Salar de Uyuni

Mom was delyed several days due to a very inconvienant pickpocking incident in the Rodrigez Marketplace of downtown La Paz. But the day she left, I got out of town on the first available bus to the Salar de Uyuni, the worlds largest salt flats. Like Utah, minus the mormons and with a lot more salt. The bus arrived a little earlier than expected (what, am I in Bolivia any more?). And since there is next to nothing one can do when arriving in a new city at 2am, its helpful that in Bolivia it is permitted to sleep in the bus until day break; which I did, shivering in the briskness of the below freezing night. The odd, salty landscape of the Salar is certainly as awe-inspiring as pictures make it out to be. But there´s one thing that pictures can´t convay, the COLD, the very, incredibly, three days of bumping along the desert in an unheated 4x4 and sleeping in equally unheated "hotels" in the middle of the oppressive salt dessert, cold. Not only is it 4:30 am when they hustle you out of bed to be whisked away in the 9-person-packed 4x4 to see various heavily touristed, yet incredible attractions, but its 10 degrees below zero...and we´re talking celsios. And its a good thing the desert doesn´t offer many driving obsticals because our driver, Jose, had only one fuctional eye, the other was either missing or somehow out-of-wack, hidden behind a crazy mess of guaze and medical tape.