South-West Bolivia

So I have to say that Bolivia is really cool. We just spent four days seeing the most amazing, varied, weirdest andscape Ive ever see. And Gareth, to anwser your question some people say the strikes are to protest the USA trade agreement, which we think would be all of the country, not just these nothing little towns. SOme people say its to protest the new President (of Peru or Bolivia take your pick) and others say they just want a day off work...hmm. Anyways, back to the trip...

Day One- The Salar des Uyuni
We got picked up from our hotel in 3 4x4s. Thats the ony way to travel out here because most of the time we werent on actual roads, just randomy driving in the middle of nowhere. It was reay bumpy and again, because Im the shortest I sat in the back, because anyone ese who say back there would hit their head on the roof. So we drove through the salt plains all day. It was really weird because it looked just like snow, so when the drivers were going really fast and curving around I kept feeling like we were going to slide, but I mean its salt, so we didnt. We took lots of funny pictures, we spelled BOIVIA with our bodies. We went to this salt hotel thats completely made of salt. I thought about buying some sore of salt souvenier but I figured it woud just disintigrate by the time I got it home. We brought 2 cooks with us so we always ate in the middle of nowhere. The food was alright, but it was not up to Inca Trail standards. We went to this island that had lots of cactus trees on it, then to these caves with fossils of stalagmites, but they looked realy cool, like paper. By the time we got to our dorm for the night it was a bit late and I was realy queasy from being in the back the whole day, so for the rest of the trip I stayed away from the back. Theres no heating in these dorms, and power and running water shuts off around 9, even though we havent quite finished dinner. Oh well.

Day Two- The Coloured Lakes
Today we went to some different lakes that were weird colours. The best was the pink lake (like actually pink) there was also some green ones. We saw lots of flamengos and other wildlife. IPODS are a hot commodity out here and only 4 of us have them. Today, three of us were in the same car which was kinda funny, but none of us really wanted to lend them out to other cars and pus, it gave us a huge variety of musice. This was definatley the coldest night, there was realy thick frost on the windows and we slept in dorms of 6 or 7 on concrete slabs with a matress ontop and then our sleeping bags. Usually get to the dorms arounf 5 or 6, have tea, play cards and eat dinner around 830 or 9 whie fighting to stay awake.

Day Three- The Desert
Today was an early start at 530 am. OUr tour eader is really sick so she stayed in the car all day. IT was too bad cuz its a really bad time to be sick, off roading in 4x4s. Anyways, our first stop was some geisers we were all freezing and stuck our hands in the steam, but then we stunk like sulphur. Then we went to some hotsprings where only a handfu of people braved the cold and went in. I had my bathing suit on but there was no way that I was going to go in, especialy because they werent that warm anyways and there was nowhere to change after. It was literally just a pool in the middle of nowhere. We ate breakfast outside and then headed through the desert. Saw the vally of rocks, another green lake and so on. IT sounds like we didnt see much but, actually it felt really crammed in. ANd there were lots of long driving stretches. Had a fun night playing cards and dancing. These places that we stay at are really bizarre, they´re just random little towns of maybe 50 people in the middle of nowhere. We climbed up ontop of this hil and you can see where the town starts and stops and you coud wak through it in about 10 minutes. And they are really plain. Theres no green anywhere, weve started caling in Dirt Word because that realy is what its like.

Day Four- Back to Civilization
Today we stopped at the train cemetary for lunch before heading back to Uyuni. Its this random place where they dumped a the old steam engines that they dont use anymore. Got some scrapes from climbing around on them. Then we went to Uyuni to pick up our big packs and got on a private bus (I make special mention of this because we all decided to pay $5 extra to have our own bus) to Potosi. When we got to Potosi (5 hours later on a windy dirt road) the driver refused to take us to our hotel and dropped us at the bus station. But wait, didnt we pay him to take us to our hotel, why yes we did but...wlecome to Bolivia. We al went out for pizza which was okay, but not the greatest and then, for the first time in 5 days, I HAD A SHOWER. It was so nice to be clean again. I was in a triple with two other girs and of course, one of them snored. So I got woken up at 3 and never made it back to sleep again. I listened to music for the rest of the night, lovely. I realised that Ive NEVER had a good night sleep since Ive arrived on this CONTINENT! Oh well, thats all part of traveling I guess.