Salar de Uyuni

Wow. Welcome to Bolivia. It's bloody freezing.

Arriving in Bolivia could not be more of a contrast to Chile. After leaving Chilean customs and arriving at Bolivian immigration which can pretty much be summed up by 'one man and his dog' manning the border, we put on all of our extra layers as it was absolutely freezing and ate some breakfast.

We then were separated into groups and got into the 4x4s. My group was great - Helen and Andrea who I got on really well with and were in my hostel in San Pedro, a German guy called Peter and a French couple. Our driver was called Eddy and he was a G.

The first day we were in the national park, and drove to different lagunas including the white lagoon, the green lagoon and the pink one. We also stopped off at thermal springs and geysers. That night we were staying in a Refugio in the national park. There was no heating or electricity and that night you could hear the wind blowing so loudly and when we woke up it was -20 degrees outside. Some people had really bad nights sleeps because it was so cold, but I wasn't too bad because I had put so many layers on and also had my sleeping bag.

The next morning we drove to a couple of other places but because it was so cold and the wind was so bad it made getting out of the car for longer than a few minutes really difficult. At one point when we were driving there was a huge sandstorm and you couldn't see anything out of the windows. We ate lunch in Alota and then continued driving through villages (basically ghost towns - it's pretty remote around here) until San Juan.

That night we stayed in a salt hotel. At first I was really disheartened when I saw the hotel from the outside, because in all honesty it looked like a shack. However, I was surprised as the inside was actually really nice! We were able to have hot showers and charge our phones which was nice. I was in a triple room with Andrea and Helen which was good because it's one of the first times I've managed to sleep without being woken up by snoring! That night we had a really nice dinner and we were also able to use wifi for an hour which was good because I hadn't spoken to Josh for nearly two days.

The next day we got up at 4.30am to set off in time to see sunrise on the salt flats. The salt flats really exceeded my expectations - they are huge and just as cool in real life. The sunrise was really special, and we all took lots of photos. After we drove to this island where there are loads of big cactuses and good viewpoints. It's weird having to walk uphill and be really out of breathe from the altitude. We also got loads of the typical tourist photos and Eddy was pretty good at coming up with ideas of what we could do. Someone in the other group brought a drone with them and they took loads of cool videos.

After we went to Colchani market and I bought some tourist souvenirs and also paid 5Bs to get a picture with a baby llama which was so adorable. It tried to kiss me and my heart melted. We had lunch and then went to the train cemetery as the last stop before the end of the tour.

I was sad the tour was over because I really enjoyed myself. It was nice to be looked after and have all your meals cooked for you. I was also sad to leave Helen and Andrea as we got on so well but they were staying in Uyuni and I was moving on to Potosi with Peter.Read more