To the End of the World and Back

We are back in the small town of Uyuni after 3 long days in the car. We had a good time, but the long car ride of the last day was a little tedious. Today we are sleeping in, relaxing in the hotel, and buying our train tickets to head to Argentina tomorrow. The landscape here is stark. The Salar de Uyuni was amazing. The glistening white sand went on for miles in every direction (over 4,000 square miles of salt!). We ate lunch prepared by our cook (Santusa) and headed up the hill for a look. There were thousand-year-old cactus everywhere. A 15 foot one that had fallen had a sign that said it was over 800 years old. When I explained that the cactus was already here when Columbus landed - the girls were surprised. When we visited some rock formations, we saw an animal that was a relative of rabbits. It had a long fuzzy tail like a squirrel and ears like a rabbit, but smaller. It's called a viscocha. They were lightening fast and we were not able to get very close to them. This is one of the best photos we got of one - they were pretty skittish. We asked several times for our driver (Ismael) and cook to eat with us. Each time they politely refused. It was nice to be taken care of but I felt a little bad about all of the work they were doing while we played cards and went to bed early. We were able to snap a photo of the girls with them before we got in the car the last day. The image that totally blew my mind was when we pulled up to Laguna Canapa. We opened the car doors and were blown away by a frigid wind. As we walked toward the lake, we were stepping around small pools of ice and frozen mud. There were hundreds of flamingos in the water! They make such a cool noise. Bright pink tails and long bony legs. Watching them fly was probably one of the most grace-filled moments of this entire trip. Meghan and I shot a short video that makes me laugh every time I watch it.

We are all excited about finally heading into Argentina. We bought the train tickets and travel all night to the border and cross early in the morning. I think we might actually be a week or less from being in one place. We will be just short of 3 months of travel (we left 30 June) when we settle down. I'm looking forward to finally unpacking my suitcase and taking off these blasted hiking boots!