Uyuni and tour to the Salares

On Thursday I planned to leave Potosi and head to Uyuni. I arrived to the bus terminal at 11am only to find that the only bus leaving before 6pm was already chockers. Despite persistent pestering by me, they wouldn't even let me sit in the aisle for the 6 hour trip. Not to be deterred, I walked to the outskirts of town, flagged over the same bus and got to Uyuni by 5pm. The landscape on the way was spectacular with bare mountains and plenty of llamas.
At 11am Friday I joined a group of 3 german girls and 2 POM lads for a 3 day expedition around the south-west corner of Bolivia.
For the first day we went to Colchani, a small town where they process the salt they collect from the enormous salares (salt lakes). However the main attraction seemed to be a crazy llama that was intent on attacking me by jumping on its back legs and kicking with its front legs. Fortunately a few good kicks to it's neck convinced it to settle down. Next we headed off in our 4x4 to the middle of the salar where there is a hotel built entirely from salt. Next we had llama steaks for lunch at Isla Incahuasi, an island in the salar covered in enormous cactii. The largest was 12m tall and took 1200 years to grow. We spent the night on the edge of the salar in another hotel built entirely from salt. With big salt icicles it felt like we were staying inside a big christmas decoration rather than a hotel. Before dinner we had a quick run up the mountain behind the hotel to see the salar change colours with sunset.
Saturday morning we headed to the Laguna Colorado. A big lake that in the day glows red from the micro-organisms. It also had islands of borax, and several flamingos. We visited in total 4 similar lakes, as well as some interesting rocks that were deposited a while back by the nearby active volcanoes.
We spent the night in a small hut in the middle of nowhere. It was getting pretty cold (-15 degrees that night) so we got a fire going and shared it with the Irish guys from the neighbouring tour group. Before long all the music instruments came out... between the 12 of us we had enough to form a full band. The instruments consisted no less than 2 guitars, drums, harmonicas, a saxaphone and several other unique instruments. It's quite amazing what some people cart all over South America. With all this music we sang the night away, only to be back on the road at 5am the next morning to visit the geysers. Then breakfast was had at the thermal pools. After an hour drive we got to Laguna Verde, then dropped the german girls off at the Chilean border.
The remaining hardy souls drove the 10 hours back to Uyuni, with lunch in a small village and a quick visit to the train cemetery.
Tonight I'm just about to take the overnight bus up to La Paz.