Los Girasoles Hotel Uyuni

So after three days of both Al and I feeling pretty rotten we decide to make a dash for it and head to the salt plains! We set off with two other couples (Phil and girl Alex went on ahead) they were an English couple Mike and lucy and American couple Brook and Jo....great company!<br><br>Off we go and wow what an amazing trip! There is not much to write, the photos speak for themselves. We got to the Salar and the ...

Hmm, where to begin...<br><br>The astronomy tour in San Pedro was grand, like. It was mostly full of Germans again but only a subset of them were old. A lot of the tour itself was quite basic, with I suppose is necessary as most people were newbies. We were given some beginners information about the history of astronomy and the structure of the solar system, galaxy and so on. Then in the second half of the tour we whipped out the telescopes and looked at Jupiter, some random galaxies ...

... way they ¨mine¨the salt is by shoveling it from the damp ground into pyramids to dry before carrying it away to be processed. Standing looking at the piles we were surrounded by and endless sea of white. Maybe not so surprising as the salt is all that is left from a long gone inland sea. Our next stop along the way was at a hotel made entirely of salt-walls, bed frames, tables, chairs and all. After a lunch of Llama we were of to the island of the fish. A rocky bump in the endless ...

So sadly this dry, barren, lonely town on the corner of the salt plains has played host to an attack of the runs for myself and lucy, when we have barely been able to know which end of ourselves to put into the toilet. However this does have its benifits - reading books, catching up on blog, a strange empathy towards the suffering of previous patients (fever making us delerious at this point), and best of all giggling at ...

... 4x4's out to the flats in groups of 5 and started with a visit to the the Train Cemetry, an odd collection of dissued stream trains, mostly covered in graffitti. We then went to what was called the Salt Plant - a description thats a touch over the top for this small scale manual operation were the salt gets processed and then we went out to the salt flats themselves. Its difficult to describe why the vast expanse of white is ...

The Plane journey is a breeze back at 10hrs less than the jeep ride. It goes swimmingly and I fall asleep until Phil thoughtfully wakes me up to see the awesome view of the volcano back into La Paz. Unfortunately this is just when the turbulance kicks in, not bad but when you´re in a flying sardine can you really feel it. Me and chief rapdily go green as we recieve a few drops out the sky, stomachs left 2 metres above you. We just about ...

So arrived in Uyuni and it really is a **** hole as everybody said - a complete nothing town really third world. .but got the fleece I wanted with the nice Bolivian stitching on it .. very gringo!<br><br>Well I had to wait for 5 hours for the bus so had some food met a German who was going to kite board on the salt flats (mad)...... <br><br>Well the bus was not quite the same standard as Argentina well my seat did not recline ...

... out on a tour of the Uyuni Salt Flats, probably Bolivia&#8217;s most popular and well-known attraction. Our personal adventure was to be 4 days and 3 nights with a company called Tupiza Tours starting in Uyuni and ending in Tupiza, a rough little country town near the Argentine border. We had heard many horror stories about these trips so were lucky to coordinate it so we could share our old Toyota Land Cruiser with Tricky and Mel, a couple we&#8217;ve been traveling on ...

... started the tour to the Salt Lake, the biggest Salt Dessert in the world. We stayed in a Salt Hotel where everything was made out of Salt, so cool. The nights were cold, we had -5 degree but our sleeping bag, thermal underwear and lots of blankets kept us warm. Placibo always served great dinners, lunches and breakfasts on the way. His English was very poor but luckily we had Nick and Monique which translated from Spanish to English: THANK YOU so much ...

... i.e. someone who's not drunk), a 4X4 that can last the distance (i.e not die in the middle of f**king nowhere) and a good crew of people (i.e not *********s) chances are you'd love it.<br><br>We arrived in Uyuni after a bone shaking bus ride from Potosi. Think 'continuous spin cycle' for 7 hours and you get the picture. I'm amazed the bus didn't literally break in two at times ...