emulating kate winslet

we spent a good half an hour or so out on the uyuni salt flats in bolivia, taking photos that played with perspective - the vast expanse of white with nothing really visible on the horizon allows you to do this. so we took photos like mands pushing a 'giant' bottle of vodka on top of me, us standing on a 'giant' pair of dice, and me holding a 'minature' mands in my hand. i'm not sure what i was doing with this particular photo but i do like it anyway for its simplicity. the salt ridge mands is standing on is only a 1cm high or so. in fact in look at it now, it almost looks like a 'giant' mands standing on the top of a wave breaking at the beach! or maybe she is remembering the giant jebus from rio :)

salt on everything - just as i like it

bolivia was my favourite country in south america - i knew next to nothing about it before we went there and loved everything about it by the time we left. when we were planning our trip to south america, we had two must-sees - mands wanted to see the big jebus in rio de janiero and i wanted to walk the inca trail into macchu pichu. these two locations are pretty much on opposite sides of the continent so we simply booked a tour that stretched overland between the two. and when i say we simply booked it, we really did simply book it without looking in any great detail at what else was included in the tour. we were just happy about going to south america. so it was a genuine joy and surprise to do the tour and discover what we were seeing and doing as it actually happened. for example on the first day out of rio de janiero we were in a van going south down the coast and got on a boat only to discover we were going to stay on a brazillian island for 3 days - it was woot! anyway that is not what this photo is about, it's a photo of salar d'uyuni - the salt flats in south west bolivia. salt salt salt as far as the eye could see - it is the largest salt flat in the entire world at over 10,000km squared. i even licked the ground. 

bog of eternal stench

this is on par with what i imagine assaulted the smelling senses of jennifer connelly's character in the movie 'labyrinth' when she encountered the bog of eternal stench. ginormous geysers in south-west bolivia spewing out sulphurous 'rotten egg' gas. they bloody stunk. i can still remember that smell!

flamingo volcano

to justify the repetition (although i make no apology - there will be more photos to come from this day) the previous photo was about the flamingos and the lagoon, this shot provides some context with a snow capped inactive volcano in the background. it was actually very very cold on the day in question - despite the sunny clear blue skies and dessert-like environment. the ants on the far side of the lagoon are people. 

flamingo flamenco

a flock of stunning pink flamingos living on special plankton which grows in the high altitude lagoons in southwest bolivia. a day of 4wDriving over sometimes trecherous terrain (no road!) was required to reach this lagoon, including an extremely scary moment when one of the wheels literally fell off the 4wD we were travelling in at high speed down a hill comprised of rocks and shale.