On tour in Bolivia: Days 4-5

Our trip to the Salar de Uyuni had finally arrived! We had to wake up at 4.30 and we were on the road by 5 so that we could get to the salt flats for sunrise at 7. As we approached the salt flats it got increasingly cold - it´s about minus 20 at night! And we made it just in time, and wow, what a view - the sunlight created an orange-pink sparkly glow across the salt which was magical.

Then as the sun rose, we started to see how vast the slat flat was - all around for as far as the eye could see, there was just an enormous expanse of white salt. It was hard to get a sense of scale and perspective - and when we then drove to an island in the middle, it was hard to get to grips with how far away the island was. At the island we had breakfast and began to defrost as the sun warmed us up. We climbed up to a view point and by then the salt flats were a glistening white - otherwordly!

We then drove across the salt flats to Tunupa volcano. We had opted totrek up the volcano - we didn´t get to the top, which was 5,400m, but we managed enough to get good views down onto the salt flats, and to admire the colours of the volcano crater.

Then for another drive across the salt flats, with stops alongt thew way to admire natural holes in the surface, where you could see salt cristals. And plenty of time for silly photos!

We ended up in Colchani, where we stayed the night in a salt hotal - the walls, beds, tables, and chairs were all made of salt. And the floors were salt cristals - not too comfortable when you want to get to the loo in the middle of the night!

The final day petered out a bit, with visits to see the piles of salt collected by the locals, a drive past the original salt hotel that´s now a museum, and a weird trip to the a train cemetary in Uyuni! After lunch we said goodbye to Hernan and Nancy and spent the rest of the day in Uyuni - not a very exciting place to say the least, but a bit of time to relax and prepare for our next adventure, travelling on through Bolivia by ourselves...