It has been a dramatic couple of weeks. I’m not even sure how long it’s been since I last wrote – I think 2 weeks ago, but so much has happened I’m going to be here a while. Might get pretty dull and full of spelling and grammar mistakes, so apologies for that.

Last time I wrote I had been feeling pretty down and generally a bit ill and just not up for the whole travelling lark. It is a lark. I mean, what am I actually doing with myself? Having an awesome time, meeting lots of people, seeing amazing stuff, being abroad? Yeah. But I don’t actually have anything I should be doing. I’m thinking of doing some charity work in Cusco, if only for the selfish reason that I don’t want to feel like a spoilt little knob. So anyway, I was about to embark upon 3 days in the salt flats, which if memory serves, I was dreading due to all the ridiculous hype about altitude sickness – I was expecting vomit, hallucinations, worst headaches ever, the full shebang. And I’m not guna say it was pleasant, yes I had a nasty headache and found it very hard to sleep BUT it wasn’t the worst I’ve ever felt – it was perfectly tolerable.

We left early in the morning on New Year’s Eve and saw lots of amazing landscapes. It really is another world. Some of the lakes are beautiful and we saw thousands of flamingos, which are really fun to watch with their spindly long legs. They shouldn’t look so elegant with those comically long and skinny things but they do, and they look amazing when they fly too. Animals are fun to watch I have found. I’ve seen a lot of llamas which are also hilarious – they have big fat furry bodies and skinny legs so they look all wobbly and unstable when they move around. Made me laugh watching these ones walking along next to the lake – It was really wet and slippery and they kept almost skidding!

New Year’s Eve was cool even though I was prepared to just ignore the whole occasion. There was a nice group of us and the guides gave us some “champagne/cider”, which we popped open at midnight. We also went out and joined some other people from the hostel next to us who had made a fire. I went out all zipped up in my sleeping bag (which is made for temperatures of -10, amazing) so was hopping along slightly behind everyone else, but I was happy because it was SO FUCKING COLD. I was wearing just about all my clothes. Brrrrr!The Dutch guy carried me around for a bit too, which was nice. I felt a bit bad though because with the altitude he got so puffed out – thought he was guna faint!

The next day was better because we went down in altitude and started to feel a little perkier. Saw more beautiful landscapes and then that night we stayed in a hostel made ENTIRELY OUT OF SALT. The floor was just big salt granules and the walls were salt, the ceiling was salt, no joke. Actually made me a bit sniffly, but still, thought it was extremely cool. We also went to see these crazy mummies in this weird cave nearby, which was pretty freaky. Got some sick photos! I wasn’t 100% convinced they were real but… nice all the same. Maybe I’m just being a cynical Brit, as everyone else thought they were probably real.

The next morning was to be MY BIRTHDAY! My 21^st! Only happens once ya know, so I made quite sure that everyone was aware that it was to be MY BIRTHDAY! Probably went on a bit too much about but who cares? It was MY BIRTHDAY. Anyway, I can’t have pissed them off too much with my incessant birthday talk because the next morning I was woken up with birthday cake, a candle and a glorious rendition of happy birthday. I was pretty touched – it brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart. That day was fun, driving through the actual salt flats all day. It really was like being on another planet. It looked like the sea, except it was land… Shit description, I know, but the sea is the only thing I can compare it to in terms of how vast and endless it was. I made sure I had a birthday beer out in the salt flats too and a birthday piscola at lunchtime (daytime drinking is so much more acceptable when you put a word like birthday in front of it).

When we got to the town Uyuni that day it was time to break the news to my travel bud that I wanted to continue the voyage as a lone ranger. I had been giving it a lot of thought and finally decided I just had to break loose and go for this, go it alone or I would regret it for all eternity (overstatement yes, but would certainly regret it). I got pretty nervous about it – it takes guts to be so honest! It was like preparing to break up with someone! I just felt trapped and constantly irritated travelling in a pair, which I can’t blame on him, it’s just differences between us and possibly my inability to tolerate people for long periods of time… He was upset at first but took it well and in the end I think we agreed this was the best thing. I am definitely a lot happier travelling alone even though there are inevitably difficulties and the uncertainty can be quite scary at times. But it’s better; less restricting, can be myself 100% without any outside influence and the possibilities are endless!