I woke up to turbulence, the chair beneath me juddering violently. I looked up to see the oxygen masks fall from the ceiling, but then realised I wasn't on a plane. I was on a bus. Looking out the window I saw a road to our left, running through the desert. We were no longer on the road. It seems that the quality of Bolivian roads are such that it is actually preferable to drive across the desert tundra than on the cracked and crumbling asphalt. The bus veered wildly round rocks and clumps of grass, so much so that I began to wonder whether the driver had any idea which way he was mean to be going. Just as I started to panic though, the low brown buildings of Uyuni appeared on the horizon.

Having heard many horror stories about the salt flats trips – drunk drivers being a common theme, and groups getting lost in the desert and running out of water – Sarah had done a lot of research into which companies were reputable, and we had booked ourselves onto a private tour whilst we were in La Paz. The company - Tupiza Tours - were excellent. It was just Sarah, Swills and myself in a 4x4 with our driver Marcelo and his sister Pamela as cook.

After a quick breakfast and a stop to pick up Pamela we set off through the streets of Uyuni. It's a real desert town. We were soon at its edge where the road disappeared into sand, and took off into the great nothingness.

When the Bolivian science fiction film industry ramps up, the salt flats and South Western Circuit will be overrun with film students and young actors in papier-mache alien costumes. I don't know what series of unlikely geographical processes led to this region's formation, but it's definitely unlike anywhere else I've seen or even heard about. The word 'otherworldly' doesn't really do it justice. 'Surreal' is probably closer to the mark. In fact at one point we even drove through 'The Dali Desert' (we took a photo for you Axit). During our three day road trip we saw perspective-defying salt flats; red, blue and green lakes (all accessorised with pink flamingos); volcanoes; sulphurous hot springs; rocks shaped like trees; bubbling mud pools and hissing fumeroles. All this in temperatures reaching over 30º c at noon, and -20º c at night. It was a funny couple of days.

We started off in the Salar de Uyuni, better known as the salt flats. You will probably have seen it in photos before – an endless expanse of whiteness, upon which one can strike silly poses that play with perspective. The salt flats are the remains of a prehistoric lake that once covered most of the South West of Bolivia. Just to give a sense of scale, the evaporated puddle of salt it left behind is over 12,000km2 (apparently about the size of the Falkland Islands). We stopped for lunch at a rocky island in the middle of this desert, covered in ancient cacti. From the summit the salt flats looked like a failed geometry lesson: lines, curves and sections marked out in faint grey by the tracks of tourist 4x4s.

That night we stayed at the edge of the flats in a hotel built completely of salt. Salt bricks, salt walls, salt tables, salt chairs, and a rock salt carpet. Luckily the shower was tiled or I could have brought the whole place down. Swills, Sarah and I played shit-head (our new favourite game) as the sun went down, and Pamela cooked us up an incredible supper from somewhere.

Next morning saw us cruise within 10km of the Chilean border on our way south towards Laguna Colorada. We spent most of the journey bouncing around in the back seat as Marcelo chopped and changed between well-worn driving paths over the rocky landscape. He had his iPod connected up to the car stereo so we were treated to an incredibly diverse selection of 80s pop and rock ballads before we asked if he would like to hear some of our music. Swills introduced us to The XX and I inflicted more Ellie Goulding on everybody. 'What do you think Swills?' 'uh….I don't think I'll be buying the album myself James.'

Every hour or so we would stop at another geographical absurdity, get out and take some photos. As we made the transition from desert valley to the mountains, our first stop came in the bizarre lunar landscape beneath Volcano Caquella – a network of wind blown half-pipes carved out in the shadow of the 6000m high smoking peak.

The first lake we came to was a complete surprise. As we rounded a bend between two mountains we looked down to see luminous turquoise water, bounded by a ring of white saltpetre. Stranger still were its occupants: about a hundred bright pink flamingos, delicately pacing the shallow waters, dipping their beaks to feed on the algae growing on the lake bottom. After several more lakes and a lot more flamingos we changed things up with another rock-stop, this time a huddle of towering rocks sitting in the middle of a windswept sandy valley. The highlight / photo-op was the Arbol del Piedra – The Tree of Stone.

The best sight of the day was saved for last. The Laguna Colorada is an enormous expanse of water, filling a bowl between mountain ranges. Saltpetre crystalising around its edges form giant blue-white icebergs, and an unusual algae colours the water a bright brick red. Flamingos and alpacas don't seem to find this at all odd, and happily hang around in the shallows. Standing by the car, sheltering from the howling wind and looking out over the lake I don't think we would have been surprised if a giant kraken had suddenly slithered up onto the shore, or if the mountains behind had began to melt or the sky turned from blue to green. It was that strange.

At 4200m above sea level, that night sleeping by the lake was our highest yet. The altitude, aspect and complete lack of any heating meant that the temperature dropped to a blistering -20º c inside our bunkhouse. We survived the cold till sunrise by all sleeping in the one room, wearing ALL our clothes and pulling our 5 season sleeping bags tight around our faces. The low oxygen did strange things to us though: all of us woke up in the night with racing hearts, ready for fight or flight.

Back in the car at 0630 for our last day, we drove off up into the mountains above the lake to the highest point of the trip. Like Rotorua, this part of the land was clearly angry. Clouds of sulphurous gases seeped from the mountainside and lakes and blew menacingly across the landscape. This environment did have its perks though – some enterprising locals had build a giant concrete bath on top of one of the fissures, creating a lovely outdoor hot-tub. We stopped for a morning soak.

At about 0900 we fell out of the car into the chilly morning air to find ourselves on the edge of a crater-cracked plain of bubbling mud and steam. This was the furthest point of our round trip, and at 5000m asl, the highest too. Sarah stayed in the car having had her fill of sulphur in Rotorua, while Swills and I went off to explore. Aside from the smell, it was quite nice to get closer to the heat so we crept right up to the edge and let the wind blow the steam over us. It was only as when we got back to the car that we noticed the EXTREMELY DANGEROUS DO NOT CROSS THIS POINT sign.

After this near death experience we began to make our way back to Uyuni – a 9 hour drive down from the mountains back to the desert. We took a more verdant route, through grass valleys and bleak looking open farmland. Alpacas abound. Ipod batteries exhausted, we were once again listening to Marcelo's choice of music. The last 4 hours was back-to-back Spanish hip-hop.

Back in Uyuni, we said goodbye to Marcelo and Pamela, checked into our hostel and each had one of the best showers ever, washing 3 days of sandblasted dirt out of our skin and hair. Shiny clean in fresh clothes we headed off in search of a Lonely Planet recommended pizza place and, after a little trouble in Uyuni's unlit streets, found it. A little slice of Brooklyn in Bolivia, we washed several pies down with a hard-earned bottle of Chilean red under the cynical glare of the American proprietor.