Salar de Uyuni

I've spent the last three days on a tour of Salar de Uyuni (the Uyuni salt flat) and the surrounding region. I arrived earlier this afternoon in Uyuni, and as I can't find wi-fi anywhere, I'm writing this blog post in an internet cafe with one of the slowest internet connections in the world. I'll be here all day if I try to upload any photos now, and anyway the USB ports on this computer are taped up, so I'll add the photos when I can. I always thought it would be more difficult to write this blog once I arrived in Bolivia, and it looks like I was right.

There were ten people on the tour I took, and we were split into two groups of five, with each group going with their driver in a separate Toyota Land Cruiser. There was a variety of nationalities, including British, American, Australian, German and Swiss.

The border crossing into Bolivia was in one of the most inhospitable places I have ever been, with sub-zero temperatures and howling winds. It pretty much set the tone for the next couple of days - this was definitely not a luxury tour.

On days one and two we saw a number of volcanic lakes of differing colours (white, green, red, etc.), several of which were populated by flamingoes, and we saw some interesting rock formations, including the 'Stone Tree'. We also saw some more hot springs and geysers, and the active Ollague volcano.

On the first night we stayed in a refuge with no mains electricity, heating or hot water. The electricity generator went off at about 8pm, so we had little choice but to get an early night. I think the temperature outside got down to about -5C, but I managed to stay warm by sleeping fully clothed underneath six blankets.

The hotel on the second night was definitely a step up in comfort. It was a salt hotel, i.e. a hotel made almost entirely of salt (although in fact I was disappointed with how many non-salt materials were used in its construction). At least it was warmer, and it had hot water so we could have a shower.

On day three we visited Salar de Uyuni, which is an incredible sight. It's the largest salt flat in the world, at 4086 square miles. We got up at 5am to see the sun rise over the salt flat, and spent the next couple of hours there. Later in the morning we visited the salt museum and saw a salt mine, before ending our tour in Uyuni.

Uyuni is a pretty awful place, but I'm forced to stay here for one night because the next bus to Potosí isn't until tomorrow morning. I'm staying in the same hostel as five of the people on my tour, so I may travel with some of them for a while.

That's it for now. I'll try to put some photos up once I get to Potosí.

EDIT: OK, I'm now in Potosí and have wi-fi, so I've put up some photos. There are some pictures of the White Lake, Green Lake and Red Lake, and there's also a picture of me at the Stone Tree and of a flamingo. There are also several photos of the Uyuni salt flat here, here, here and below.

Finally I've put up a couple of photos of a weird train cemetery that we went to, a few miles outside Uyuni.