Uyuni Desert Day 3

Our group awoke at the guide appointed time of 4.30 am for a 5 o'clock start, however our guide had got drunk the night before and wasn't up until after 5. 6 ticked over and our jeep was on its rickety way across through the darkness. The cold had left a layer of ice covering the inside of the car windows, and we huddled close with sleeping bags to try and stay warm in this fridge with wheels. As the car gradually warmed, we started to feel a little more comfortable. When the car veered off the path and into a dirt embankment we realised that the driver also felt a little more comfortable and had nodded off in the middle of what he was doing. Quickly, the window came down and icy air filled the cabin. We were cold, but our driver's state of consciousness was assured.






First stop were geysers and boiling mudpits, all spouting gloriously super-heated gasses from deep below. The driver, no doubt impatient to make up for lost nap time, then rushed us off to some thermal pools, where we floated about in natural warm water baths surrounded by ice on every side. After the dip, I instinctively left my shorts in the sun on the bonnet to dry. We returned after breakfast to find them frozen completely solid, unable to be folded and suitable for hammering nails.

Sunrise through the ice inside the car window

Frozen shorts

After another mountain/lake combo or two, the last stop was a small brick shack called the Bolivian border, where we were packed onto busses and sent on our way to the oxygen rich climes of Northern Chile.