Highlights

I said in an earlier posting that both while we were travelling, and since we have been back, we frequently have been asked which was our favourite country or place.  I also said that I find it impossible to give a single answer to that question as I don't feel I can reduce such a fabulous year down to just one 'best' thing.

So instead, we have come up with a short-list of our highlights from this first year.  In no particular order, it would have to include:
* laid back and gastronomically fabulous Palermo area of Buenos Aires, not least for its cafes, cakes, steak and wine.
* amazing scenery on the Bolivian Altiplano between the Atacama Desert and the Uyuni Salt Flats;
* satisfaction at managing a proper conversation in Spanish with our home stay host in Raqchi, even if our teacher would have been horrified at all of the mistakes;
* exhilaration of adventure activities, such as ziplining, white water rafting and sand boarding;
* relief that we all made it safely out of the fire at Shangri-la
* unconditional friendliness from Colombians who were so pleased to welcome us as tourists to their country;
* seeing the moai left as they were abandoned in the quarry on Easter Island;
* watching - and more particularly hearing - chunks of ice cleaving off the vast and beautiful Perito Moreno glacier;
* grandeur of the fjords, lakes, mountains and volcanoes of southern Chile;
* experiencing the strange feeling of being in a village in England despite being 8000 miles away in the Falkland Islands and having the chance to talk to the islanders first hand about how they feel about the question of their nationality;
* being pecked by penguins and watching their comical antics in the Falklands and Antarctica;
* simply being in Antarctica, the coldest, windiest, driest, and highest place on earth;
* getting wet at the spectacular Iguassu Falls;
* meeting some fabulous people, some fleetingly, some who have become friends and we will hopefully be seeing again sometime, somewhere in the world!

Over the coming weeks I may add a few posts about some of these highlights and what made each of them so special.

Uyuni Salt Flats



Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia



Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia

Despite enjoying our hotel in Uyuni so much, we did at least drag ourselves out of it to spend the day on the salt flats.  

Salt hotel, Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia



Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia

The salt flats are  12km2 and we were taken out by locals in their jeeps. 

Our jeep already had a rather large crack through the windscreen, and while we were loading up a wing mirror broke off!  But we made it through the trip OK, so it didn't matter.



ColchaniUyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia



Isla Incahuas, Salt Flats, Bolivia



Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia



Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia



The salt flats used to be a lake, but it dried up leaving salt around 7-10 metres deep.  Locals mine the salt and export some of it, but they only work on the edges, so much of the salt flats look pristine except for a few tyre tracks.  It is a strange sensation, as we often found ourselves referring to it as snow or ice, presumably because that is what a large expanse of white would normally be in our terms of reference.


We entered the salt flats at Colchani, which is a mining town, and where we we given the opportunity to look at all of the various alpaca wares and other touristy bits that were on sale. 

    

Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia



Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia



Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia



Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia



Our next stop off was the salt hotel, which is made largely of salt, but is disapproved of by many conservationists on the basis that the waste from the hotel can contaminate the salt flats.  We then headed to the middle of the salt flats to an 'island' called Isla Incahuas, which was covered in large cactii and was where they gave us a picnic lunch at salt tables.

  


Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia



But the main event was in the afternoon, when the jeeps took us out to a very clean area of the flats so that we could take wierd photos.  The reason the photos are wierd is that the unchanging background allows you to bend the perspective so that small objects can appear bigger than large ones.  

We had brought props from the hotel, so we our photos included Nic fighting with a dinosaur and me lying on top of a wine bottle!  But my favourite is the one of mini me standing on Nic's hand.