Salar de Uyuni.

After being stuck in Sucre due to Miner's strikes and road blocks we finally made it down to Uyuni to begin the famous Solar de Uyuni (Salt Flat tour).  We were put in a group of four others who thankfully were another lovely mix, along with a driver who would be our chofer and chef for the next 3 days. The tour began with the part that everyone talks about, the inpenetrable white vast expanses of salt in which all perspective is expelled. It looked truly magical, glistening in the powerful sunlight like snow. We spent hours here, getting sunburnt by the brutal reflection from the salt and taking cheesy photos of ourselves and others looking tiny in comparison to things, it never got old. Next we went to an island which was literally an island surrounded by the salt flats and completely overrun by ginormous cactai and dead coral. Already were were blown away from afar but actually walking around looking out at the scenery being dwarfed by cactai sometimes at least 6 times our size was more surreal and amazing than the flats themselves. The cherry on the cake here was the addition of eagles and condors circling the island. That night we drove under a carpet of crystal clear stars to the place we would be sleeping, a hostal completely made of salt, outside of which we played with a glow in the dark frisby and finally had a UFO sighting that delighted us.
At the crack of dawn we sped off to a place with four huge volcanos, at the foot of which was a stunning landscape of waves and curves of solidified lava from thousands of years ago. As if the inanimate lava Ocean wasn't surreal enough, it was dotted with the strangest living organisms, green velvet looking blobs that only closest resembled coral however inside they were wooden, looked like seventies furniture. There were also strange hairy brown tufts everywhere, its the closest we'll ever come to being on Mars. Next we entered the beautiful dreamscape of the Salvador Dali Desert, apptly named because it literally looks as if you've entered his paintings. There were multicoloured mountains seemingly oosing and dripping reds, greens, and purples into the sandy golden desert below. Just to top it off we saw a majestic Cayote up close as we were leaving. Our next stop was a collection of huge natural rock formations that were truly breathtaking in the midst of the arid desertscape, the most amazing being the Rock Tree, literally the exact shape of a tree with veins, roots and a powerful energy when you touched it.
A trail of lagoons was how we spent the rest of the day, visiting green, red, blue and and white ones, all equally as stunning as the next and most of them accompanied by a huge volcano in the background. Its sounds bad to say but we were almost desensitised to beautiful sights by this stage. If I had to choose the most beautiful however it would be a lagoon surrounded by salt and snow capped mountains but also lush grassy pastures and the classic volcano centered in the background. It was completely filled with pink flamingo's which made it such a spectacular scene, one we will never forget.
On the last day we got up at 4am and headed to a place with natural Geizer's. I had no idea what to expect but it turned out to be one of the most amazing sights of the whole trip. On arriving, half asleep and absolutely freezing as we were around 5000 feet up, an overwhelming eggy stench filled my nostrils. I put it down to being Lyndon's usual morning bowel purge however  as we edged closer to the scene it started to make sense. Huge towering blasts of sulphuric gas were billowing from the ground, some of them so fast and loud it was intimidating. Others were slowly emerging from open wounds in the ground inside which whitish grey lava was bubbling and making beautiful paisley patterns. I had never seen anything like it, we stood in complete awe of the place getting slightly light headed on the eggy fumes, but no more so than from lyndon's, he got a taste of his own medicine. We could have happily spent all day here but the driver hurried us back into the car after about half an hour of hopping through the mini volcanos, we were so reluctent to leave.
Our last stop was the hot springs, something we hadn't been too excited about as we had been to a few before and they always just ended up being pretty much a jacuzzi full of fresh 18 year olds trying to pull. This one was much the same plus we were annoyeed that they were charging for it and we had no towels. The rest of our group had to get to the Chillean border in a hurry so the driver arranged to take them and come back for us in a couple of hours. We decided to swerve the natural jacuzzi and went for a walk around the huge lake which was covered in ice. You could barely see through the hazy mist of steam that was emitting from it and as the lake was heating up from the slowly rising sun the ice was melting on the surface. We took our shoes off and walked through it, testing the ice and loving it when it cracked and hot water pulled us down. Visible through the mist, in the distance were the surreal and delicate sillhouettes of flamingos. We had to try and get close to them without letting them know we were there, the slightest movement from a distance could see the back of a whole flock. We crept, alomost crawling in the shallow hot water, making sure the mist covered us the whole time. This was a photographers wet dream, the flamingos had no idea we were there and they were edging closer all the while. I managed to get some snaps on my film camera, hands trembling as I had to blindly change the film whilst balancing on one knee. It was magical, we felt like we'd been transported to some heavenly plane. The peace didn't last however because the melevolence took over and we couldnt help ourselves chasing them to see how hilariously they ran, it was worth it.