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14. Uyuni
We've just got back from our tour of the salt deserts & lagoons & stuff.  We had a really lovely group, me & Chlo & a couple Daryl & Melanie & another couple Kristy & Andreas.  We first went to this dead train place, lots of burnt out trains, not v.interesting.  Then we went to the salt deserts, v.v.v.bright white, you could only take your sunglasses off for a few seconds at a time.  We were taken to this fish island, which disappointingly was just the shape of a fish from a bird's eye view, not as I was expecting, a big pile of fish.  It had enormous cacti all over it & they estimated that some were 1250 years old.
 
The 3 of us that had requested vegetarian food got omlette & I think the others got llama.  Then we drove through the deserts some more & got to a small 'museum'.  It was a tiny cave, with rooms 1 & 2 labelled v.unnecessarily.  The other group that was there was made of Germans, one of which was v.v.'games workshop' geeky & insisted on 'translating' for everyone at all times, whinging about the price of everything, & generally being obnoxious.  
We went to the hostel we were supposed to be staying at but rejected it as 'exclusive salt hotel with hot showers' turned out to be cow-shed made of breeze blocks.  The next one wasn't much better but at least had electricity & running water.
 
When we got there the meat eaters got something totally unrecognisable & we got omlette.  The next morning we got fried-scrambled egg.  We went to see all these lagoons, they were all different colours depending on what micro-organisms were living in them & they were all full of flamingos & all reeked of sulphur.  The last one was v.v.pretty, russit red.  V.v.peaceful, the only noise was the flamingos calling.  The whole national park area is totally pastel, & massive, & v.v.lord of the rings.  For lunch we got omlette.  Everyone had really bad tummies by this time, really bad cramps, it seems quite likely that this was due to the excessive amount of eggs & the fact that everything was being cooked in boiled pond water.  At this altitude water boils at 80 degrees.  
 
The next hostel was a large shed, I asked the cook if we were having fish as was promised when we booked the trip, he said yes & then brought out fried eggs & rice, that must have been boiled 3 days previously & moulded into hard semi-spheres with a blob of ketchup & mustard on top of each, resulting in something not dissimilar to lactating breasts.  
 
We were woken up at 4.30, it was quite difficult to get ready in the pitch black.  It was so so so so so cold, we were huddled in the 4x4 in sleeping bags.  It was a bit worrying as all the windows were thick with frost from the inside, but the driver didn't seem bothered about scraping it off & so was just driving blind.  We got to this place that had all these geezers.  It was all mystical & Harry Potter.  It was difficult to be fully appreciative just because it was so cold, even wrapped it the sleeping bag, but it was v.good.  Then we drove to the hot springs.  Everyone went wrapped in lots of layers & dipped their feet in.  The annoying German stripped to his boxers & charged into the middle & completely submerged himself in the metre of water & then demanded that everyone else move out of the way because it was getting too crowded.  Daryl told him to fuck off but he was too busy bellowing 'Thish ish great!!!!' to hear him.  Me & Chloe watched from the car in sleeping bags.  
 
The cook then informed us that it was too cold for him to make us any breakfast, despite there being 4 other groups present who were all eating pancakes.  Daryl stared swearing in cockney & threw a stale bread-roll at him.  The other four got dropped off at the Chilli border, & me & Chloe had to stay in the car.  We drove all day, & got to another shack in the middle of nowhere.  Bizarrely the cooks started being really friendly with us, giving us his own supply of lollies & making us edible food with no eggs.
 
Although we saw lots of things, we were only at each place for 30mins maximum, with 4hours driving inbetween each.  I feel like I have not moved my legs since wednesday.  We're leaving Bolivia tonight by train.  
 
It is my birthday on Sunday.  Me & Chloe want to go to Creamfields which is in Buenos Aries the week after to celebrate it.  If any family members are feeling generous the tickets are about 60 pounds so any contributions will be v.greatfully recieved & it will be a lovely, although obviously less preferable, alternative to spending my 23rd with said family members.  
 
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