Funny Hats

hey dudarinos,

so I have just arrived in Uyuni, Bolivia after three days crossing the Bolivian Altiplano (flatlands above 4000 metres) from Chile. It was a frickin fantastic three days but I am well and throughly shagged from head to toe. Up in the Altiplano it is sunny during the day with the clearest bluest skies... but if theres a wind blowing, then its quite cold. However, at night it gets frickin artic to say the least, on the first night it dropped to minus 25 celsius. These Bolivianos havent heard of heating so nighttime is a bit of a nightmare to say the least.

During the day we saw loads of cool stuff: more flamingos and llamas (I have llamas coming out my ears), also lots of different colour mountain lagoons and other generally mountainous stuff.

The highlight of the trip was the Bolivian salt plains though. These are plains of salt (from old salt lakes pushed up from the ocean yonks ago) that stretch for 12500 square kilometres (half the size of Belgium). The "Salar de Uyuni" is the biggest salt plain in the world. There is no perspective when youre out there so it makes for some funny photos (to be posted in the near future)...

On the second night we stayed in a hotel made entirely of salt, pretty cool (literally, very frickin cool). But the salt does isolate a little bit so it wasn{t as cold as the first night. Its also ridiculously dry and I have a serious case of dandruff... on my lips!!!

Luckily enough, I did the tour with a great group as well, a belgian couple and two irish birds and we had great craic. Our driver was also a laugh and we had a nice cook who did some great meals (llama for lunch today).

Anyway, my bus is leaving soon enough so I have to rock and roll... will update with photos once I have chilled out in Sucre a bit.

Oh yeah, and the old women here wear these crazy assed top hat type thingys like from the 18 century.. hence the title of this post.... (for those of you who were wondering)!

Hasta luego!!!! (Photos of the trip here)