I thought I felt tall in Ecuador.......

After a fairly mediocre and over priced breakfast at a hostel in Uyuni we walked to the pick up point for our three day tour. It was here that we met the rest of the members of what I have to say was a great group.

Israel our tour guide arrived and we were split in to two 4X4s for the tour, Abs and I were in Car 1 with Martin & Jeanine and Emanuelle who were all Swiss and Israel our guide.

Car 2 had Phoebe & Ben a great couple from Australia who are on a 6 month honeymoon, Richard & Koji who'd met at La Paz airport and decided to travel together for a few days and Gabby & Anthony from London.

Our first stop was only five minutes away at the Train Graveyard,the final resting place for the steam locomotives that many people believe were game changers for Bolivian industry, now left to rest and decay in the salty flats of Uyuni - not far incidentally from where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died/were killed/committed suicide.

Where dead trains are laid to rest.

Sala de Uyuni is the worlds largest Salt Flat at 4,000 sq. miles - it also contains 70% of the worlds lithium reserves, unsurprisingly a business that all of the locals are trying to get in to - there ain't no money in salt that's for sure, 1 Boliviano for a small gift bag, that's about 8p......

Next stop was a small village where we saw how they refine and manufacture the salt for domestic use and saw some of the ornaments and tourist tat that the villagers produce - one of the many benefits of travelling for 6 months is that it's fairly easy even in our limited Spanish to explain that it's pretty impractical to buy gifts of salt or indeed a foot tall ornamental owl made of salt, so don't worry, although economically it would have made sense and I did consider a small gift bag of salt for each of you whilst it's cheap it's heavy so you aren't getting salt or salt based gifts.

After a lunch of Royal Quiona salad, steak and the most delicious apple pie I have ever eaten (sourced from a Swedish bakery in Uyuni) we headed to the salt flats which is an amazing place. I have never been anywhere like it and I have nothing that I can compare it to and I'm sorry but I fear that I'm not going to be able to do it justice with my words or my photo's.

It is massive expanse of space that feels like a giant optical illusion. Even though I knew that it was salt it looked like Sand and then Snow and then Ice, it really did mess with my mind, if it was sand it should have been soft and hot but it wasn't it was a solid formation and cool, if it was snow or ice it should have been freezing and slippery but it wasn't it was cool like marble and not slippery at all.

It's flat!

Because it's so flat it gives you a great opprotunity to take some 'perspective shots', we had so much fun taking silly photo's (see below) and filming a video (will publish to YouTube and send the link as soon as Wifi permits).

Abs and I Star-jump every opportunity we get.

I'm a giant in Bolivia....

Then we went to 'Fish Island' a strange piece of land covered in thousands of cacti in the middle of the salt flats which is actually the top of an ancient volcano before watching the sun set from the middle of the salt flats.

A cactus on Fish Island

Then it was off to our hotel for the night, a hotel made entirely of salt, including the beds, the dining table etc....   

Raine x