Beautiful Bolivia

The salt flat tour was a smashing success. Day one involved driving out to the actual salt flats, wading through the water and generally getting salt all over the truck and our clothes. Given that it´s the rainy season here, the entire salt flat is covered with about 5 inches of motionless water, so it´s like standing on a neverending mirror. We passed through a strange salt town at one point, stopping to poke around and try to find some bathrooms. The town was really bizarre. I had no idea that literally everything in a town could be built from salt. Salt chairs, salt glasses, salt houses, salt poles, very strange and I expected Mad Max to come crashing through at any moment. From there we went south of Uyuni (the town we originally left from) and climbed up higher in the mountains before staying the night in a miniscule little military town somewhere in the desert. The next day was spent driving through llama covered fields and along flamingo filled rivers. The roads in Bolivia seem to be at points non-existant and more often than not we would find ourselves driving either straight cross country or through dry riverbeds, 4x4 is a must. Stayed at yet another military/mining camp that night (at an altitude of 4600+ metres...cold...so cold) then set out in the morning for the hot springs. Swung by the Chilean border (or close to) to drop some people off, then made our way back up country where we spent our third night in a town nearby where we had first slept. The fourth day consisted of driving back to Uyuni and visiting the train graveyard on the way (basically a portion of the salt flat that´s filled with rusty old steam locomotives). In our car were Justin and Misha (I hope thats how you spell it!), a couple from new zealand, who we hung around with through the entire tour, very cool people and I hope to see them again. Justin was a wealth of bizarre drinking games, and each night was spent sitting around a table with a multitude of different nationalities, no one quite understanding one another, but having a good time regardless. This morning we grabbed another 4x4 to go down to Tupiza, where I am currently sitting. The landscape of Bolivia continues to fascinate us all. It goes from jungle to desert to snow capped mountains in a few hours of driving. The area around here is covered with bright red mountains filled with bright green plants, the kind of environment I would expect a dinosaur to pop out of at any given point. Given that we´re quite close to where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid made their final stand, we decided to partake in another horsebacking expedition. We leave tomorrow for a two day trip along some of the mountain routes and should see some more crazy scenery as well as hopefully gun down some outlaws. Took over a 100 pictures, but can´t show any as I don´t have my camera with me at the moment, and even if I did, it´s soo sloooow....Adios!