Bolivia; into the wild.

 Our night bus from Salta dropped us very early in the morning at the small border town of La Quiaca which at 6 in the morning was really really cold, so together with about 20 locals we huddled in the bus station before getting to the boarder when it opened at 7.00 am. We discovered the laxest border yet as we walked through to Bolivia with no one there only to be sent back when someone discovered we had not stamped out of Argentina. We got ourselves stamped out only to be again sent back when we had not been stamped into Bolivia, so after crossing into Bolivia twice unofficially we finally made it in with a proper stamp in our passports.

We walked into the bright cloudless town of Villazon where desperate for warmth (it must have been about -2) we discovered a woman with a trolley containing hot pots of various food and after the now usual pointing manoeuvres found ourselves the proud owners of a massive bowl of spicy potato and meat soup. A wonderful introduction to Bolivia as the Argentinians think that pepper is a wild spice and should only be used with discretion and we had been craving a bit more zip in our food.

We caught the first bus out of town to Uyuni, as our guide book said that Villazon was a dump although in our brief stay we found it very pleasant just cold.

 The bus drive to Uyuni was a seven hour epic along unmade roads rising up and up into the Andes.

 We arrived at Utuni, an old railway town, which was only really built because it was on the junction of Bolivia's rail network. It's railway station is the biggest building in town and it's railway heritage litter the streets.... literally!

 The reason to go to Uyuni is to go on a tour into the salt flats and down south into the very high Andes and visit the national park there. We signed on and next morning headed out to the salt flats in a big Land Cruiser. Our fellow passengers were more upmarket than us and were staying at the edge of the salt flats in this hotel totally built of salt.

 Once out into the endless wastes of the worlds largest salt flats the thing to do is to have fun with the perspective taking pictures.

 Including our driver Luis (black hat) there were 7 of us, we were treated really well and the food was excellent. There is an island in the lake which we also explored.

 Apparently these cacti are 700 years old.... also note how it was so cold I've had to buy a hat.

 Our digs for the night were in another hotel built of salt.

 In the morning we headed south briefly crossing the flats before heading up and up and up. We thought we had been high before but now we started venturing up to the snow line.

 Where at lunch time we came across these funny little critters called  viscacha a long tailed rabbit that bounces over the rocks. We discovered later that they did not taste too good being very tough. Not hard to see why.

 On we went to see believe it or not flamingos!!

 Weird wind formed rock formations, and as we entered the park itself snow storms. This is the dry season, obviously another case of weather being affected by too many English people being around. This put a stop to photos and anyway by now it was really really bitterly cold and even Liza was finding this a bit much. We spent the night in what the Bolivians described as a refuge which will give you some idea of the standard of accommodation although to be honest we were really well fed and once tucked up in sleeping bags and blankets we were not too cold although I did make sure i did not need to get up in the night to go to the loo!

 The next morning saw a dusting of snow that had been swept across the plains (I think we were at about 5200m here) which did mean that our planned trip even higher had to be curtailed  although the rock formations on the way out were spectacular.

 Lama herds were fairly common.

 The rock formations were so spectacular even Liza had a go at climbing them.

 Then as we returned to Uyuni we had a quick detour to this train graveyard where an abandoned project to increase the Latin American track had failed leaving these never used trains to slowly rust in the dry semi desert conditions.

The next day we took the bus to Potosi, our guide book said 6 - 8 hours only they have just build a brand new road which meant that we swept there in three and a half hours. Potosi is the highest town on earth at 4200m and boy do you know it! A stroll up or down the streets soon leaves you gasping, although considering the up and down we have been doing since we went on our road trip in Argentina we are, I think ,pretty well adjusted. I have had issues sleeping at this altitude and Liza has had a couple of headaches. Even so I do think climbing to the top of the bell tower of one of the many churches as soon as we hit town was not the most sensible decision we have ever made!

 But the views are pretty spectacular.

Potosi was founded by the Spanish because of the silver in the hill in the picture above. It was for well over 100 years the worlds main source of silver and the hardships endured by the indigenous people and African slave in extracting it was immense. However the buildings left by the Spanish including the mint, are spectacular. The mint has been turned into a superb museum and we enjoyed our visit.