Salar de Uyuni

Ahhh the salt flats.  After the first bus ride from hell we arrived in Uyuni, which is basically the ghetto with limited power/hot water.  It was also dirtier and smellier than the sanchez fermenting on my face.  Eventually we made our way to the town center where all the tour guides are and locked in a 3 day all inclusive tour for the price of 750 bolivianos, which is roughly eleven cents.   The first part of your journey is gathering your crew and luckily ours was pretty cool.  We had Carolita the Argentinian, Mark the kiwi, Korean Kim, and the crazy Russians.  I'm not sure what our driver's name was, so I'll just go with Sloth since he drove like 3 mph the entire time.

I can't even begin to describe how crazy the Salar looks, I mean the only time I've ever seen anything this beautiful has been in a place called the mirror.  It's basically just an endless optical illusion where you never know what's real or fake...kind of like my blog?  Here's a few of my top pic(k)s:

This isn't an optical illusion, I'm just huge

My bro is really just standing like 10 feet back, but he looks like he's in my palm

The only negative about the salt flats was that we got there ahead of the rainy season, because in the rainy season the ground actually reflects the sky.  Be careful ladies, just the thought of me running naked through an endless mirror could impregnate you.  And now i'm going to take a moment to apologize to my sisters in case they just read that and for what's about to come.  Our next destination was fish island, where things got more than a little erotic:

Easy ladies, it's just my cocktus...i mean cactus

After all that action we made our way to our first night's hostel, which was made entirely out of salt.  I also got to enjoy my first cold shower of the trip, but at least I didn't smell like a rotting sack of yeti turds anymore.  In the morning we had our typical breakfast of stale bread, jam, yogurt, and coffee and went on our way.  Day two's views were amazing as we drove through mountains to various chemical lakes and geysers.  

The multi-colored chemical lakes were REDiculously incREDible

That's right, you just RED one of my dREDful puns. bwahahahahaha.  We also visited some geysers, where things got a little explosive.

I lack class, not gas

I may or may not have soiled my underpants whilst holding that pose... Day 3 wasn't as cool as the first two days, as we had to take the kiwi to the Chilean border and then spent the rest of the day driving back to Uyuni. Once we got back we immediately went to the bus station so we could get back to La Paz.  So here's the back story, before we left on our tour we talked to a lady at one of the bus stations and she said we could easily get a ticket the day of and we shouldn't purchase a ticket in advance.  So naturally when we get there every bus is sold out and we are stuck staying in a really classy $4 a night hostel.  As I lifted up the bed sheet i realized the thread count was 200, whilst the pube count was closing in on a 1000.  It was by far the most disgusting place I've ever been in and that includes Oprah's vagina.

I also earned what my brother called a backpackers right of passage.  I'm pretty sure everyone else just calls it diarrhea.  I became thankful that bus was sold out, as having the runs on a bus that stops once every 6 hours would not have been pretty... you might even say it would have been... Shitty.  bwahahahaha another one of my classic puns.  Apologies,  i'm feeling awfully punny at the moment.

As I sat locked in that butcher's chair, I watched the blades drawing closer to my face as my breathing became increasingly more shallow.  The stink of his sweat stained wife beater weaves through my nostrils as I gasp for every breath likes it's my last.  I've felt fear before, but it was but a shallow reservoir compared the vast ocean of terror in which I was treading.  I couldn't help but close my eyes as I felt the first cut, deep and quick.  I knew it would be at least three inches in length and would likely leave me scarred.  How did I end up here, what cruel fate was I about to endure?  I slowly opened my eyes and words cannot describe the desolation that I felt as my eyes locked in on what I had lost, pooling on the ground are my once beautiful Fabio-esque tresses.

To summarize that last paragraph less dramatically - I got a haircut.  In South America you are supposed to choose a haircut from pictures on the wall, but they had no mullets or anything cool, so I decided to ask for a trim.  As I don't speak spanish I made some gestures with my hands and let the barber get to work.  So how horrible did I look?  If you read my first blog you will remember that every female tingled upon my arrival, well after that haircut I'm pretty sure they lost the ability to ever tingle again.  It was basically like a bowl cut, if that bowl was a colander.  But for $1.40, what could I really expect?

After a long day, we got on our night bus back to La Paz.  I can only refer to this bus ride as Hell's Furnace, but that my friends is a story for another blog.