Saltflats! Saltflats! Saltflats! The bus journey was extremely longwinded and seemed like it went on forever but it was still just the average, twelve hours. Only twelve hours eh! The girl infront of me kept bashing her seat into my legs which continued to keep waking me up from an attempted deep sleep I was trying so hard to get. I am going to be super ratty in morning, man would like to require some sleep!

There wasn’t much to look at outside the window as it was a nighttime journey but I did manage to clock we were driving through a concrete desert for the majority of the time and if in need of using the toilet it would require me taking my phone to use as a light to see what I was doing! Fortunately I didn’t need a number two as there was no toilet paper provided! Word of advice, when travelling always plan in advance for the unexpected!

We were finally getting close to Uyuni I thought as the sun was starting to come up and some of the sights I was starting to see I literally had to rub my eyes to believe that I wasn’t actually dreaming. Llamas running around in small herds on what looked like we were driving on another planet! Now this place is definitely something extravagant wherever it was that we were precisely!? It literally looked like we were driving what I imagine Mars would seemingly look like! Where the hell am I!? I know we aren’t that far from Uyuni and that the Salt Flats is all still yet to come but I was glad I was awake early enough to witness something as special as to what I had just seen out my window.

Finally rock up in Uyuni at around 07:30 in morning and I’m tired but ready to get myself on this one dayer trip (this actually turned out to be two days based here as had to sort out my return back to La Paz afterwards still!). I grab my rucksack off the bus and head out in search for a local hostel for the night. Uyuni itself seems like a quiet village and very third world, people seem to be rather welcoming and travellers are seen all over the place. Feel right at home! I managed to find a cozy private double at ‘Hostel Vielli’ for around 130 Boliviano (£15 a night) which had the look of looking like it could of may well been a prison back in the day! It was refurbished though and had decent wifi. It wasn’t the most glamourous of rooms with the bright pink colours going on but it will certainly do the job for a couple of nights.

So that’s accommodation sorted and now on to get some food as I am mega hungry and needed to squeeze in a much needed breakfast for the long day I have up ahead of me. I find a cafe of some sort full of travellers and bump into three Romanian girls all from Transylvania! My very own Van Helsing moment perhaps!? I had left my Armani crucifix back in Essex so I might as well let them suck the life outta me now I guess lol. Now now 😜.

In all honesty the girls were harmless though and informed me the amount of times they get the vampire jokes from everyone all around the world they had met so far that they were used to it by now! They all took a massive interest in what your reading yourself right here and now, where I had been previously and still had yet to visit. It seemed like they also had been on a similar adventure to myself. They were keen for me to promise I would write up about them in my blog itself so Monico, Delia and Ioana this ones for you girlies in the voice of Zara Larsson and David Guetta! The girls themselves had all booked their own day out to see the Salt Flats as well so our paths could may well cross over again.

After an interesting breakfast and feeling as confident as ever I fortunately bump into a few ticket touts who go looking for travellers like myself to sell either a 1 day or 3 day Salt Flats package where both offer different package tours. I was obviously on the hunt for the best deal but what caught my attention was an old lady called Rosalee (who worked for Cristal Tours) who was obviously good at her job but needed as much business that she could find. Her English was second to none and that for me was the deal breaker as I knew where I stood with what she had to offer me. Transport for the day, a visit to a local volcano, see flamingos, witness a hotel completely made of salt, a derailed train with a train track still intact and has been deserted for years, a cactus park, lunch and of course the Salt Flats! Even bung in a reduced ticket for my bus ride back to La Paz for good measure. Cheers Rosalee! Great all round package but all in all very random huh!? That people is Bolivia all over! Random as F**k!

Right then, Salt Flats! I did not know what to expect as I had obviously looked online at the hundreds of pictures on google of selfies people had taken before hand. This has got me written all over it doesn’t it! Words simply cannot describe how excited I was feeling at the time to be standing on a desert of salt but with no pepper shortly! Within my transport I am joined by a guy from Ecuador who helped me throughout the day with translation. Also a friendly and very happy Italian chap (aren’t they always!?) and a Chilean couple who didn’t happen to know a word of English, this will be a whole alotta fun this eh!

The first part of the trip was to visit the derailed train and the train itself had been based here for over a hundred years! Sounds a bit boring I know and pointless I hear you ask but this is part of the randomness that is Bolivia and with other travellers all based there also taking photos I decided to get a bit creative myself with what there was to have my photo taken with. Even got some weights in also lol! Check out below! Please excuse what I happened to be wearing, it was a bit of a throw together as had to head out quickly that morning!

We then head off to see the hotel which is made of just salt where your allowed to stay at if you wish for a fairly hefty price. To be honest though it didn’t really appeal to me in that way as my main focus was getting to the Salt Flats themselves. We had some food there which I think was chicken on the bone but I couldn’t swear by that it actually was or not! It tasted good anyway! Here’s a few photos of that Salt Hotel I mentioned about earlier. Remarkable stuff!

According to fossil records, this salt flat desert was part of prehistoric Lake Minchin from more than 30,000 years ago. Stands at 11,995 feet above sea level (thanks Google), Lake Minchin would’ve competed with Lake Titicaca itself for the highest lake in the world, but it dried up thousands of years ago leaving behind the flat concentration of salt we were all about to see today. The mystery is solved!

Right I think I’ve finally teased you all enough now and likewise I’m as excited as you are to see what comes before me. Words simply can’t describe the way it felt when we finally arrived on that desert of salt! Be sure when doing this though to wrap up warm with a hoodie of some kind, gloves, hat, shades and sunscreen are all an absolute must! Possibly bring with you a lightweight coat as well also but I didn’t bother! It was sunny enough but very cold and windy so shades were called upon as didn’t want to get salt blown into my eyes! Literally feels like I am on the moon here but one things for certain, I am defo over the moon! 😊#cheese!! Hope you like the pics and extra special vids.

After the fun and games of playing around in the salt like a five year old it was then time to head on to see a snow covered volcano surrounded by some pink flamingos. Believe it or not there was a little village beneath the volcano which used to be an island when the lake (which is now the 4000 square miles of salt!) was still around. I saw that even people live at the bottom of a volcano! How on earth they survive is beyond me without an Aldi or Lidls anywhere to be found on my travels to get their food! It fascinates me how people adapt and live like this where they choose to out here in Las Americas. Probably more concerned about when the volcano erupts next to be fair!

We were told we had about 45 mins to spend here as we still had to cram in ‘Isla Incahuasi’ afterwards which is a small island surrounded by giant cacti that grow a meter per century! So random! Heres some scary photos and footage of getting a little too close to the volcanoes surroundings for my liking….

Pretty remarkable stuff eh! Even the water I put my hand in was bubbling and still warm! Anyways we had to head off to get to the cactus island as time is of the essence. Leave it too late out in the desert and we could end up driving around in circles for hours, run out of petrol and end up getting lost until sunrise with no food or water! Not worth taking that chance if you ask me! Onward to the island!

To be fair we had an hour based at the island to take photos with ridiculously sized cactus and grab a hot choc or beer. I went with the thirst quencher and it went down pretty dam quickly after an eventful day so I got another and it was time to head back into Uyuni. Our driver got a well deserved tip for carting us around all day and spent the duration of ride back to the hostel cropping photos and taking in seeing a place like nowhere else on earth! Heres my last few from the Cactus Island ‘Isla Incahuasi’.

Once again I have to remind myself how privileged I am that this is something not many others will ever get to do and I sleep on that in my nice cosy pink double bed back at the hostel. That was infact my last night there and the next day I spent it looking around town in my Peru shirt! Had a random old guy come up to me and said Peru…. F'”k You! I told him to go F'”k himself and could obviously tell the rivalry off other South American nations runs deep within each country.

I got in touch with my parents and let them know all about the amazing experience I had encounterd the day before, did a bit of social media and more hand written drafting of what I have written up here for you guys! That evening was Arsenal vs Bayern in Champions League and Arsenal coming out suprisingly on top! Well done Arsene and Arsenal!

So my bus leaves at 19:30 and I am in for another gruelling twelve hour bus ride back on to La Paz. What I didn’t expect to happen though was one hour in we came to a halt for nearly an hour or so as a vehicle infront of us had gone into a ditch and was blocking the road path up ahead that we had to remain on. Fantastic! We had to wait until the local fire brigade came out to help with the problem and fortunetly the driver was all ok. The dilemma our own driver faced was obvious and we were holding up traffic so he had to make the decision of going back on ourselves and taking a different route of getting around the problem. Remember we are surrounded by rubble desert and no sign of life for an hour or so. We had to turn the vehicle around and head back for half hour where we almost headed into the same ditch during the process! Our driver then thought it would be a good idea to ride through the desert and go forwards again so that we went around the problem infront and that then lead to the bus getting engulfed with rubble smoke fumes. This made everybody based on the bottom tier shoot straight upto the top where I an the other passengers were as they couldnt breath! Talk about being gassed out! Here I am coughing away also trying to breath! This was starting to get unbearable and I thought the worst. Luckily there were enough seats upstairs for those on bottom tier but if you were needing the bathroom it would mean heading back down and once again having no light inside the cubicle once again! Plus they for some weird reason were locked and you had to get a key from the driver to open the dam thing! This is nothing short of a flipping joke! When I actually did have to go I took my phone as a torch like I did before and something to wrap around my mouth and nose so I didnt breath in the fumes coming through closed windows can you believe?! It was lucky I held on in there or I would of ended up soaking myself in my own pi$$ from going over all the bumps we seemed to be going over constantly along the way! Horrible experience!

Anyway enough of the ranting! I get back to La Paz finally in the early hours of the morning and for once the City is quiet! There isnt no airport in Uyuni that takes you to Chile so it meant I had to head back here to continue into my next destination.

I had one last day in La Paz and more importantly Bolivia and wanted to give it one last going over so I went out…. shopping! Thats right! Ended up being suckered into buying more winter wear and an apparant alpaca cardigan or so the seller was telling me it were. It’s hard to stop spending here believe me! It’s so dam cheap that you end up buying things you probably don’t even need! I would need some winter wear for the colder nights up ahead with Chile on the horizon!

So after visiting a country that I wasnt overly keen on at first that soon changed for the better. I actually found Bolivia a fascinating country and all it required was a little bit of love. The way the wealth of La Paz changes as you go through certain areas does make you understand the poverty issues here. You learn to appreciate what goods each area brings. All have something to offer. What I will say though is finding a cemetry within the city where you can see the coffins still based in a huge open based tomb for all to see I did find a little uncomfortable and disturbing. The infestation also of hundreds of random stray dogs is upsetting. Something that certainly needs addressing as I am a big dog lover and the poor things are left to fend for themselves here. A lot like it is in Cuzco.

Saying that if you ever get the opportunity to visit Bolivia though, do it! You simply must. Next step is Santiago Chile from La Paz Aeroporto!

The excitement of another new chapter has begun…