Chile to Bolivia via the Salar de Uyuni

We (Anand, Melissa & I) hung out in San Pedro de Atacama for a few days talking to the different tour operators and eventually settled on Estrella del Sur for our 3 day 4x4 tour to get from Chile to Bolivia and visit the salt flats. We chose Estrella because they don't use any of the salt hotels (not environmentally friendly) and the guy in the office was more informative about what we should take/eat/drink and what food would be available on the trip. We made a good decision, the food on the trip far exceeded my expectations and we had comfortable, pretty new jeeps – with good suspension J.

Despite all that, I still got really sick because of the altitude and couldn't stop throwing up the first night and second morning. The first day we visited a bunch of different coloured lagoons, the last of which I didn't get to because I was already really ill by the time we reached our first refugio. I didn't sleep much that first night – despite taking drugs (which I threw up again anyway), my head & heart were pounding, and everytime I looked at the clock, only 10 mins or so had passed. I was near hysterical in the morning when I didn't feel any better – I was beginning to think it would never go away.

Our driver Simone gave me a pill he had stashed away and later in the day I took some Dramamine (sea/motion sickness pills) I had left over from Antarctica, and we were descending from 4100m to 3600m. By the time we reached our refugio that night, I just had a small headache, my appetite had returned and I didn't feel like I was going to die anymore J. The same for Melissa – we were both able to eat with the group that night.

Day 3 saw us up at 5am to get to the salt flats for sunrise. We spent the morning driving through the salt flats and taking the usual touristy/cheesy photos – great fun! We reached Uyuni around midday and went to visit the train graveyard. Unfortunately the trains are not the only thing left to rot in the desert outside of Uyuni, the place is full of rubbish and plastic bags. It looks like a dumping ground.

Uyuni is a strange, dusty little town, and the 6 of us in our jeep had no wish to stay there any length of time, so after tipping our driver we headed down the street to book a bus to Sucre for that night.