Friday 25 December 2009
Highlights: Exploring the Train Cemetery, Seeing how Salt is extracted, Exploring the Salt Flats, Christmas in Bolivia, Staying in a Salt Hotel

Kelly was struggling due to altitude sickness and went to local hospital to receive some additional oxygen.  Kelly recovered quickly but it was a reminder to us all to take time to adjust to higher altitudes and don’t let yourself lose your breath.

We started today by visiting the Uyuni Train Cemetery which was a great deal of fun exploring and climbing into this old trains.

We then set off to explore the vast Salt Flats.  Before we entered the Salt Flats we were given a demonstration of how salt extraction is done from the ground.

We then headed off in a 4WD safari into the Salt Flats.  It rain a little and this had the effect of the ground becoming a mirror of the sky.   It was very difficult to orientate yourself with the sky both the ground and the sky even our drivers had difficulty finding their location.

We stopped at a small rock foundation in the middle of nowhere and enjoyed a nice Christmas lunch.

From here we headed out to our accommodation for tonight which was a very unique hotel built from salt.  Being Christmas we had a little party, the champagne bottle we uncorked ended up hitting the roof and some salt fell down.  Some drinking, some dancing and in my case having my nails done in different colours and it was a memorable night.