Salar de Uyuni - it's flat. That is all.

Since our mammoth bus ride from Lima to Cuzco of 21 hours (+ extra time for the flat tyre) we have taken to making sure that our bus journeys are max 12ish hours. This means that we often end up in little towns with nothing to do.

Our next 'little town' was Potosi. It's only claim to fame being that it is the highest city in the world - supposedly (we have also been told that Lago Titicaca was the highest lake in the world. Apparently that's wrong...) and the mine tours that you can do here.

We decided against taking a claustrophobic and all round depressing tour of the mines(we'd heard stories of as many half the people on a tour turning back). Watching kids as young as 12 work in appalling conditions is not really my idea of a 'tour.' With the amount of dust down there as well, it would have been asking for an asthma attack. Would not want to do two really stupid things in quick succession.

So after one night we took off to Uyuni to tour the much raved about Salt Flats. We piled into an old red Landcruiser with our Spanish speaking guide Mario - no air conditioning, non-functioning windows and luggage strapped precariously to the roof - for a 3 day tour.

The Salt Flats are tremendously beautiful.... and flat. We drove for hours and hours in one direction, no end in sigh - to the horizon is just one big white glare. Mario stopped every hour or so to give a chance to perfect our touristy photos. We didn't quite get the hang of them....

On the second day we hit the mountains - Lagoons and flamingos and geysers galore. It too is beautiful, but after being cooped up in a Landcrusier for a couple days, I (shock, horror) got sick of the rolling hills and egg fart smell (the geysers and some of the lakes stink because they have very high sulphur content). Mario must have thought we were the most uninterested tourists ever when we refused to get out of the car to take photos and insisted he kept driving.

The third day was the least enjoyable. I spent the most of the night running to the bathroom - I've put it down to food poisoning. Not wanting to spend the whole next day wanting to go to the bathroom in the bush, I took an imodium at about 3am. Twenty minutes later I was back in the bathroom, now vomiting. Damn imodium. So the beautiful sunrise - i missed it. I slept pretty much the entire third day in the car.