5th - 7th May Salar Uyuni

We slept in today as we were to leave at 8am and woke at 7.05am. Quick breakfast, shower and pack and were ready with 5 minutes to spare even though Cat had left her shoes outside the room overnight and they had gone walkabout. Jumped into a van to take us to the Bolivian boarder. Our first stop was the Chilean boarder where we had troubles as our driver tried to queue jump. We eventually had our passports stamped for our exit but Laura had lost her visa (They are only peices of paper given to you as you enter the country and very easy to misplace). We were held up for about 30 minutes until the guard decided to let her through. Next we had a 30 minute ride to the freezing bolivian boarder. It was just a small hut in the middle of nowhere with no toilet facilities other than to squat behind a wreak of an old bus. No troubles here once we filled out our immigration forms. We transferred our bags to 4 Toyota Landcruisers which were our transport for the next 3 days. Zaida, Donna, Tanja, Catriona and David shared one of the landcruisers. All roads are dirt, some in better condition than others. We drove past huge mountains and volcanoes. Our first stop was the Laguna Verde or Green Lagoon. Amazing colours due to the copper content, looked similar in colour to a glacial lake. We stopped for lunch at a little place near a hot spring.

Cat went in but David decided to give it a miss. Lunch was cucumber, tomato, cabbage, onion, meat and bread. They even provided sweet rice cakes for Cat. A few of the group started to feel the effects of the altitude with dizzyness and headache. We had reached 5000m but dropped back down to 4800. After lunch we stopped off at some geysers,
stopped to take pictures of an active volcano and at another stop to take pictures of some llamas. We arrived at our overnight accommodation at 4pm. We were right in front of Laguna colorado, a red lake due to alge and plankton. Gui, David and Cat went for a walk to a viewpoint over the lake. The colours were remarkable and well worth the exhausting walk. We saw a flock of pink and white flamingos. David was feeling the altitude and did not feel well on the walk back, we took it very easy and slowly. Pasta bolegnese for dinner tonight. Catriona had some rice spaghetti with her and was able to eat as well. Headed to bed early as the solar powered lights went out at 8pm. Before bed David went out to have a look into the sky. The stars were amazing, very clear and bright as there were no lights from the settlement to obscure the view. Everyone had a really bad nights sleep. David had a headache, trouble breathing and sleeping and woke in the morning with diarrhea. Catriona also had a headache and nausea. Both of us didn't sleep much. Most people said it was a night where they wondered what they were doing here and wanted to go home.
6th Couldn't stomach breakfast and David took 2 Immodium for the trip. Spent the day criss crossing the desert tracks viewing rock fromations(the tree stones),
lakes (laguna onda) to view more flamingos. We also passed many llamas,
sheep, vicuña. The scenery was always amazing. We stopped for lunch overlooking the blue lagoon.
David gave them our can opener to open the tins of tuna. They were amazed by it, showing it to one another and were very grateful. One of the drivers came up and shook Davids hand and said "Muchos Gracias Amigos". Catriona still not feeling well so had small amount of rice and a couple of panadol. Our night stop was San Juan village where we were able to have showers and shared a room with 6 others. Dinner was Chicken, chips and rice and everyone was feeling much better as they had aclimatised to the altitude. 3 kids from the village came and put on a show for us.
The older boy played the pan pipes and the two girls danced. Very cute. Early to bed again as solar powered lights out early.
7th Everyone had a much better sleep and feeling good. Today we crossed the salt flats of Uyuni. Our first stop was Isla Incahuasi, an island in the middle of the salt flats. It is a coral island and covered in cacti. We had an 1 1/2 hours to explore the island before setting off over the salt flats, stopping in the middle of nowhere to take some photos.
Wilma, our cook found a hole in the salt, where from the water just below the surface she dug out some of the salt crystals. The shapes were amazing. Lunch was at the salt hotel, amazing. We then headed to see the process of salt mining and production at a little local operator. There were a few stalls of handcrafts where we bought a beanie each and a man and lady bolivian finger puppet. Last stop was the locomotive graveyard just outside Uyuni. We arrived in Uyuni in the early afternoon, checked into our hotel and set out to see the town.
Walked through the markets where we saw a steers head on the ground and pieces of the steer hanging up. Many little stalls selling everything from safety pins to traditional clothing to hair dye. We passed a funeral procession for a small child. The little white coffin was being pushed along in a makeshift trolley and many women and children followed along behind carying flowers. We headed back towards our hotel, stopping to buy a llama finger puppet along the way. (Guess what the llama is saying) We decided to have an easy dinner at the pizza restaurant in the hotel. They made a nachos with some pizza toppings for Catriona. Showered and early to bed again as they only had one channel in Spanish on the TV.