncoming traffic. It was kind of fun...Luci didnt think so, she was still looking a tinge of green. We eventually rolled into Uyuni at 2:30am and it was cold! Not an ideal time to be finding accomodation - we hadn't booked in advance as finding Internet in Bolivia is slightly more tricky than we had imagined. We got lucky at hostel no 2 with Luci waving money in the guys face (best way to spk Spanish!).
We headed off into the salt flats of Uyuni on a 3 day tour. . The salt flats were unbelievable beyond description and will haunt our daydreams for years to come...flat for as far as the eye could see which could play tricks on your eyes! The white salt sparkled in the sun and we were lucky to have an almost cloudless sky! The guys on the tour (total of 7 of us) spent hours taking candid shots, as everything is white it was great for trick photography such as eating each other, dancing on a knife etc. The pictures didn't do it justice! Days 2 and 3 were less impressive than the great white mass but still very picturesque. Soft volcanic rock carved away into into unimaginable sights, seeing an active volcano spewing smoke into the sky and swimming in hot geyser baths while viewing thousands of flamingos in the lake below...truly impressive. The tour was well worth it, we had great weather, good food, a really nice crowd on our tour which always makes life more fun and stunning scenery.