After a couple hours on the bumpy road, the headache was back and I was feeling nauseous. To make matters worse, the guide was back on my case. We stopped at a viewpoint overlooking a beautiful salt lake filled with flamingos, and he said, "Be happy!" Let me take a moment to explain to you how much I hate being told to be happy, or smile, when I am in a bad mood. It is an utter invalidation of my feelings. I also can't stand when people make my moods about them. It's like, I was feeling sick, and it had nothing to do with the guide or the rest of the group. I just wanted to be left alone. So I explained to him that I wasn't feeling well, and that I needed some space, hoping that would solve the problem. I also put on my ipod, becuase the Brazilians on our tour were all talking, and the thing about Brazilians, which I usually love, is that they never shut up and they are very loud, which was not helping the state of my head. About an hour later, the guide leaned over and said, for the second time, "You need to be happy!" and I thought, alright, enough is enough. So I said, "Look, I don't feel well. I am not going to sit here grinning and cheering if I don't feel well." His reply: "Well, it is a state of mind. So if you don't feel well, you need to change your mood." Me: "Okay, but that's how it works for you, not me. I just need to be left alone." He was like, "Yeah, but you still need to try." I had had it, so I finally said my peace: "Look, I don't like to be told how to live my life, so if you could give me some space on this issue, I would appreciate it." Finally, it worked, and he left me the hell alone for prettymuch the rest of the tour. I was furious, though.
The bright spot was that we stopped at yet another salt lake and got to see even more flamingos, super close up. They really are the goofiest birds ever. They sort of bob around on their long, spindly legs. They have black, beady eyes. Occasionally they stretch their wings and you can see the brilliant pink feathers on the undersides of their wings. It was magical.
The icing on the cake for the day was that, although the tour we bought had said we would spend the second night in another lodging area on the edge of the salt flat, we would have to go to Uyuni for the night because there was an important vote in Bolivia and the driver had to go vote. Our guide, who incidentally was Guyanese (and thus spoke English) and therefore not invested in Bolivian politics, explained this all to us at the last minute. The Frenchman flew into a rage and started cussing at him, while we all quietly supported him. We tried to work out multiple stratgies, such as something simple like having him go vote and then come back and get us, but no one was having it. And our guide, who should have been advocating for us, instead spent his time trying to sweet talk all of us out of our rage, using the staff in Chile as a scapegoat. I agree that the staff in Chile should have known and/or informed us about the situation so we could make up our own minds and get what we paid for, and I also understand that in South America, customers don't have the same rights. However, with everything else that had already happened, I was not having it. We made some half-hearted stops at a few sites along the way, dejectedly resigned to the fact that we would be sleeping in Uyuni for the night.
Some crazy rock we stopped at.
More weird rock formations.
A view of another salt lake. 
More flamingos! 
They were probably between 15 and 20 feet away from me. I just stared, entranced.
Another stop we made, at the Valley of the Rocks, which had weird rock formations. It was like staring into the sky to look for images in the clouds. This particular rock kind of looked like a bird.
You wouldn't think that my day could get more ridiculous and frustrating, but it certainly did. Once we got to Uyuni, we were informed that we would have to walk to our hotel because you couldn't drive on election day in the center of town. We were also informed that we would have to sneak into our hotel because it was illegal for people to work on election day. So, if you can imagine, a file of 11 gringos with our backpacks and luggage and a very obvious guide trying to sneak into the center of town, with police posted on every corner; it was really not realistic to believe that we were getting away with it. So we reach the hotel and are standing in the lobby signing in, and all of a sudden our guide starts yelling for us to just go into a room and herds us into the hallway and up the stairs. The police are pounding on the front door and we are all huddled in various rooms. There was a lot of yelling and I am not even sure how things were resolved, but the madame of the house came upstairs and tried to put two other girls in my room, which only contained double beds. I told her I was having a room to myself. It is one of the few times I have acted like a spoiled, pissy American. But to be honest, I felt like I earned that right with all the trials and tribulations of the day. And it was one of the best decisions I have ever made, because I got to relax, shower (because my room had it's own bathroom, a major plus!), organize my luggage, and read in bed without the awkward presence of strangers. It was amazing. I was just starting to feel like things were shaping up well. And, as soon as we started to descend to the city, my headache dissipated, so things were looking a bit better for day three of the tour. Everyone was downstairs in the hotel drinking that night, but I stayed in my room because, especially after traveling with Rebecca, I hadn't had much quiet, activity-free alone time, which for me is vital. So, Day Two evened out okay by the end I suppose. But lord, what a mess!
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