The more observant/nosey amongst you may have already noticed the pictures of my trip to the Salar De Uyuni. Every day I travel, the world continues to amaze me. Tom, our new friends and I spent 4 days in a jeep travelling through the worlds largest salt flats. The Salar De Uyuni was created some 40000 years ago when the Andes rose from the sea and created a plateau 3,656m above sea level. The sea water was then trapped in a large prehistoric lake that has slowly evaporated over thousands of years leaving behind 10000 square meters of flat, seemingly endless, salt desert. Not something you come across every day.
We spent the first morning of the tour travelling up the mountains, taking in some spectacular views and slowly developing altitude sickness. Our driver was a wonderfully friendly and knowledgeable man who couldn’t speak a word of English. He suggested to us that we should chew on Coca leaves as it helps alleviate the symptoms, at least that's what I think he was saying. I can’t say I was overly impressed by the medicinal qualities of coca leaves. If anything it made matters worse as the sensation was similar to chomping on a bag of PG tips. Luckily I managed to pull through and by the afternoon I was quite well acclimatised. We sat down in a Lama field for dinner then pushed on through to a small native village for sunset and fell asleep.
The second and third days were spent driving through yet more fantastic scenery and attempting to take photos of flamingos. Our guide was once again telling us all the important details about the local geography and the local people. Again this is a guess, he could have been talking about gardening for all I know.
On the last day we woke up early to see the sunrise across the salt flats and slept in a hotel made entirely from salt. Even the beds were constructed of the stuff. I don’t know what came over me, but I just had an uncontrollable urge to keep licking the walls. It was like the savoury version of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory.
