Salt!

My three day tour started a little rough, to say the least. The night before I had went out for dinner with some people from the hostel to a small outlet in the local shopping mall. It was a typical street stall type meal, didn't look too sketchy, the only part bring the meat was sitting out, but due to that being commonplace in the third world, and that there were no flies around at all, I thought nothing of it. Turns out I should have. At about midnight I awoke to the exact situation in the picture below (plus some puking):

In total I think I got about three hours of sleep that night, and was at the airport waiting in line, hoping I didn't have to take a liquidy dump on the plane. My fears were elated when I managed to get in the bathroom before boarding, but quickly turned into real concern that I was not holding liquid in but rather shitting it out at an alarming rate, and becoming more dehydrated. The effects of this and the lack of sleep made me look like something from the Walking Dead. I boarded the plane, where fortunately I was able to take my bottle of water, which I was managing to hold down for the time being. It was an uneventful flight, I slept, was served a water by my rude, transvestite flight attendant, and slept some more.

Upon landing my fears of possibly missing my tour began to fade, especially when I met an American couple on the same tour who gave me a Peptol Bismol tablet. We arrived at the tour office shortly after and got all the details and supplies sorted, and rounded up into our SUV's. There were three Toyota Landcruisers with 5-7 people in each. In my Landcruiser was the American couple (Jeremy and Amanda) and an Australian/English couple (Francis and James), and all were very cool, and we had a great time together.

Despite being drained of all minerals and energy, I had a great first day. First we hit the train graveyard to see old relics of locomotives from Bolovias abandoned railroad system, dating back to the late 1800's. The scenery of the Salar de Uyuni (salt flats) was nothing short of incredible. It's a giant white expanse surrounded by mountains, like a supernatural coliseum. It's an entire ecosystem and economy of its own; the locals use it to harvest salt and sell it, and even build their houses out of it, like modern igloos. 

That night we bedded down in a small hotel, where we were fed a big meal (I could only manage to down the soup), and I turned in it bed early, feeling a little feverish from my body trying to annihilate the demon bacteria from my bowels. It apparently hadn't succeeded at that point (and still completely hasn't); I had another midnight wake up call from my bowels. I packed the blankets on my bed and attempted to sweat out the fever, which made me feel much better by morning.

We were up early at 6am to get the day started. We steadily climbed higher and higher throughout the day, ending up at 5000 meter above sea level at the highest point. We saw high altitude lagoons teeming with flamingos, crazy barren mountain terrain, and an amazing geyser field, the high elevation point of the day. After that we ended up at another hostel, this one complete with a hot spring pool, which was a great end to the day after sitting in the vehicle, bouncing around on rough gravel roads all day.

That night was nothing short of horrible. Our hostel, being at 4300m, put us at a daily climb of 700m, 200 above the maximum recommended daily increase. It hit me hard. Compounded on top of my lingering food poisoning, I developed altitude sickness. I awoke two hours into my sleep with a pounding headache and heart, and heavy nausea, which later turned into two rounds of puking my guys out into a foul compost toilet. The second time I wised up and found a bush outside. Again, another sleepless night. 

In the morning I managed to eat a little at breakfast, thanks again to Amanda giving me another two Peptol tablets. We made one stop at another high altitude lagoon before we were dropped at the border to catch the bus for a short ride over the Chilean border to San Pedro de Atacama. I've been here for a few hours and the environment already seems much more organized and less dangerous in terms of food poisoning. I'm going to chill here for a few days, relax my body and do some day tours. While the sickness that seemed to haunt my tour did suck, doing the Salt Flats was definitely the right choice. I met some amazing people, saw some amazing scenery, and made efficient use of my time by ending it in Chile.