'Like we need two salt shakers here,' complains James, a 26-year-old Australian, who wants 'just a bit of pepper' for his grilled llama steak. Before him and the rest of our little group lie 10 billion tonnes of salt in the world's largest, dazzling salt flats. This is the eerie Salar de Uyuni of Bolivia.
Ignoring James, we continue lunching on llama, this strange national symbol that can't decide if it's a sheep or a camel, and gaze out across the salt flats. We have arrived at the finale of our three-day journey across the mind-blowing landscape of the Salar and its neighbour the Eduardo Avaroa National Reserve. Both landscapes belong to another planet.
The natural attractions include the Laguna Colorado, so blood-red it resembles an abattoir floor, and its equally impressive companion, the Laguna Verde, which shines like an enormous sheet of quicksilver; both lie inside the reserve. So do avenues of volcanoes that rise to heights of nearly 6,000 metres, belching geysers and the Rocas de Dali, a formation of rocks that appears to be melting.
Bolivia's natural beauty from the Andes to the Amazon is its best-kept secret, earning the country its nickname, 'the Tibet of South America'. However, Bolivia is often the underdog in competition for the tourist dollar against Argentina, Peru and Brazil because of its often overplayed unstable political situation. Bolivia's natural wonders, its absence from the gringo trail and its claim to be the most indigenous country in South America, with an ethnic population of 70 per cent, make it a compelling choice.
Rewind 72 hours and our journey into the Salar de Uyuni begins as a bus trundles away from the dusty Chilean town of San Pedro de Atacama. Soon it veers onto a dirt track towards the cement box that is the Bolivian immigration department and the start of the Eduardo Avaroa National Reserve. In that time, we've ascended a whopping 2,000 metres to 4,400 metres above sea level and the inside of my head feels like a pressure cooker. The box of pens in my daypack has just exploded, also succumbing to the effects of the altitude. I take a couple of headache tablets to combat my pain and nausea and marvel at Laguna Verde.
Laguna Verde, which is silver-green owing to its mineral- rich content of sulphur, arsenic and lead, is the drop-off point where we switch to four-wheel-drive transport. The lack of roads across the reserve and Salar make a 4WD trip the best option. Roberto, a pint-sized sexagenarian, arrives and announces himself as our driver, cook and guide for the next three days. Roberto points to Volcano Licancabur, which stands sentry-like behind Laguna Verde at 5,960 metres, and tells of how an Inca crypt once existed near the peak.
We leave Laguna Verde behind and begin to weave our way up through the rocky and terracotta-stained mountains of the Pampa de Chalviri, to the first stop at the Aguas thermal springs. James and his girlfriend are the only people in our group crazy enough to strip off in 10 degrees Celsius before taking a dip in the 30-degree pools. The rest of us warm up by standing precariously close to the steaming holes of the Sol de Ma?ana geysers, which threaten to spurt a boiling fountain of water over us at any minute. Warmth, however, takes priority over common sense and not even the rotten-egg smell of the sulphur from the geysers, which wrinkles our nostrils, deters our quest.