Salt Flats

Took my first overnight bus from La Paz to Uyuni for the start of our trip to the Salt flats in Bolivia. A 12 hr journey. Buses are the main means of transportation, and boy what fun it was. Took a xanax and listened to my ipod, but still a rough sleep. Most roads are unpaved so very bumpy. Funniest memory of bus ride, was the bathroom stops since we had no bathroom on the bus. Bus just stopped and everyone piled out. No bathrooms to go to, so u just had to go outside. All the boys were lined up in one spot and girls in the other. This was the start of my 3 day decision of only wanting to go to the bathroom in nature. No one was really around, and when there were bathrooms u had to pay and they were nasty!

Once we got to Uyuni, we had a bit of trouble with our jeep driver Roberto. He did not like the fact that we all had our own backpacks. There was a total of 7 of us, because a couple also joined us. He threw a fit in spanish, but eventually we left. He told us all our bags were going to tip over the jeep and cause problems with the car because of the weight and all the rocky roads we were going to traverse in the next 3 days. Oh well.....too late now.

Luckily our new travelling companion spoke spanish so was able to translate between the driver and us.

Our first stop was Salar de Uyuni, the worlds biggest salt flat. It was huge and an endless white expanse, with some mountains far far away in the distance. The locals actually shovel the salt by hand for processing, but as far as i understood, the salt is only used in Bolivia and not sold elsewhere. The big attraction in the salt flat was the Isla de Pescado. A huge island in the middle of the salt lake. Rocky and full of cacti and views of the mountains beyond the salt flat. Since there was such a huge expanse of white, u could take these awesome photos that skewed perspective. As u can see above, i am shaking a dinosaurs hand. Go figure! We spent at least an hour taking these photos and there are many cool ones of us, diving into coke bottles, jumping over pringles can, and many more.

In the evening we stayed at a hostel made of salt. Pretty awesome, but a little dusty. Drive into the hostel we passed many alpacas and llamas. And of course all the mountains, they are gorgeous! And i got to see my first crop of quinoa, my new favorite dish!