Chile to Bolivia

La Serena was a lovely wee town on the coast. I stayed there for a few days, including New Year which I spent watching fireworks on the beach, very different to the cold Edinburgh New Year!

Then I travelled to San Pedro de Atacama which is in the Atacama desert of Chile. It was a small town with lots of interesting things to do. I visited a lake called Lago Tebinquinche, which had so much salt you could float easily, without even trying, even on your tummy! I also went to valley of the Moon where the land has been shaped by the wind and the rain over many years to look like craters on the moon and big dinosaur skeletons.

My jouney then took me through the salt flats of Uyuni in Bolivia, or the Salar de Uyuni. This is a huge lake of salt, over 12,000km squared. You can walk and even drive on the salt as it is 35m deep. It is very beautiful. There was an island in the middle, created in a volcanic eruption many years ago, it was covered in cactus plants! Really tall ones, over 3m (photo). I also the árbol de piedra´(see photo)which means tree made of stone, it was created by an ancient volcanic eruption.

I then went to the capital of Bolivia, La Paz, highest capital city in the world, it is a big, bustling, hectic and interesting city. As it is so high above sea level there is less oxygen in the air so you can get out of breath quite easily. There were demonstrations as there will be a political election here and people are unhappy with their government.

Now I have made it to a wee town called Copacabana which is on the edge of Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world. Half of the Lake is in Bolivia and the other half is in Peru. Tomorrow I go to an island on it called Isla del Sol. Soon I will cross the border into Peru and head to the town of Cusco to climb the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu.