Walking in a Satly wonderland

After a harrowing bus journey back to La Paz, a night of heavy drinking and another harrowing bus journey in which we thought we'd all lose our teeth (a very bumpy 4 hours) we arrived at the town of Uyuni.
Ate Breakfast in the sun and met our new travelling companoins Steve (American - homecoming King ?) and Jerome (Dutch - Statistician, to Bradleys annoyance), bundled ourselves into a jeep and went off to the train graveyard to look for the train robbed by Butch and Sundance.

We couldn't spot it amongst the rusty locomotives and later found out why - "its not there!"

formula for rust?

Various train driver poses and a few "Come on Ivor" Sheeeersh tee Cuffss later we got back in the jeep and headed for the Salar de Uyuni a blinding and seemingly endless expanse of whiteness, a surreal experience indeed.

Look at these tiny people I found..

We stopped at various points, it takes a while to pass the salt here - bud.. umm... tishhh!!, and took pictures of salty things, browsed a salty stall selling salty pots, looked at some salty bricks used to build a salty hotel, we sat on some salt..

kicked it, licked it..... and threw it about

It is an astonishing place with literally nothing for miles and miles, perspective goes out the window and without a good pair of shades you'd probably go blind, certainly would not want to be lost out here, the opening scenes of Pirates of the Carribean 3 springs to mind.

Fortunately our guide knows exactly what he's doing and follows the only tracks out here , dirty grey streaks left by countless other tour company jeeps all headed for Fish Island.. aptly named as its completey covered in Cacti....

Went for a good romp around the island checking out all the enormous, ancient and flowering Cacti, some of them are hundreds of years old.

Heres some more...

Had lunch of llama steaks at the lakes edge washed down by coca cola which to our suprise is becoming a regular feature in most of our meals, I think it has something to do with its caustic nature and aids the digestion of tough meat. Whatever it is, and however disturbing nothing beats it at the moment.

Back in the jeep we don't break any landspeed records but have a great view of fish island dissapearing into a cracking sunset.

more photos of the salt flats here

That evening after a fine meal and hot shower we burrow into our sleeping bags atop beds made of salt and look forward to a day of flamingos and lakes.

Get up early and after a Bolivian breakfast (never good) get back in the jeep and head off to the lakes across a desolate landscape. This is the highest up we have ever been ( about 4,900 m ) and Jackie, Bradley and I indulge in a handfull of coca leaves, our driver has the necessary catalyst, and within ten minutes we are chatting away merrily and have tingly numb cheeks.

At the first lake we sit and watch the Flamingos feeding... Jackie gets the Binoculars out like a proper twitcher for a really good close up view.

We eat lunch of Milanese chicken ( a safe bet ) and feed a fox who, being cunning is taking advantage of the daily influx of tourists.

here he is...


Jackie gives Bradley lots of tips on digital photography and within half an hour he's up and running hot on the heels of David Bailey.

Here he is..

here he manages to capture the essence of a difficult and very personal subject..

oh my starry eyed suprise.....

By this point we were getting along famously with our travelling comprades and could often be heard calling to each other with a famous East London term of endearment, easily mistaken as a grotesque insult to the casual observer.

We travelled onwards to another lake full of flamingoes doing a mating dance in a long , a wonderful sight like a graceful pink ballet.

Feature film coming soon to a theatre near you

Afterwards we head over to laguna Roja - Red Lake, a stunning body of water full of flamingos

here it is.....

Further on we stopped at some amazing rock formations which had been sculpted by the wind and sand. We think they look like some of our friend Matts drawings....

in the background a volcano innocently smokes

After clambering over this alien landscape we head for a one shop town and are amazed to find Johnny Walker whisky on sale for 2 pounds.. A few minutes later we realise that is too good to be true and set the moonshine back on its shelf and buy some cold beers, biscuits and red wine.

That nights meal goes down a treat with the extra lubrication. A fairly raucous evening ensues Jackie discussing politics with Jerome, Bradley shouting at Steve about Hiroshima ??? whilst I quietly polish off the beer occasionally adding my two pence worth to each debate. Its freezing and we keep the fire topped up with anything that burns. Only Lisa seems to have remembered that we are getting up at 5 in the morning to watch the sunrise and attempts to sleep inches away from our racket ( sorry Lisa ;)

Ouch... ooooooof and brrrrrhhhhhhh!!!

Its sooo cold and we stumble bleary eyed into our jeep, somehow weve missed the sunrise as we were meant to see it and catch glimpses of it over the hills through the window.

Ah well, we are off to see some geezers? Geisers? and are quite taken aback as we check out this landscape of primordial soup.

Theres various columns of steam hissing out of the ground...

and Jackie and I jump around gassy pools of sulpuric gloop

Recently a deal with the Italians to tap the power of these steam vents fell through, but hopefully another deal with the Mexican government will happen.

Its very muddy, cold and smelly and we head off to the thermal baths to warm up.

The water was lovely and warm, I got in with my goggles and did a small bomb which raised a laugh, it was only waist deep..

Had breakfast while our towels and costumes freeze dried themselves and headed off to Laguna Verde, a beautiful greeny blue lake ( no flamingos this time ) perfectly reflecting the reddish mountain in the background.

We went through an army checkpoint and our driver gave them a can of beer and some coca leaves, they seemed genuinely pleased to see us and we wondered at there strange existence in the middle of nowhere living in what looked like barba papa houses.

heres a picture of the fortress...

Saw our friends off at the border with Chile, sad to see them go , and we faced a long drive back to Uyuini with two mums and their kids in the back. Attempted to amuse them with various games and had the young lad enthralled with the dismembered thumb trick (cheers Dad)

Stopped for lunch at a small village with a lush green banked stream running through the middle and half a small twin propped aeroplane in amongst the rocks, apparently its in a film called Andes to Amazon.

Floated an orange down the river (for visual effect) and copied the kids jumping from one bank to another.

Back in Uyuini we eat Pizza and wonder how we are going to get anywhere the next day. It seems the transport strikes we have heard rumours of are actually happening. You cant blame them , the roads here are dreadful and pretty dangerous.

more photos of flamingos lakes and desert here