Day 31

Thursday 2^nd December 2010

We’re moving again today. At 10am the bus turned up to take us to Uyuni. The groups had been pooled and so we have a private bus – it left a lot to be desired with dirty yellow seats and the cracked windscreen that seems to be standard on transport in Bolivia. The good news was that we had 2 seats each so could spread out and recline.

The road to Uynui was rough – and that’s an understatement.  Most of it seemed to still be under construction. Even the landscape was desolate. We drove along miles of bumpy winding dirt track, passing arid landscape broken only by odd little thorny bushes, cacti and a few llamas.

Franky passed the time by watching films on the laptop and listening to his iPod.

I mostly slept. There was no lunch break but we’d been forewarned and had cheese, salami and bread from the supermarket in Potosi to make butties so we didn’t go hungry. There were a couple of ecological toilet stops – that’s a wall for the boys and bush for the girls!

We pulled up outside the hotel in Uyuni at 15.30 and were all more than eager to get off the bus. The hotel is new and although it’s basic it seems very nice. We had a bit of a wander about and found, not very much. This small town relies solely on salt mining and tourism for those staying one night before heading off to the salt flats. One of the group described it as a 'one horse town' which I think describes it perfectly - it reminded us of a wild west town.

We congregated in the lobby at 18:30 and headed off for tea at the World Famous pizza restaurant in Uyuni. (what do you mean you haven’t heard of it, it says it on the sign outside!)

The food was good and it was an order at the bar and pay up front kind of affair which meant we didn’t have to deal with the members of the group who were using our tips to make up their end of the bill. The restaurant had lots of pictures on the walls of the salt flats and the quirky pictures you can take due to the lack of perspective out there (there is nothing on the salt flats at all to provide scale so you can take pictures that are optical illusions). They gave us a lot of ideas for tomorrow and also reminded us that we needed to take props!

After tea went to the ‘Extreme Fun Bar’ round the corner. It was……….quiet and no one was having even the mildest form of fun! We ordered our drinks off the ‘wacky menu’ and Suz was repulsed at how her drink (Sexy Llama Bitch) was served (especially when the 'skirt' was lifted).

(those with a weak stomach look away now)

I ordered the tamely named ‘Remember Nothing’ which was 6 shots of liquor topped up with beer and served in an interesting fashion also.

We glugged them down and decided to call it a night, tomorrow we head off in 4x4s for our 3 day excursion to see the salt flats, deserts and lagoons. Can’t wait!!!!