BOLIVIA: Imagine my HORROR

...when I found out I'd taken a bottle of rum-flavoured cake essence, instead of the real stuff, on a four-day tour to the middle of nowhere, with only the promise of a glass of wine on the last day.

ANYWAY - I'M AT: A tour organised by Junin Tours taking us to the salt flats, up a volcano, to red and green lakes, thermal springs, an island of cactuses, and various trinkety stops on the way. Accommodation was cold, food rubbish, but it was unbelievable good.

Laying claim to the biggest salt flat in the world is testament to Bolivia's mineral riches. Sending rich tourists out to the visit them is testament to the incompetence with which the country handles its best assets.

Many, many tourists want to visit the Salar de Uyuni, and rightly so, because it and the landscapes that surround it are absolutely spectacular. So what do the authorities do? They allow a completely free market, so tourists get ripped off, and lied to, and their experiences spoiled, because no-one in power seems to give a flying fuck about the goldmine on which they're sitting.

Which doesn't mean that the necessity of getting a 4x4 to visit the place was a bad one, because it means the landscape remains 'unspoiled', and that there aren't TOO many other groups around. Few over the age of 50 would want to spend 4 days in the back of a rattly jeep. But you weep for the potential of the place. The Salt Hotel sounds great, and I guess comparable to how the Ice Hotel must be, but in reality it's a poorly-constructed adobe mess with salt on the walls and a wilting, stuffed flamingo stapled to the ceiling. At the Museum of Salt, sited near the main refinery, they've crucified an unfortunate barn owl on the wall, so it now fixes you with a broken stare as you walked in, having paid your pesos. At the refinery, they're more interested in gossipping and staring sideways at the tourists than they are about genuinely informing you about the work, the organisation, the process. It's not much of a living, admittedly, bagging salt for days on end. But still.

Anyway. The landsapes, which we´d come on this tour to see, were astonishing, and it was completely worthwhile doing this tour. So rather than speak my thousand words - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kong_