Salar De Uyuni. (Tupiza - Uyuni)

From Potosi it was on the Tupiza for the Salt Flat Tour of Salar De Uyuni. This was a 4 day 3 night tour with 5 of us me, Joanna, Jeremy and Alex and Mary (the Ausie couple we were travelling with through Boliviar), the cook and the driver in a Toyota Land Cruiser. The first day we spent driving through a mountain range getting to a high altitude of just under 4000 metres. For the altitude I presume the cook gave us some Coca leaves, which I had first tried in Potosi but not as many. This time we were given dried potatoe to acompany the leaves which contained an alkaline, which helped break down the leaves and meant they had greater affect waking us up a bit. The cook also did a great job with the food apart from the fact we think the sauce was made with jeruselum artichokes. For anyone that does`t know the body finds it hard to break them down which isn`t good with 7 people stuck in a Land Cruiser for the day. The day ended with our first flat tire (the road was gravel for the whole trip sometimes not even a road) minutes after it had started snowing at our high altitude. Luckily the driver was amzingly quick changing the spare and we didn´t have to stand in our shorts and flip flops too long.

Our accomadation for the night wasn´t much warmer however as we were in the middle of nowhere and there are only small farming communities which consisted of a few mud huts. The food again was great but something didn`t agree with me and I spent much of the night running to another mud hut to be sick.

The next day I was still not good but had no choice but to be woken at 4.30am to get into a car for 12 hours. What scenery I saw was very nice, but it wasn´t until the hot pools that I really felt any better, and even then I was trying to sleep as much I could. Luckily the next place we stayed for the night which was a ready made hostel for people doing the tour although there were probably another 100 backpackers which made the toilets a no go area.

Our 3rd day I felt much better and was able to enjoy the pancakes made for our breakfast. Again it was a very early start at around 5am but the landscape was far more veried than previous days going from lagoons and flamingoes to desert and rock formations. This last night was spent right next to the salt flat ready for our final morning and the highlight of the tour.

Morning arrived and we set off before sunrise hoping to get onto the flats before too many other cars arrived. This we managed to do but we were unlucky with the weather as it was over cast and we didn`t get much of a sun rise. The salt flats themselves are enormous apparently 10 billion tonnes of salt makes it the largest Salt flat in the world. We had to do what every tourist does and take pictures of our selves appearing on different strategically placed objects so it appears we are stood on them, as there is no perspective when all you can see for miles is white salt. Again due to the weather ours could have been better with a blue sky rather than grey but what can you do.

After crossing the Salt Flat and arriving in Uyuni it was and afternoon in a bar until our overnight bus to La Paz.