Lakes and volcanos

So we had no plans to go to the Salar de Uyuni, mostly because Chris had already been there.  But inevitably, with it being a highlight of Bolivia, everyone we met was talking about it, and couldn´t believe we weren´t going, which made me wish that we were.  So before I knew it, our plans had changed and we were off to the land of lakes and volcanos, on a three day trip.

"Salar de Uyuni" is a bit of a misnoma, the salt flats are an amazing sight, especially when you are standing on an island covered in catcus, but surrounded as far as you can see in all directions by the salt plain, which looks more like ice than salt. 

But there´s so many other things to see on a trip from Uyuni.  Most of it is close to the border with Chile, and as you drive along  you are surrounded by never ending amounts of volcanos and mineral rich lakes of amazing colours.  My absolute top 3 highlights were the flamingo lake, which was an incredible lake anyway, with huge amounts of flamingos flapping around, and snow-topped volcanoes in the background;

 

 then the natural hot springs

and finally the red lake, which really was blood red, with pink flamingos. 

Deciding on the llama awards for this trip was rather tricky.  Overall, we decided the 3 day trip warranted a silver llama.  Even though everything we saw was so amazing, it couldn´t quite get gold due to the freezing cold and rather skanky accommodation on the 2nd night, the fact I could barely breathe due to the altitude and the presence of Luis who snored so loudly not a wink of sleep could be had.  I´ve told Christopher that if he ever starts snoring like that, wherever we are living, he will be housed in an annex, far away from me, and he didn´t disagree.  However, in addition, we decided that the flamingo lake was so tip-top that it deserves a special award in a category all of it´s own, that is an honoury golden flamingo award.

There were lots of other cool things too, much too numerous to list her, but por ejemplo:  the fact on the first night we stayed in a hotel made entirely of salt - the floor, the brics, the tables and chairs, all made of salt.

And all the volcanic and geyser stuff.  I particularly like this photo, taken at the crack of dawn.