South American adventure: Uyuni

Curing a llama fetus in the local market

Coca leaves are available everywhere in Bolivia, and almost all the locals "chew" on a regular basis, in traditional Andean culture it is used as a stimulant to overcome hunger, thirst and fatigue as well as being good for the symptoms of altitude sickness. Chewing the leaves is called picchar, you first have to get a good wad of leaves going in your mouth for half an hour or so before adding a pinch of alkaloid, traditionally ash from a plant, but I think the pink balls are some man-made alternative. They say that taking the coca leaves has no effect but I found my pen continually drifting off the edge of the page when writing my journal in the evenings.

Typical street in Uyuni, no tarmac and huge holes full of water, Argyll and Bute council must have the road maintenance contract!

The town of Uyuni itself is a bit of a shithole, but then it is in one of the most impoverished places in one of the most impoverished country's in the world, litter is everywhere as you can see in most of the photos particularly just outside the town, and as running water is a major luxury most people go for a wander to the train track for the toilet, and I was initially shocked when I walked past several woman crouching with their skirts hitched up having a dump, they didn't bat an eyelid as I walked past!

One of the few wee bushes that wasn't wearing poly bags!

The local latrine and dumping ground

Vicuna grazing a few miles out of town

I tried walking to the huge salt flat outside of the town one day to avoid paying to go on a tour, but after several hours walking across a starkly barren landscape which is very occasionally peppered with tussocks of grass and a storm coming from where I had walked from, I decided that the £15 for a tour wasn't that expensive and that being lost out here would not be a good way to end my holiday.