The White Stuff (updated version, honestly)
Christmas came upon us pretty suddenly. Certainly, there's the odd decorated tree in a hotel lobby, or a display of lights which may or may not form the shape of a reindeer spread over an office building, even the odd cameo appearence by the bloke in red himself (sometimes mixed with the Christian version, La Paz featured Santa's sleigh being led by the three wise men on camels), but nothing like the Christmas overkill you get back home.
As such, when a group of people found a bag of Christmas decorations on the bus, and subsequently went ballistic with them, the effect is just wrong. Looking out of the tinsel clad window, past a hanging object featuring a beaming cherub holding a glittering package at a bleak and beautiful andean mountain range, is stunningly incongrous.
The music on the bus deteriorated too, a Christmas album was slung on the stereo and the route from La Paz to Uyuni became even more trying than the almost non existant road should have made it.
These, we were told, were some of the worst roads in Bolivia and to top it all, the other Tucan bus which had set off the previous night, had apprently not made it to the destination that evening. As such we set off from the hotel at the frankly unsociable hour of two in the morning and finally arived at five in the afternoon.

Uyuni is a small town on the edge of the largest salt flat in the world. Being Christmas Eve when we arrived, the place wasn't very active. Originally an important railway centre, many of those who lost their jobs thanks to the previous government's privatisation schemes now work in tourism, ferrying groups across the salt flats. The town bares many relics of it's railway past, including a vast railway cemetery featuring the rusting hulks of engines and carriages, including - we were told - the last train robbed by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Christmas Eve was really our Christmas, given that both Tucan groups were in the hotel together. The proprieter, an affable American named Chris, ran the place, seeming keen to promote the area and feed people pizzas until they burst. The Christmas meal we were given was a traditional one, turkey and all the trimmings, really bad bubbly and lots of beer and wine. Music was laid on by a local band and I don't think that things quietened down until about five or so in the morning. Not me, I had managed no sleep at all on the bus earlier than morning so took an earlyish night to compensate.
Mick, our driver, took on the role of santa for the evening with a mixture of reluctance, glee and bemusement. The first gifts from the pile went to women whom he cheerfully made room for on his knee, but when all the blokes decided that they wanted the same treatment, he became somewhat more uncomfortable. All very entertaining, if a little strange (that was the order of the day for most of the pressies, I'm not going to go into details of mine thankyouverymuch).

For pictures (or rather mugshots) check out the website of fellow Tucan traveler, Mr Adrian Frith at http://www.swissontour.co.uk click a few pages and then scroll down.

Christmas day was probably the strangest Christmas that I've ever had. After breakfast, we bundled into four wheel drives and set off across the salt flats themselves. A white Christmas beyond a doubt, the salt flats are utterly bizzare. A vast white expanse heading to the horizon, marked in almost hexagonal patterns, cracks and the occasional (very occasional) hole. Near the edge, the salt is soft to walk on, further in, it is sold and glasslike. The sun was hammering down on us throughout the day, so the borrowed pair of sunglasses were very welcome indeed.

This section comes after something of a delay so apologies if the details are a little hazy.

Our Christmas lunch was provided for us by a bunch of local women who squeezed onto the tour trucks with us, we reached the foot of a volcano (quite a few in this contintent) and leaving us to take pictures of llamas and flamingos, set about churning out a pretty spectacular picnic meal consisting of chicken, vegetables and pasta salad. All of which was consumed with, if not seasonal spirit, then at least the sort of ravenous hunger usually possesed by a bunch of hungover gringos.
The rest of the day was spent checking out a few more mummies this time confined to a cave part way up the volcano (having seen dozens of mummies on this trip so far, I can only say that this bunch were fair to middling, certainly not right up there in my top-ten list of the things, but pretty impressive if you've never seen a skeleton sitting in a cave before). FInally, we set off back over the great white yonder to the curiously named Fish Island, so named, because apparently it looks like a fish. It didn't really from where I was sitting, but I'm not going to complain. The island was full of giant cacti which was sort of fun if you like huge, old, spikey examples of flora.

That evening, we had another stunning meal from Chris and his cohorts, this time less Christmassy, but at least a chance for the guy to serve us his justly celebrated pizzas. Additionally, much wine was consumed. A good night in all.
- posted by Vince @ 5:05 PM