The one where Lynne hit a Bolivian roadblock

So much to update you on! The roadblock is a great travel story (although not as good as my being held at gunpoint on a Guatemala bus). But first....

So Paul went back to London and Rena went to the Galapagos Islands, and I joined my new tour. 26 days La Paz to Rio, with Intrepid. There are 11 of us, mixed nationalities, mostly women travelling on our own, and Im median age.

But the first day I sulked, because Paul and Rena werent there. I made no effort to make new friends, and let myself be grumpy. We travelled 3 hours on a bus, then a 7 hour train ride to Uyuni, arriving at 2.30am!!! It was a freezing 4 block walk to our hotel.

I got over my grumpiness the next day, and made more of an effort with the group. Thats because we were going to the Bolivian Salt Flats, which have been in my top 3 travel destinations for the past decade, since people like Katie and Mossy went there when we were living in London.

And they didnt disappoint. Oh my god, the surreal landscape was photographic heaven. We were in 4wds, 8 people per vehicle, no seatbelts of course.

The first day was driving across blindingly white salt plains, as big as Northern Ireland. Salt as far as you can see, and on the horizon were island-looking mirages, one of which turned out to be catcus covered oasis where we stopped for lunch.

You take perspective defying photos because its all white. Amazing. We kept driving to a salt hotel, made of salt obviously. Its seriously in the middle of nowhere. The desert gets to -8 degrees at night, so its warm days and freezing freezing nights.

The next day we drove through a different landscape, with volcanoes, a red lagoon, pink flamingoes, and lots of bumpy roads. The drivers were great, we would go off off road and just make our own path across the desert.

The next night was in another basic hotel, with 7 to a dorm. I didnt sleep well. The altitude makes me short of breath at night. We went as high as 5,000m on this trip. Plus I was sleeping with a beanie, socks, 3 tops, 3 blankets, a sleeping bag and sleeping liner on!!!

It was a 5am start, and we had to put swimmers on to go to the hot springs! Was so bizarre, but great to get in hot water. The final leg of the 4wd trip was a full on travel day, after seeing a beautiful blue lagoon.

But when we got back to Uyuni, there was a truckies strike blockading roads into the town! We tried to go an alternate route, but were stopped by them. A giant bus was blocking a level crossing, stopping cars from entering town, and trains from passing.

The chef on our tour came up with a plan... pretend one of us is sick and we need to go to the hospital immediately, so we have to be allowed through. No one would volunteer, so I did. So there I am imagining what Cate Blanchett would do, thinking how am I going to look sick, when all I am is dusty and unwashed. But then they decided it was too dangerous, because the truckies might just take me to hospital themselves, and leave the others stranded. Imagine me turning up to hospital going ´ha ha....just jokes...im fine...¨with angry truckies looking at me.

So our drivers spent about 2 hours negotiating with the strikers, all the while the sun is fast disappearing and its getting cold.

Finally, the strikers agreed to let the tourists into town, but they were going to drive us in on the bus that was blocking the road!! As 25 tourists were loaded onto the bus, all I could think was how much of an international incident they could create with all us foreigners taken hostage on the bus!!! I told everyone to get cameras out if something happened cause we could make money! I was imagining my phoner to Roscoe, and thinking how I could call Ric Carter to give 7 the scoop.

Anyway, the strikers were quite lovely, despite their apparent tendencies for violence, and we were dropped off in town without a problem. But our poor drivers spent a cold night at the blockade, and now there are no buses leaving Uyuni today, so we have to hire 4wds again to take us the back route to get us to our next town of Potosi!

The escape from Uyuni (its a crap town, hence our eagerness to get out) was very funny. We left town via a bush-bashing fire trail, and spent over an hour 4WDing to get back onto the main road. It was all very exciting. We were the only tourists getting out. Everyone else had to stay till the strike ended, and that may not be for a week!