Day 18 - 4x4 tour - South Bolivia - 5 April 2012

Day 18 – 4x4 tour – South Bolivia – 5 April 2012

This morning we were able to have showers, albeit cold ones! Our place we stayed at last night had no showers.  We got on the road, for an hour and a half until we reached Uyuni, which is where the tour will finish.  Our first stop was at a train cemetery.  There were steam trains which had rusted away.  When steam trains were no longer needed in Bolivia (about 60 years ago) the steam trains were just left in this location and have not been touched since.  Tony would have loved it, and he would be proud of me for taking some photos for him.

When we were done here, we went into Uyuni to drop off all our bags.  We then headed out to the salt plains (Salar de Uyuni) for a look.  We had lunch on the salt plains, which are 12,000 square kilometres, and also took plenty of photos here.  The salt plains create an optical illusion so some of the photos are pretty funny.  There were plenty of stuff ups though, all in search of the perfect photo.  It was good fun.  We then went back to Uyuni and the tour was over.

Ann and I checked into our hostel.  We had decided to stay in Uyuni for a night because we had heard that it is hard to get out of the town strait after the tour.  When we checked in we went for a walk around town, including the markets and also to the bus station to book our ticket out of there for the next morning.  We booked a ticket to Potosi, which is about a 5 hour bus ride, for B30 each (about NZ$5.50).

We went out for dinner with a few people from our tour.  That was good fun.  Ann and I ordered a pizza between us, it was huge! Very nice too.

Cordillera Travel Company - http://www.cordilleratraveller.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
Uyuni Salt Flats - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salar_de_Uyuni
Uyuni - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyuni