Atacama to Uyuni - day tres

Our last day of the tour called for an early wake up call so we could head off to Isla de Pescado to watch the sunrise. Of course it had to be cloudy on the one day we were up in time to see the sunrise though! It was still impressive however as it was a pile of coral (that used to be under the sea) with huge cacti all over it, sitting in the middle of a salt flat that stretches as far as the eye can see. 

Even despite the clouds there were still some pretty incredible colours that we got to enjoy as our feet and legs turned numb (squats work a treat to warm you up again!).

Next up was the moment we had all been waiting for... Cheesy perspective photos on the salt flats! We had a wee practice run by the island before our driver would drive us into the middle of the salt flats to do the real thing. Some practice shots below.

 

Getting a good a shot is a lot harder than you would think but after 1.5 hours out there we managed to get some shots we were pretty happy with. Everyone was having a great time as the sun was out and so it was actually warm enough for us to strip down to one layer instead of the usual 5 we had become accustomed to needing.

Next up was one last photo op by the salt museum (we peeked in the windows and weren't very enticed). Fred decided we should create a human sign and his first idea was less than tasteful but thankfully Uyuni was suggested. We were pretty happy with the result! 

After leaving the salt flats we stopped off at some heavily overpriced I'm sure, markets where I got some warm socks as my feet had been ice blocks for days. 

We then got to enjoy a fabulous lunch of cold chicken schnitzels and pasta (I obviously skipped the chicken). Again, welcome to Boliva. People really weren't kidding when they said the food was shocking here. 

Last stop on our tour was the train graveyard. Our guide told us the trains had been decommissioned in Uyuni when diesel engines were introduced. 

We had been told that Uyuni was not the kind of place you want to stick around in and after arriving there is became pretty clear that they were right. After only being there a short amount of time we saw a young girl walk infront of us and then pop a squat in the gutter to go toilet. 

We managed to book ourselves onto a bus that left at 7pm that night to Potosi with the rest of the jeep wolf pack (apart from Khalid who had met a friend and was staying on in Uyuni). That meant we had a few hours to kill so we wandered the markets of depressing stall after stall, selling a whole lot of junk, or food that made me gag from the smell of it (not dissimilar to tinned dog food). It's so sad to see what people are trying to sell for a living. But also fascinating as they would be selling new fancy new cellphones next to reallllly old TVs. Somehow the flat screen phenomen hasn't caught on here, but the smartphone one certainly has.

We also ventured into a museum to check out some Bolivian mummies who had been preserved in the traditional burial squatting stance (this was practiced until Spanish invaded and introduced the lying down position). We also got to enjoy some lovely cone shaped skulls that had been all the rage - they would bind children's heads in order to change the shape of the skull to give them higher social status. Unsurprisingly this lead to blindness, deafness, and often an early death. Thankfully that's no longer the rage, instead the kids are after a pair of Nike shoes in order to gain themselves higher social status. 

We then had a real Bolivian restaurant experience with there only being one woman manning both the restaurant (which was empty but filled completely as we awaited our meals) and cooking the food. It was a tad stressful as we were on a tight schedule to make our bus but thankfully managed to make it with a few minutes to spare. 

Next stop, the mining city of Potosi.