It's advertised as a 3 day tour of the salt flats, but really it's a tour of the whole south west of Bolivia.

Somewhere around mid morning I was picked up in the jeep that would be home for the next 3 days. Our driver was called Omar and our guide was Diego. Together with a Danish couple and an Irish couple, we departed Uyuni. First stop was a train cemetery.

At some point, the Bolivian government privatised the rail system. The rail system was used for passengers but also for transporting the various minerals Bolivia was mining. Especially silver, copper and salt. When, in the 40's the mineral prices crashed, a lot of the mines closed and the people left. The trains were all dumped just outside of Uyuni and as the years have gone on they have rusted and the remaining locals have stolen parts of the trains to make other things.

Today, it's a tourist attraction where you can climb in and on the trains and take train selfies until your hearts content.

After the excitement of the trains we headed towards the salt flats. It was a gradual change. The ground underneath us became whiter and whiter and then the hexagonal shaped cracks started to appear.

By this point we had left the roads behind and little did I know, at this point, that I wouldn't see another paved road for 3 days or until I was well into Chile! We drove and drove until we stopped. In the middle of no where. The only thing to indicate a location was a tyre. Standing up on the salt. And that was it. We were dropped off here and given mountain bikes and the instructions to "cycle straight forward until you get to the hotel". Ok then.

Getting a selfie on a bike, where you can actually see that I'm in a bike, proved a lot harder than I thought! But off I went. Turns out cycling on the salt flats is a lot harder than it looks too. Especially considering the gears on my bike were broken and seemed to be stuck in unbelievable-hard-to-peddle-gear! The cracks in the salt didn't help either as they were quite high in some places. But after much huffing and puffing I made it to the hotel. The salt hotel. One of three in the area. Completely made out of...? Yup, salt! As I cycled up, hiding behind our jeep was a picnic table! The guide was busily preparing our lunch. Now I understood why he cycled past me so fast. I didn't think it was very Bolivian of him. In a land where everything is manaña, manaña!

And the picnic was no standard affair... No. We dined on alpaca steaks with quinoa and salad! I was tempted to jokingly ask if there was any salt, but with it being the first day, and wanting to make a good impression on my fellow tourers, I kept my sarcasm to myself. Lunch was packed away and we headed off to a place ideal for taking those illusion photos everyone has.

This is where I found out that trying to do handstands on salt is not pleasant! And that, I can't hold a handstand long enough to even get a decent photo!

We then continued on to an island. Incahuasi island. Or Incas house. Island is a bit of a strange concept when you are driving on what should be the water part. It was an island full of cacti.

They grow at a rate of a cm per year and reach a maximum height of 8m. If they grow above this, the wind breaks them.

From cactus island we drove to another island. At this point the sun was getting close to setting so we were racing against time a bit to get to the sunset location. Anyway, the island. At first it just looked like any island, with a massive cave. I didn't expect much. And to be fair it wasn't that interesting... But the group photo... Pretty cool!

So then it was back in the jeep and full steam ahead! To what seemed like another random spot in the middle of the salt flats. At this point I was starting to wonder how the drivers knew where they were... The guide asked me to point to the direction I thought Uyuni was in. Normally my internal compass is pretty spot on. Here, however, I wasn't even close! This place is completely disorientating! The guide explained that they use the mountains to navigate. No problem on a blue sky day like this, but in winter the whole place is covered by low hanging clouds.... No idea how they find their way then! Anyway, the sunset was amazing as expected. Diego, the guide, was also a budding photographer and as such had plenty of cool ideas for photos...

It's amazing how fast the sun disappears here. Within 2 minutes of getting out of the jeep it was gone.

And then it got cold. Really cold! Really fast! Seeing as though it's forbidden to drive in the flats when it's dark, we had to get out of there fast! Or risk getting lost.

I've never really thought about this... But the sun rises and the sun sets... What about the moon? Well, I experienced my first moon rise in the salt flats and it was magical! The moon was so huge and clear! We happened to be along side of a lake when it started rising up from the horizon and the reflections on the water surface were amazing! The iPhone camera may be good, but not good enough to capture this unfortunately...

Day 2 we headed away from the salt flats and more into the lagoon areas. First lagoon was called Largo Cañapa. Home to 3 species of flamingoes! The Andean flamingo, the James flamingo and the Chilean flamingo.

Some times there can be up to 25,000 flamingoes on the lagoons in Bolivia but because it is winter they have all flown to warmer climates, so we only saw a few. We stopped at around 5 of the lagoons in total. All slightly different, some looked coloured due to different minerals or organism in the water. Such as the red lagoon, green lagoon and the white lagoon. We also made a stop at the stone trees.

Where wind erosion has created tree like forms from the rocks. The Incas had very active imaginations and the guide also told us we could see other animal forms in the rocks... But I dunno, they just looked like rocks to me!

Last stop before the hostel was the geysers.

Tonight's hostel was really more like a building site. There was no floor in the rooms, just pebbles. And there was only one toilet for the whole hostel. No showers. No heating. And the electricity only worked from 6:30pm until the generator was switched off at bed time. It was an interesting night... Next to the hostel was a natural hot spring. As one of the two hostels close to it, we were allowed to go in there. After dinner. When it was pitch black. And freezing cold! But the hot spring would be 39 degrees so nice and warm. It was! It was great. Laying in a hot spring, in Bolivia, under the moonlight gave a fantastic view of all of the stars. There is literally nothing around here and the places that are here have no electricity. So no light pollution. It was a great experience. Getting out of the hot springs not so much... It was cold... And there was no way to warm up. No heating or hot showers. Just layering of clothes and getting straight into bed. With 5 blankets and a sleeping bag. And sleeping fully clothed. It was a cold night. I think it was around mid afternoon the next day before I could feel my toes again... Oh yeah we got free bottle of Bolivian red wine in the hostel. We had to drink it from shot glasses. It was all very classy. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be... But I'm looking forward to the vineyards in Argentina much more!

The final day consisted of 2 stops. The first one was alongside the road at a place they call Dali Valley. Because it looks like something Salvador Dali could have painted. The second another lagoon. On the border with Chile.