We loaded up our bags on our jeep and met the other people going with us. Tiffany from the Yukon in Canada, Richard from Ireland, and a Spanish couple from the Basque country Spain.
The first day we headed out into the desert into the Salt Flats. We visited the Train Cemetery, which was a place right out side Uyuni that had several old, rusted trains. The trains are actually leftover from the first trains and railways in Bolivia in the 1820´s. We stopped, took some pictures and continued on to Fish Island. The Salt Flats are so neat because its really like a big lake with no water. The neighboring communities make their living off harvesting and selling the salt. They even make houses out of the salt. Fish island is exactly that: some small hills where cactus grows in the middle of flat nothingness of salt. After lunch, which was prepared by our driver-not bad for out of the back of a jeep-we took lots and lots of pictures. This is actually the really sad part is that the camera that we took the pictures on, mine, was lost on the bus ride from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile to Valparaiso, Chile. So we only have a limited amount of pictures from the Salt Flats. They were really cool pictures though! Because its so flat and white you can take pictures of people far away and close up and you can google and see what I mean. The rest of the day we were in the Jeep driving and riding to our hostel that we stayed the night at. That night we sat around and played cards before dinner and then went to bed fairly early.
The next day was kind of like the first. We rode around in the Jeep for hours and stopped to take pictures at cool places. There are several lagoons in the middle of the desert that are home to different species of flamingos. There is also different microorganisms living in the lagoons that make them appear different colors in the afternoon when the wind blows. We saw a green one and two red lagoons on travels to the next hostel. The hostel is right next to a huge red lagoon full of flamingos that is situated in a reserved park. The wind that night was incredible. On our walk back from looking at the lagoon, it took twice as long to get back to the hostel as it did to walk there because the wind was blowing so hard. Our driver/cook had hot tea and hot chocolate for us when we got back that was much appreciated. After a dinner of speggetti we all went to bed really early because we had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning, before sunrise to go to the next spot.
The last day, everyone woke up and quickly put on our warm clothes and packed up our stuff. We were staying at about 4,900 m. Really high up and really cold. It was about an hours drive to the gysers. We were able to get some really beautiful pictures of the sunrise. I´ve never stood on a volcanic gyser before but we did. There were signs everywhere saying how it was a volcanic area and to not get too close. From here we went to a natural hotsprings where Dana, Tiffany, and Richard all took advantage of the hot water. After a nice warm bath our driver, Raul, had breakfast prepared on the back of the jeep one more time. We had hot tea, yogurt and cereal, and pancakes! Raul drove us to the border through the Desert of Salvador Dali (artist who painted the melting clocks painting). We hopped on a minibus there and entered Chile. The bus ride from San Pedro to Valparaiso was 24 hours and probably deserves a post in itself.
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