It's always nice when your tour begins at a normal time, thankfully this one was so - a very delightful 10.30am start. After quite a bare breakfast we were ready to trek all the way to next door to begin our tour. We were introduced to the other members of our tour; two guys from Barcelona and a couple from Peru. The Peruvians didn't speak English so thankfully the guys from Barcelona were pretty good at English. We loaded up the truck and off we went.
Our first stop was at a place for abandoned trains. They were all completely out of action, looking a bit rusty without the risk of tetnus. This was not a security-controlled environment so every train was free to climb to your heart's desire - absolutely perfect for me. There were mainly two long connected lines of trains that you could hop from one carriage to another. It felt like being in one of the old movies when you stand on top of a train. Emma was a little more cautious with her climbing adventures.
Not long after this stop we were into the vast expanse of white nothingness. Nothing but white and blue. It was completely surreal. It's all perfectly flat - hence the name salt flats. Everyone takes the standard cliché pictures using perspective to hold some in your hand that is further away and things very similar. I soon quite fairly bored of trying to come up with creative ideas of what to do to take a good picture - much to Emma's displeasure. Emma wanted to be there all day taking pictures for Instagram.
Our lunch was in a building made of salt. The tables and chairs were made of salt, the walls were made of salt. Here Emma tried her first Mandarin (I know... odd, I guess they are too busy eating cabbage in the West country to try mandarins). She had a strange displeasure over the "skin" of each segment of the mandarin and insisted on peeling not just the outer layer like a normal person, but each segment too. The guys from Barcelona were amazed at this. After driving essentially off-road wherever you wanted on the salt flats we arrived at an island filled with cacti. We climbed the island with the Catalans taking many a photo on the way of the impressive landscape and obscure-shaped cacti. This entire trip so far has just been picture picture picture really.
We waited in the glorious sun until it was fairly close to sunset before we set off in search of some free space for us to enjoy the sunset. The colours on show were magnificent. On the side of the sun it was a slow transition from orange to yellow to green to blue. On the reverse side was a complete contrast; purple into pink into blue. As the sun got lower the purple on the other side got larger. Not long after we arrived at our hostel for the night; once again made out of salt. Instead of carpet or wood flooring there was just large pieces of salt - so odd. Thankfully dinner wasn't made out of salt and we discussed with the Catalans the differences in culture and tradition our countries have. One thing we agreed upon was the greatness of paella. South America missed a trick when they didn't adopt paella when the Spanish dominated their continent (apart from Brazil) for several hundred years. I'm not looking forward to the coldness of the night here. Some say it can dip to minus 20°c. Not something I would want to partake in. In the sunlight it's very pleasant and you can wear a t-shirt and jeans. I guess it's different at almost 4000m above sea level.
