Salar de Uyuni

A jeep. Six backpacks. Six backpackers. A cook. A driver. That was the combination for our 4 days in the Salar de Uyuni salt flats of Bolivia. To be honest, the lack of space at the back of the jeep put me old flashpacker into a bit of a panic, but I got used to it, and fortunately we got out and had a walk about very often, so our legs got a bit of a stretch. Those were four fantastic days, in the most fascinating of landscapes: salars (so much salt and no chips, can you believe it...), Laguna Verde, Laguna Colorado with a total of 2 flamingos ( the others had died as the fish feeding them had been poisened by some metallic substance in the water) and finally the colourful rock formations around Tupiza. Given that we still haven't found a geology book explaining all the different grey and red shades of colours in those mountain ranges, I just assume that some freak from Hollywood has decided to film a really wild cowboy movie out here and has painted the rocks...dengdenggedeng BONANZA...

The most amazing part of the trip, however, was the accomodation. While we stayed with some of the loveliest small Bolivian villages providing lovely lama fur on the bed to keep us warm (yuuummm...) or military accommodation camps, they all had one thing in common: the maximum temperature at night was -10C. We had been warned, but despite wearing every single layer of clothing (plus all the scarfs and ponchos you will be getting as souvenirs, thank you), we were absolutely shivering. All that only so that they could get us up at 5 a.m. at -15C and take us to the 'Gizas', hot water springs with pressure coming out of the holes in the ground at 130C... some warmth...so near yet so far....Bolivians are really cruel.