Veronika and Eoin on the salt flats

We made our way to the bus station on Friday afternoon, not an easy task at this altitude (nearly 4000 metres) and with the steep streets of La Paz. There, almost inevitably, we met Victor and Miguel (this is becoming a habit) who were catching the same bus. We had to pay a departure tax of 2 bolivianos, but we got on the bus without any problems, and the journey was not too uncomfortable, far better than some we've been on. At some point in the night, we both climbed into our sleeping bags (thank you, ticket guy at La Paz terminal) and so we managed to stay warm through the night. We arrived on time - amazingly - and found our way to the hotel. Much to my surprise, we discovered that the Internet has reached Oyuni (although at 20 bolivianos an hour, it's nearly three times as much as in La Paz), so I checked my mail. Eoin had left a message to the effect that I was to go ahead and book a tour and that he would try to get into the Avenida, and so we went in search of a tour company. After consulting with a number of other travellers, the consensus appeared to be that Colque Tours were a reasonable operator, so we booked a four-day trip to the salt desert with them at $65 per person, including food and accommodation. All we had to supply was water, which they were willing to sell us at the very reasonable price of 17 bolivianos for six 2 litre bottles. Having achieved our mission, we went for breakfast (yet again, LP was of no help, recommending places charging $2.50 for an inadequate breakfast) and then returned to the hotel to await Eoin and to catch up with my diary.

We were waiting for Eoin and had just got to the stage when I was going to find out when the buses arrived from Sucre when I heard Eoin discussing rooms with the lady from the hotel. We then went along to the travel agency to allow Eoin to ask some questions he had. Deceptively, they seemed well organised and efficient, but we were to come to regret our decision to opt for Colque Tours. As we were dealing with the agency, we met a couple that Eoin had previously met in Bolivia, Sam from England and Simon from Australia. They decided to join us on our trip, making up a group for the tour. We then went for dinner - there was a pizzeria claiming to be the best in Bolivia, but it was fairly expensive so we chose a cheaper option.

The next morning we awaited the arrival of the jeep at the appointed time, but saw a number of other groups leaving before us who had booked after us. Eventually a fairly run-down looking jeep arrived nearly an hour late - it seemed that they had overbooked and had subcontracted to another company. We bought a couple of rice sacks to protect our rucksacks, perhaps a few months too late. We were joined on our trek by Anna Swiatek, a Polish girl living in London. It turned out that the "guide" didn't speak English. We drove through the desert for about an hour before we hit the edge of the salt flats at a dusty little salt town. After a pause for a toilet break, we started on to the salt flats. The sight was amazing, with the bright sun blindingly reflecting on the vast white expanse, necessitating the use of sunglasses. We stopped first of all at a souvenir shop made of salt blocks selling salt ashtrays and lumps of crystalline rock salt. Needless to say we didn't buy anything. I think that this was the largest flattest expanse of land I've ever seen, and the light was stunningly bright.

The next stop was the so-called "eyes of the desert", holes in the salt ground through which water from an underground stream bubbled to the surface, creating the only break in the otherwise blank white landscape. After this, we visited the Hotel del Sal, an entire hotel built out of blocks of salt, a strange element of bizarre luxury in the salt desert.

Cactus forest, Isla de los Pescadores

We then drove on to the Isla de los Pescadores, Fish Island, an isolated chunk of land stuck in the middle of the salt flats. The island rises to perhaps 50 metres, giving a perfect view of white ground all around. Dotted around the island is an extraordinary forest of cactus plants, some of which are ten or more metres high. Our driver gave us twenty minutes to see the island, but we decided to take longer than that, although the forty minutes we took was nowhere near enough. We then had our first experience of the food we would be eating for the next four days, and it wasn't good - some very dodgy canned meat, rolls that were already stale on the first day and tomato and cucumbers. After lunch we drove on to our first overnight in a town called San Juan which could serve as a definition for dusty backwater. Our accommodation was very basic - a six person dormitory with some of the most saggy beds I've ever come across in my life. We decided to go for a walk to explore the place, which didn't take long given the size of San Juan. After five dusty minutes we found a pub and had a beer. We then returned to the "hotel" for dinner, which was rice and chicken with a semi-decent vegetable soup.

The next day we continued heading south to the Laguna Colorada, an extraordinary lake which changes colour from blue to red due to algae in the lake - as the wind picks up in the afternoon, the algae are dislodged and the water colour changes. We arrived early afternoon, in good time to catch the full red and to see the hundreds of bright pink flamingos on the water. We climbed a hill to catch a proper view of the lake. On our way back down, we met some French people who pointed out that the water of one stream flowing into the lake was warm, so we decided to wash our boots of the salty mud which had become rapidly encrusted on them. As we were doing so, my digital camera fell into the water. I removed it quickly and took it back to the place we were staying and took it apart with Eoin's help in order to dry it out. In the meantime, Simon had fallen thigh-deep into the mud and was in extreme danger of catching pneumonia in the onsetting cold desert night.

Dinner that evening was an entirely uninspired spaghetti and tomato and onion sauce, but I was so hungry I ate plenty anyway.

Abandoned in the desert by our trusty "guide"

The next morning we had a five o clock in the morning start. While we were loading the bags on to the roof of the jeep, our guide managed to drop a heavy rucksack on my head, knocking me to the ground and giving me cause for concern that I might get concussion, without the slightest hint of an apology. We drove for a couple of hours to reach the geysers and mud pools, which were very interesting if a little smelly. Then we drove on to the hot springs, where some people were foolish enough to get undressed and sit in the warmish water, despite the biting wind and the cold air. We wandered around for a while admiring the views before being served a breakfast of very dodgy scrambled eggs and coffee. After breakfast we drove on towards the Lagunas Verde and Blanca. If truth be told, the Laguna Verde was not very verde at all, but was quite interesting because of the borax foam which lined the shores, occasionally blowing up into a bizarre quasi-blizzard. At this point we were basically on the border with Chile, and it was here that we left Anna, who was heading on to San Pedro de Atacama.

After leaving the people who were heading on to Chile, we drove for four hours through monotonous desert landscape to reach the valley of the rocks. By this time our group had become united in a sort of desperate cynicism at the awfulness of the food, the sheer incompetence of the "guide" who told us nothing save the names of the places we were seeing and who tried his best not to answer any of our questions, and the nagging doubt that we would run out of food, since the couple who were escorting us had initially thought that we were only going as far as Chile and were not returning to Uyuni. When we finally arrived at the valley of the rocks, we were offered a desultory ten minutes to scout around. I was furious at this, and determined to take considerably longer. The rock formations were spectacular, red sandstone sculpted by erosion into isolated stands of bizarre shapes. We saw a long-tailed rabbit-like creature and a lynx, and generally clambered around rocks admiring the ever-shifting views. Our driver was in an evident hurry, and we thought that we had a long way to go to reach our accommodation. As it turned out, we arrived at our last night stop in plenty of time, several hours before sunset and we need not have rushed, save for the fact that our driver wanted an easy time of it. By this stage we had all decided to complain to the agency about the sheer incompetence of our guide and cook. Dinner that evening consisted of rice and the toughest piece of unidentifiable meat I've come across in a long, long time. When Eoin said that the meat was tough, the cook replied that yes of course it was, and that we didn't know how to eat meat properly.

Arbol de piedra ("Stone tree")

The final day we had a fairly leisurely ten o'clock start and drove through more consistently dull landscapes, stopping for lunch which we ate in the jeep as the wind was blowing up the dust into an unpleasant storm. On the way back to Uyuni, we stopped off at our final destination, the cemetery of trains, a bizarre spot where a number of old trains, including the first train in Bolivia, had seemingly trundled into the desert and then ground to a halt. After hanging around there for a short while, we drove the short distance back to Uyuni. We decided by default as much as anything else not to bother complaining as it was unlikely to achieve anything else.

We went for a cup of coffee to kill time until our bus back to La Paz. The journey was not horribly uncomfortable, but I started to feel unwell within an hour of leaving. As we travelled overnight, I started to feel gradually worse: my stomach was hurting, I was feeling dehydrated and my head was hurting. By the time we arrived in La Paz some fourteen hours later, I was feeling terrible and getting worse all the time. We made it back to the Hotel Universo by taxi, as I was in no fit state to walk. Although our room wasn't yet ready, we managed to persuade the guy to let us into a dormitory so I could lie down. I did so for a couple of hours while Veronika made me a cup of camomile tea, which I managed to drink. In desperation, I sent her to the tourist information office to find out about medical services for tourists. She returned with information, and we caught a taxi to a clinic downtown. The doctor there examined me and then decided it was either appendicitis or salmonella poisoning. After a cursory examination, she refused to accept our health insurance, but suggested we try another clinic across the road. I was left to suffer in pain while Veronika tried to persuade the other clinic to accept our insurance and treat me. Eventually, after a phone call to Brazil and a fax message to Paris, the other clinic agreed to treat me. There we were met by a friendly English-speaking doctor who told me that I probably had salmonella-typhoid, from infected food, either eggs or vegetables.

I was kept in for two nights, put on an IV drip feed and given a blood test, which subsequently confirmed that I had a major dose of salmonella poisoning. The irony is that the hospital room I was given - with private bath and cable TV - was the best accommodation I'd had in months. Even the hospital food was pretty good. We eventually arranged with the Coris representative in Bolivia that he would pay our bill (about $500) directly, without us having to pay and reclaiming the money. One possible other slight advantage is that at the time of writing it looks like I may be able to watch the Scotland-England game on cable TV here in the hospital.

Fanny the nurse was very friendly and helpful, and chatted away, making me feel right at home.

I spent three not overly unpleasant days in hospital, joking with Veronika that it was the most comfortable accommodation I'd had since we were in the US. I was eventually discharged on Sunday 14th November, our first wedding anniversary, meaning that we won't forget that in a hurry.

The next few days were spent in La Paz recovering and trying to get a refund from the insurance company, which I managed to do after a couple of reverse charges calls to Paris, and from Colque Tours. They initially refused to give me any refund, claiming that they didn't know which group we'd travelled with, but after persistent hassling on my part, they eventually relented and gave me $30 back, half of what I'd paid. For the few days we were still in La Paz, the words "Avoid Colque Tours" became a standard refrain whenever I met a fellow traveller. We met several other people who had had a bad time with them as well, giving the lie to the guy's claim that no-one else had complained before.

Laguna Colorada, in its pink phase

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