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We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, lovely spot, very relaxing and its important to relax, to get used to the altitude. Best way to get to Bolivia was with a tour which ended in uyini. Buses from Calama to boliva didnt seem like a nice option. Long trips in a regular bus, no semi camas. We booked with Pamela Tours. We saw some really beautiful lagoonas and salt planes and flamingos. But our driver was pissed the first day. we thought he was great craic to start with but then realised he was falling asleep at the wheel. He tried to get the cook to drive, which she tried and drove to the wrong side of the road and then we realised she couldnt drive at all. luckily we were on the trip with 4 other lovely people. The food was ok but wasnt too frequent. Its a must to bring food with you and sleeping bags as the nights can get very cold and the sheets and blankets arent too clean. Its best to go to the loo in the open as the facilities are the pits. Also if going from San Pedro on the tour, pay there, as we decided to pay in uyini with credit card (as in san pedro they said if we wanted to pay with a card we`d have to do it in uyini). This turned out to be rubbish, when we went to the office in uyini, there was no credit card machines and the little old witch wanted us to pay 40 american dollars more than what we had arranged in san pedro.  We paid her what we had agreed in San Pedro and we even had a reciept from the San Pedro office! She still wasnt happy and we ended up playing a tug o war with the old granny and when we finally got away up the road, she said she was calling the police. We hid in our room for a while and got on first bus to potosi. We got away with out the police or paying extra, 40 dollars isnt that much, but it was the icing on the cake after a crap enough tour, i just didnt want to give them another penny. So a bad start to our time in Bolivia. Also uyini is a land fill for about 1 or 2 kms into the town..no actually they dont have any landfills, its just rubbish heaps. Plastic coke bottles are the flavour of the day. It reminds me of seens from the kuwait war after a few bombs.

Anyway the bottom line is dont book with Pamela tours..and if at all possible avoid uyini

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