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Bolivia
This is an edited version of our travel journal
The bits in red are from our online diary, the blue handwriting is from our travel journal
July 30th
We got up early and headed up to the Bolivian border in a minibus and transferred to a 4x4. There were 5 people in our group, us, two Dutch girls and an older German lady.
We were fairly surprised that our driver/guide was accompanied by his wife and his two-year old daughter; who either slept, or played with her doll in the footwell.
We reached 'Lagona Blanca' after only ½ hour, the water was a bright blue colour and the shore of the lake
was encrusted with minerals and ice. We then drove to a second lagoon (Lagona Verde)
and then onto some hot springs, where we took a bath in a hot spa that was really nice.
We stopped for lunch by another lagoon, where the driver's wife helped explain her presence by making some really nice food for us, before we went to see some geysers. We didn't see any erupt, but there were loads of pools of bubbling mud and holes in the ground venting steam which was pretty cool.
Finally we went to see a red lagoon, where the water turns red/rust colour in the evening and the shore is encrusted with borax.
July 31st
After a very cold night we set off across yet more desert, except this time it was proper desert, with few plants and sand dunes.
We stopped at an area covered with eroded rocks. Apparently the wind is very strong and erodes them into weird shapes.
We stopped for lunch at a very beautiful lake, which reflected the snow-capped volcano in the park perfectly, and had hundreds of pink flamingos eating.
We had some more nice food and then drove over a really bumpy road to get to the edge of the salt plains, where we stayed in a hotel made almost entirely of salt. Far more comfortable than the previous night, but a bit busy.
August 1st
A really early start again today, we were up at 5.30 to get to the salt flats for sunrise. The hotel was much warmer than the night before, but getting up before dawn at 4000m meant the car was literally freezing (our breath to the windows!)
The flatness of the salt plains meant that sunrise was really spectacular and sudden. We managed to get
some decent pictures of it. We then drove on to the middle of the flats, to an island, which is a cactus reserve.
Walking around it was strange as some of the biggest cacti are over 1000 years old and are over 10m high. The weirdest thing was that the whole island was an ancient coral reef, meaning the whole salt flat must have once been a sea, but is now 4000m above sea level!
After visiting a train graveyard on the outskirts of Uyuni we spent the afternoon hanging around the town waiting for a driver to take us back to Chile. We eventually set off really late and didn't arrive at the accommodation for the night until 12.30.
August 1, 2005, Bolivia
Just arrived in a town in Bolivia following a tour of the salt flats and some lagoons. Have spent a few nights in really basic and cold "refugios" with no electricity, heating or much of anything. Heading back to Chile tonight and tomorrow. We will write more when we are back there and try and post some pictures. 
August 2, 2005, Bolivia
As Si promised we are writing more now we are back in Chile. We just spent a really good 3 days in Bolivia, seeing lakes, flamingos, volcanoes, vicuñas and in the end, the biggest salt flat in the world. It was all very impressive, if not a little cold at night as Si said. Apparently it was -8oC outside, and as I could see the sky through the roof from my top bunk bed I don't imagine much warmer inside. Most impressive bits were; a lake that turns red in the afternoon, and sunrise over the salt flat. We have lots of pictures, which Si will post as soon as we get to a cheaper place than here. That is likely to be Thursday or Friday.
For anyone who heard about the tornado, our house is OK. We saw it as a headline one the BBC website, and were very worried when there was a picture of our road with a car crushed by a tree, which had our house in the background. But apparently our house is one of the only ones on the road that had no damage, so we are pretty lucky.