Could somebody pass the salt?

On Thursday I returned from one of the most incredible places on earth - the Salar de Uyuni and its equally fascinating surrounding landscapes. It´s the world´s largest salt plain at a mahoosive 12,000 km2, formed when the prehistoric salt lake Lago Minchin dried up. We had lots of fun messing about on the salar, climbing salt mountains and trying to create optical illusions with our cameras. I visitied a tiny salt museum and we stopped to see some bubbling thermal waters. There were even hotels made entirely of salt, from the walls to the tables and beds, one of which we were lucky enough to stay in. The salt plain consists of 5 cm of salt, underneath which is a shallow lake followed by a huge mass of even more salt allowing us to walk and drive all over it.

The jeep was really good and I made friends with an English girl Nicky and an Irish couple called Brian and Lorraine. Mario and Felicia were our guides (a cute married Bolivian couple dressed in the traditional clothes, and Felicia spent all of her time knitting a jumper!) and they cooked us some brilliant food including llama steaks and the best pancakes I have ever had.

Before the salt lake we went to a train cemetery where Nicky and I clambered over the rusting locamotives like a couple of kids. After the salt plain we drove to one of several islands covered with really huge cacti, sporting some incredible views over the salar. We visited a cave formed by fossilised algae and another containing the old tombs of pre-Incan bodies, and a pre-Incan house containing whole skeletons of the residents and a big collection of pottery and weapons. I have never been so cold as during the nights on the trip, but thanks to plenty of warm clothes and a ton of blankets we just about managed to keep our toes warm.

On the second day, away from the salar, the scenery began to change and resemble something more like Mars or the moon. One of the most impressive features was the famous Tree of Stone which defies logic as the base is so narrow and the top so wide. The road got progressively worse and we had to jump ship on the edge of the cliff when Mario got the jeep stuck! Boy was it a bumpy ride. We visited several lakes, all of which are inhabited by flamingoes, but the most spectacular had to be the Laguna Colorado - a mystifying blend of red, blue and white waters that I still can´t quite get my head around.

On the last day we visited a geyser basin and I´ve never heard anything quite like the hissing of the holes in the earth. We reached a thermal bathing pool in time for sunrise but all chose the warmth of the breakfast house over the biting cold and hypothermia. Our last stops were a couple more lakes before I endured an 8 hour drive all the way back to Uyuni - mentally draining and sore from the bumps!

A near death experiece come dodgy bus ride brought me to Tupiza where I shared a dorm with a German girl (Celia) and 2 French women (Stephanie and Gail). Celia and I went out at night then in the morning we filled up at an awesome market. The area was the final stomping ground of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and is blessed with landscapes of rolling red hills and cactus forests. We took a walk for a few hours around the town then chilled out with some more people and their guitars in the hostel. Dinner was enjoyed to the sound of fireworks as the locals celebrated the last day of Autumn and congregated around fires in the streets.

This morning I had a 3am start which brought me to the Argentinian border, where I met a nice Irish guy thank the lord! I was the only gringo on my bus and had heard horror stories about the immigration police. We breezed through and took a 7 hour bus to Salta where I am staying for a few days now, and hope to meet back up with Nicky, Brian and Lorraine. I am already falling for Argentina where the buses are warm and comfortable and have toilets and tvs! (non-existent in dear old Bolivia) The people seem really friendly and I have spotted a fair few steakhouses that are sure to help me build my strength up after my recent stint in hospital. Thank you all for your hopes that I am better - I am happy to say that I have fully recovered :)

Mmm, intravenous fluids

Most of you won´t have heard from me in a while and may be wondering what I´m up to, but I bet you didn´t guess I was in a Bolivian hospital fighting off salmonella, a parasite and bronchitis?! I started feeling ill in Copacabana, our first stop in Bolivia which is on the lovely Lake Titicaca (the highest lake in the world and the largest lake in South America). Karen and I missed out on visiting the islands in the lake for a day in bed and there we stayed until it was time to move to La Paz. I was feeling even worse in the capital and when the altitude sickness tablets didn´t help I called in the doc. He quickly diagnosed me with the above and I was ferried off to his clinic where they hooked me up to a drip for 4 days and pumped me full of fluids and antibiotics. It was a nice place where I had a private en suite room and 3 meals a day (force fed mind you!), but by no means was the place sterile like our hospitals. Still, I feel almost as good as new now and ready to carry on with my adventures. It´s put me behind schedule which is a major spanner in the works, so I´m missing out Brazil and taking my time here and in Argentina instead. Karen has flown home and Sian and Phil have gone to Peru, so it´s just little old me again for a wee while until I meet the group I shall be discovering the Salt Plains with. Now I´m off to finally discover the city I have already spent a week in, including the scarey sounding Witches Market where they sell dried llama foetuses! They´re supposed to bring good luck to a new home and do various other hokery pokery special things, but I´m still not convinced, and I don´t want to give customs any more reasons to have a good frisk!

Cusco

My last days in Lima were spent chilling out in Starbucks and the parks on the coast, and volunteering at a couple of refuges in the suburbs of the city. One was run by a Swiss lady called Doris who lives with 12 children who have come to her through social services, including 4 cute quadruplets and twin boys - bless their little alpaca woollen socks! I helped feed the littluns and played with the bigger children, then after lunch we visited another refuge. This is a day centre for the poorest children in the nearest shanty towns, which feeds them and teaches them various skills. Soon it will also be home to 2 young mothers and their babies. It hopes to give them the courage and skills they need to get back on their feet and support themselves and their children. The houses were brilliantly run and I was very impressed by the dedication of the people working there. These sorts of places are vital for Peru and its people and I´m glad I could see them and give a little support.

A 20 hour coach journey brought Sian, Phil, their friend Karen and I to Cusco where we have been for 6 days. I persuaded my Inca Trail company to refund most of my deposit and cancelled the trek, opting instead for the train, which by the looks of some of the trekkers at the site was the best move I have ever made! The air here is lacking in oxygen and so thin that I wake up most nights gasping and dehydrated. The city of Machu Picchu was an incredible sight to behold and our tour guide, though extremely annoying, helped us understand quite a lot about it. We had time to wander by ourselves and in doing so encountered lots of cute and fluffy llamas. I´m glad we went to MP but it was ridiculously expensive and a big hassle to get to it. The state of tourism in Cusco needs some serious rethinking too. It boasts about 500 tour companies, half of which are not genuine, making it extremely hard to find a good and trustworthy tour, and backpackers have been forced to get to Machu Picchu by a certain route leaving the government free to name a dishonest price. Even the official tourist information office with its uniformed staff and modern decor told us lies to get to our dollars.

We didn´t intend on staying in Cusco this long but it´s a beautiful place, surrounded by mountains and ruins and with a very Peruvian feel to it. Sian and I followed a huge and colourful procession around the city on Sunday and I managed a reunion with my Irish girlfriends last Friday. Tonight we head to Bolivia where Lake Titicaca and the salt plains await me, hopefully without any of the horror stories that some people have been telling. My friend Ellen witnessed a bus crash the other day in which a canadian girl died, so I´m staying well away from the night buses at all costs!

The city of the Incas - simple farming folk are believed to have lived here, but it is celebrated for surviving the invasion by the Spaniards who failed to discover the site

One of several llamas who inhabit Machu Picchu