Salt Flats

We arrived in Unyi at 6am on the Sunday morning after a horrible night bus. It was time to do what we did best and bargain our way onto a good tour. A few tour agents and we find a guy with what appears to be a slightly better tour but wants 800 Bolivianos and everyone else wanted 750bs. The tours didn't start till 11 so we headed for breakfast, to check reviews and keep him sweating. Myself and Max went back to him after breakfast and he happily agreed to 750bs. Off we headed on our tour, the driver was very quiet and didn't speak any English. We drove for about 40 minutes and saw the old trains that had been abandoned only ten years ago, even tho they looked way way older. 

From there we drove onto the salt flats, saw salt mines, stopped for lunch in an old hotel made from salt, even the tables. We decided it'd be funny if we shaved mustaches into our beards for the pictures, max was against it tho. We went to a market where we saw a load of salt sculptures and could buy different souvenirs. We stopped further in the salt flats and took the usual silly photos, and headed for an island. We got to walk around the island, as such, it was basically rocks in the middle of the salt flats with big cacti growing all over after we headed to see the sunset.

 Unfortunately on the way to the hostel our jeep broke down, other groups passed us and waved one guy stopped and decided we were unsaveable. The driver tried to fix it but gave up and without even telling us just walked off up the road. Abandoned and clueless to what was going on, we persuaded Maxi to get a moustache like the rest of us. Fortunately we'd brought some rum, so we started on that for the next hour with no clue to when we'd be rescued. Eventually we saw lights in the distance a jeep and our driver was back to tow us. We quizzed the driver as to what was wrong and he told us it was the fuel pump, well pointed at it. 

Obviously none of us had very good Spanish, but we were told our driver had basic English. We got our dinner some how it was still warm and headed to bed as we were up at 6 for sunrise. After breakfast and sunrise, a jump start we were back on the road, about an hour later the jeep was broken down again we reckoned the battery was drained and the alternator was screwed, and something was shorting causing the jeep to cut out when the revs dropped. Because it was an automatic we couldn't push start it so every time we broke down we had to hope there was still someone behind us and that they'd stop to help. We spent the rest of the day breaking down and seeing sights, odd rocks, the highest caves in the world filled with tombs, rock shaped tress, lagoons full of flamingos. A new hostel, where it was freezing cold and no showers, was our base for the night. Wine and cards and up at 4, to watch sunrise and head to the hot springs. Again we were breaking down and needing rescuing. There was no jump leads so they held a battery close to our battery held two wrenches and started the jeep, we had to skip the geysers as the driver was afraid the jeep would cut out and we were behind time. You could still see them so we didn't mind too much.

 The hot springs were lovely and relaxing, with an unbelievable view. At this point we'd ran out of bolivianos and no one had told us you had to pay for the hot springs, well we were already in and a guy was looking for our tickets we said we'd show him after. Every bathroom cost money too so we were in quite some trouble. Mark snuck into the bathroom and we managed to avoid the ticket man. Back in the jeep and we were off to Chile. Leaving Bolivia we were met with the 'leaving tax' of 15bs each, we'd no money and knew the tax was made up so the blame was passed down the line as we each said our amigo was paying, somehow we managed to get out of it, as the the two guards were completely useless. 

We got to San Pedro De Atacama for 12 but not before the strictest border crossing yet, our bags were fully searched, well they basically pulled loads of stuff out of our bags and watched us repack them. San Pedro looked really nice and we wanted a good hostel so we went to a restaurant with wifi and got lunch, found a few hostels and agreed on one. Hostel was nice we got a 2 bed and 3 bed so had a load of space. What a day to arrive! There was a local concert on that night so we had dinner, around 10 of us and headed up to the concert, it was good until a comedian came on to close and we had no idea what he was saying. Wednesday we had a pretty chill day, enjoyed the sunshine and explored the town. We were set to go on a horseback tour to Death Valley and see the stars, but we were told it's a full moon so we wouldn't see much, the tour was 60€ too so not worth doing for no stars. Thursday morning I got up at 8 said good bye to the gang and headed for Salta, Argentina, exactly two weeks before my flight home. Gotta get to Rio!!