From San Pedro we headed into Bolivia. We decided to take a 3 day tour across the altiplano in Bolivia. We were quite nervous about this trip as we could find only bad reviews. We searched the internet for good reviews but the harder we looked the more dodgy it seemed. We read stories of people with altitude sickness, drunk drivers, people nearly being left behind by the drivers (the altiplano is above 4000m and gets about-15 to -20 at night with 30-40km/hr winds), bad sleeping conditions and terrible food. On the other hand everyone said the scenery was amazing, so we decided to pick the agency with the least bad reviews and suck it up and see.
Well… the trip was amazing!!!!!!! We had a fantastic driver who was super nice and wasn’t an alcoholic which was a relief. The first day we were driven up to the border which was just 2 buildings with 2 Bolivian immigration officers (immigration for Chile was in San Pedro). It is amazing where some people have to live just to allow people to cross the borders. They would have been a good 6-8 hour drive to the nearest town in Bolivia.
Soon we were on our way, 6 passengers and a driver in a Landcruiser driving through some breathtaking scenery. On the altiplano there are numerous lakes all with different coloured waters, and they were amazing. Green, blue, white and red coloured lakes, many with flamingo’s feeding in them. We stopped at some geysers and unlike most tourist attractions there were no fences so you could walk right through them which was really cool. OHS not high on the agenda in Bolivia!!!
After that we headed to some natural hot springs which were fantastic. However the cold winds and no change rooms stopped the girls from getting in but a few of us guys enjoyed it.
The next day was more driving and more beautiful scenery. We have had to keep pinching ourselves to enjoy the view as after a while you get used to the amazing scenery. The mountains were amazing as they seemed to have a pastel multi coloured quilt draped over them as they met the altiplano. Really beautiful. That night we stayed in a ‘salt hotel’. The whole thing except for the outside was made of salt. The table, chairs, bed base and even the floor was covered in salt. Really cool!!
Anyway we decided to get up early the next day to catch the sunrise on the salt flat. It was hard, but worth it. The salt flat was amazing. To be able to see the nothing but the horizon (and a few small mountains) was breathtaking. It is the biggest salt flat in the world!! 10,582km square!! It is covered by a few metres of salt and varies in altitude by a maximum of 1 metre across the entire thing!! AMAZING!!! So amazing that on our way back off the salt flat we decided to stop and take some salt home with us. I hope customs in Canada doesn’t have a problem with a white substance hidden in my bag!!! We got to Uyuni and quickly decided to take the night bus to La Paz as the town was a hole!!
Stay tuned for the net episode!! La Paz, death road and the jungle!!!! Enjoy the pics. 
Timeframe: 21st – 23rd September 2013
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