Salt flats and laguna’s

We decided to start our tour of the Salar from Tupiza, this meant the additional bonus of an extra day driving across the Bolivian mountains on paths that you otherwise wouldn't get to see. So along with 2 (lovely but slightly odd) French guys we jumped in the back of a 4×4 and left town in the good hands of Igor the driver and Sandra the chef…how posh does that sound, our driver and chef, but trust me it wasn't in the slightest! Leaving Tupiza and its 30 degree sunshine behind we soon got deep into the mountains and the weather turned wet, very wet! The roads were already mud paths through fields and were now getting steadily worse. We slipped and slided our way slowly higher into the mountains, getting stuck in many places, at times re-building the roads with anything we could find, crossing small rivers (one that flooded the jeep), and generally just holding on tight trying not to look out over any edges! Oh and this was also made worse by Igor crossing himself at any sign of difficulty ahead, didn’t instil much confidence. We finally reached the small settlement we were due to spend the night in, around 6 hours late at 10pm. The following day started off in a similar vain except that we were coming back down the other side of the pass. We finally reached the national park (about 4 hours behind schedule) where the landscape turned from greenery, rocks and lots of mud to dry, red, sandy desert…oh and best of all sunshine. The landscape was amazing! All around you were snow capped peaks but you were standing on a desert at 4,000m above sea level, mad coloured lagoons appear in the distance like mirages with flocks of flamingos standing in them, strange rock formations created by the wind and rain were everywhere, hot springs, geysers and millions of vicunas… its all mind blowing!! We spent two days driving across the vast area exploring its delights. On the 4th and final day we headed to the actual Salar, a huge salt desert (the highest and biggest in the world) that normally shimmers white in the sun, however as we were here in the rainy season it was actually 2 inches under water. This made for an equally stunning vista though, the sky reflecting in the water for as far as you could see only interrupted by the odd distant mountain or volcano. We spent an hour or so driving across the salar and 20 mins paddling in the water before the concentration of salt made your feet sting so much that you had to get out! The last leg of the tour stopped at a railway cemetery just outside the town of Uyuni, an area where trains have just been left to rust for years, some dating back as far as 1907. I'm sure those of you interested in trains would have loved to have seen the old engines and carriages etc we on the other hand just used them as climbing frames for half hour and acted like children (well we had been in a jeep for 4 days!). And that is where the tour ended, although we were left with a little reminder of Sandra's cooking (or lack of it as some days we lived on crackers alone) for the next 4 days in the form of food poisoning… cheers!!