I started the 3 day Salar de Uyuni trip that ends in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, on Aug 12th. My group pretty much sucked - 3 people from France, 2 from Italy...1 French girl spoke a little English, 1 French girl spoke a little bit of Spanish. I may as well have been mute on my trip!

But the scenary made up for the boring group!

The first stop we had was to an old train graveyard. From the train tracks, you could see for miles down the altiplano.

Then we went to Colchani, a salt mining town. A guy explained to us how they mine and make table salt to sell. A bit of a boring stop...more for the locals to make some money off the tourists.

We then went to the salt flats, where there were heaps of salt -- little salt mountains. The scenary was nothing I had ever seen before. It was quite interesting...the land is completely white, kind of looks like ice. But it is not slick. Little pockets of water create reflections of the surrounding landscape. There are mountains off in the distance.

We also visited a salt hotel, which is no longer in use -- just a tourists attraction. I did not go in as you had to buy something, and I was shy of bolivianos because I had converted most to Chilean pesos.

After that, we headed down the vast salt flat, and arrived at Incahuasi Island...and "island" in the salt flat, where tall cacti thrive. This was definitely the highlight of day 1. We hiked around the island...you could see for miles and miles down the salt flats. It was amazing. No words can even describe the beauty of it all. Absolutely stunning.

Our hostel was at the edge of the salt flats, with windows overlooking so that you could watch the sunset from there.