Our next destination from Uyuni was La Paz, before we left San Pedro I had attempted to book us on an overnight ‘tourist’ service from Uyuni to La Paz.  When we presented at the bus office early in the afternoon they had no record of me attempting to book, for some reason their office in La Paz hadn’t made any kind of response to my booking.  This made for a stressful half an hour or so as we hunted down another company to take us to La Paz, hopefully with a sober driver.  As it turned out the bus company we ended booking with ran a bus that looked very similar to the ‘tourist’ service only a few years older and for less than half the price.  What was to follow though was probably the roughest bus ride I’ve ever been on, for about five hours the road from Uyuni to La Paz is little more than a two lane potholed track, at times the bus had to slow to walking pace to negotiate potholes or washouts on the road.  Coupled with this was the masses of dust entering the cabin of the bus, every time another vehicle would pass the light from its headlights entering through gaps in the curtains would create beams of illuminated dust.  Fortunately for Gen she had left her neck warmer in her bag and was able to use it as a bit of a makeshift dust mask.

On arrival in La Paz we made a b-line for our hostel which had been recommended by Matt and Emily back in Santiago, after hearing stories of express kidnappings by taxi we were glad that the hostel was within easy walking distance from the bus station.   After the horror bus ride the first thing to do on our list was a shower and a bit of a sleep.  Gen didn’t really feel like doing much for the rest of the day so I hit the streets armed with Gen’s compact camera and little else to have a look around La Paz.

Day three is all about the salt flats proper, after a couple more hours crammed into the back of the Cruiser we were onto the salt flats, some welcome respite from being bounced around in the back of the Cruiser.  The flats are almost completely flat, there is a total of eight meters variation in height across the entire salt flats. 

Loading up on our final morning

Immediately noticeable was the vast expanse of nothingness, at some points as far as the eye can see all you can see is salt.  Our first stop on the salt flats was Isla de los Pescados,  home to giant cacti, from there we headed across the flats in the direction of Uyuni.

Gen posing with a massive cactus

Along the way we stopped for the customary photos of someone small being held by somebody big.  Made possible by the massive distance to anything recognisable.

Grant on chips

Gen on chips

Don't squash me!!!

Chip from a Giant

After short stops at the old salt hotel, now no longer used because it was polluting the salar, the salt mines and Colchani for lunch we were on our way to our final destination, Uyuni.  Or progress was halted briefly to replace a flat tyre, our second for the trip but after some expert team work by our drivers we were back on the road.  The final location we would visit was the train graveyard on the outskirts of Uyuni, a bit of a tribute to the rail history of Bolivia, or maybe a heap of rusting metal, you be the judge.

Salt mine

Yep its f..d

Flat numero dos

Train graveyard

Standard train graveyard pose

Mike, Olivia and one big pizza in Uyuni

To summarise our trip, were we glad we did it?  For sure!  We didn’t really have too many complaints, the food was all pretty fresh, the salads for lunch were a welcome break from the endless bread of Chile and Argentina.  Perhaps my biggest complaint was that the driver seemed more rushed than he needed to be, on some sections of the track we were travelling pretty fast with the second car in our group travelling a whole lot slower but still getting as much time at each viewpoint.  All in all though we had a great time, saw some amazing sites and met some fantastic people.

Day two began with our tour guide getting annoyed at Mathieu because he was a little slow to get ready (turns out he had also struggled to get much sleep the night before) and for some reason we were on a strict timetable….I guess it was we had places to be, things to see.  We were the first group on the road so we had the first few sites to ourselves, including the famous stone tree,  first stop though was a laguna to look at some flamingos, the bird that is not the gay bar from Hobart.  

Flamingos in the mist

Flamingos

The famous stone tree

Desert Highway

Flat numero uno

By the end of the day we would be sick of taking photos of flamingos as they were to be seen at nearly every stop during the day.  I found taking photos of wildlife I’d get a bit of camera envy when I saw someone with a nice 300+mm lens…then I’d see them try and stuff it in their bag and be happy with my choice of an 18-105mm.

The crew from our CruiserFlat numero uno

Flamingos at lunch...or maybe it was Flamingos for lunch

Nothing comes for free in Bolivia, in some places you can’t even pee in the bush, instead you must pay a few Bolivianos to the hygienically clad lady manning the toilets at your lunch stop.

Bano (toilet) fee

Day two finished at a salt hotel, yes the hotel is mostly made of salt, salt bricks form the walls, beds, chairs and table legs, the floor is also covered in crushed salt..great for getting dry skin off your feet.  It was here that we were promised a hot shower, we were told that although there was hot water there wasn’t heaps of it.  As a group…we’ll more to the point a few of us blokes decided that each person should have their shower limited to three minutes, mainly because we were being chivalrous and letting the ladies go first and wanted some hot water left for our showers.  Having a countdown feature on my watch I was appointed official timekeeper with ??? as backup to ensure that the water was cut off at the end of the allotted three minutes.  As it turned out only a few of the ladies, Gen being one of them, had a hot shower with the rest of them and most of us blokes having to make do with a cold shower.  The final insult was when Mathew let me jump the queue and have a shower before him as reward for my efforts with timekeeping only for the hotwater to come back during Mathew’s shower, the shower time that should have been mine.

We got caught in a spaghetti western

Salt hotel

The Russians

Stars