Bolivia - Salar de Uyuni

We awoke to glorious blue skies and could not wait to get on our tour which only started at 11am.

We met our fellow tour goers, a Portuguese couple, Albert and Enish, an Austrian Lukas and a Chilean, Lisandro who was just joining us for the first day to the Salar.

First stop was the train cemetery where we went a bit crazy with photos. Was and I were definitely having our 'Bond' moment up on the train roofs.

The Salar was beautiful. Blue skies with clouds dotted about reflected by the layer of water which covered the salt flats. It is an incredible site, looking out across the flats and seeing no horizon, just the sky merging with the reflection of itself.

It would be interesting to see the flats in the dry season. I imagine it would be a very different experience, but just as beautiful.

We spent about an hour taking the obligatory crazy pictures before being called across for lunch by our driver Miguel. We had alpaca steak with quinoa and salad, all very tasty.

After lunch was a speedy ride back to Uyuni where Lisandro was dropped off and we picked up Paul, an older German man. He had tried to get to the Chilean border by bus the previous day but they had to turn back as the road was such a state. He was hoping the 4x4s would get through today. We sped off nervously hoping we would be able to get through. Albert and Enish tried to get their train tickets to leave Uyuni after the tour but the queue was massive due to a bus having rolled over the night before and there had been some fatalities. Everybody wanted onto the train.

Just out of Uyuni we saw the reason the bus and some of the tours had turned back the day before. The river had flooded across the dirt road completely submerging it and washing away parts of it. A truck had also rolled over making the road single track for a part. But the tour 4x4s were going through as well as some buses. It was pretty scary but Miguel did us well and got us through. We made it through to the first camp at sunset and headed off to take some photos. Although it's hot in the day, at altitude here the temperature drops considerably. There was no hot shower either, so a quick wipe down (thanks Mom) and Was and I climbed into our Bolivian happy pants (the super bright coloured ones.) Chicken Milanese for dinner and we headed off into our 6 sleeper dorm ( the tours are basic - we tried to find a more expensive one that offered double rooms but had no luck). There was a bit of grumbling from Paul the German man, clearly he had not asked about what accommodation he would be getting.

7am breakfast the next morning and another beautiful clear blue sky day. We headed out across the altiplano and it was breathtaking. Lakes and volcanos with vicuña and flamingos, it was like nothing we had ever seen before. We stopped at Laguna xxxxx for lunch and it watched the hundreds of flamingos. Just magnificent.

When we had booked the tour we were uncertain if we'd make it any further down to Laguna Colorada, a large red mud lagoon at around 5000m altitude, where nearby we would spend he night. The local villages were having a dispute with the national park and tour operators over income. Apparently the larger village got more of a percentage than the smaller one, and the smaller one wanted the same. Luckily talks had started and not yet come to a halt and it seemed they wanted some income while the talks were happening so we were allowed through on arrival. We took a half hour break at the camp before setting off across the desert to Laguna Colarado, where we strolled along the side of the lake watching the flamingos.

Dinner back at camp was Piqué Macho, my favourite Bolivian meal! We even got a bottle of wine to share amongst the six of us with our meal. Miguel came in at 8pm to inform us that we'd be able to go to Laguna Verde, the geysers and hot springs. And that we'd need to be up for a 5.30am departure. With that he said good night.

Our final day was hair raising. We were up early and headed out to Laguna Verde. Miguel, our driver, was shattered. He had had a headache the previous afternoon and asked for a headache tablet. This morning he couldn't stay awake. We don't think there was any partying involved but maybe he was getting sick but it was a problem. Albert, who was sitting behind and opposite Miguel had to wake him up. Luckily Albert could also speak Spanish and told him we needed to take a break. We stopped to take some photos (including some jumping around ones with Miguel in them to try and shake him out of it). After that he was okay to Laguna Verde where I noticed him getting some coca leaves off one of the other drivers, they are used for alertness. We stopped off at the geysers and then hot springs for a swim and breakfast and then nervously got back in the 4x4. We were then okay to the Chilean border. We had placed Albert up front to chat to Miguel and keep him awake.

After dropping Lukas and Paul at the border we turned to make our way back to Uyuni. We had 3 hours to lunch and then another 3 hours to Uyuni. It was a pretty hair raising 3 hours to lunch. Albert had to wake Miguel twice. We had strapped ourselves in as securely as possible and concentrated on keeping everyone awake. We made it to lunch and decided between the four of us that we could not carry on the trip and our options were 1 - to switch into another car, 2 - convince Miguel to spend the night, get some sleep and we'd go early the next morning or 3 - ask the office to send someone out if we could get a line through to them. Miguel was having none of these options at first. We tried to explain it would be better for everyone if he let us switch. We started to realise he didn't want to let the office know of any problems so we explained the situation to the Chileans in the other truck who had space. They had no problem with us switching so we approached the other driver who wanted nothing to do with it. Albert eventually managed to negotiate with Warren backing up that we didn't want to cause problems just needed to be safe and would switch back outside Uyuni so no one got into trouble. This finally worked and we were allowed to switch out until the last town before Uyuni.

Miguel survive his lonely drive back to .... Thank goodness. We'd been pretty stressed about him still driving, with how he was struggling to stay awake. We bought some red bulls, and climbed back into the car with a very energetic Miguel. I think a lot of coca leaves were consumed in the solo drive!

Warren volunteered to take the front seat, armed with his Spanish phrase book, thinking he could kill two birds with one stone, that his practice his Spanish and keep Miguel awake.

After a lot of page turning, thinking, page turning and thinking Warren turned to Miguel and asked 'Es tu mechanico tambien?' to which Miguel replied 'si si' and went on to explain how all the drivers are mechanics too, as the roads are so lonely they pretty much have to figure out between whoever is there how to fix the problem. At this he started indicating and pulled over. We had a flat tyre. All blamed on Wassie!

The spare didn't seem to fit. Two more trucks pulled over and with a lot of juggling of current tyres and spare tyres between back and front wheels we were back on the road. Warren was banned from any questions involving vehicles and we made it safely. Ack across the now much lower river and to Uyuni.