I always planned to do the salt flats from Tupiza. The reason being was that I wanted to finish the tour with the salt flats. If you take a tour from Unyui, you basically start with doing the salt flats. It's a bit like having your desert before you've even had dinner. So although it meant travelling further to come to Tupiza, we were willing to do this. We've also met many people who said they'd recommend doing the tour from here too. From having done my research, and from personal recommendations, we found a company called Tupiza Tours. They are well established and are the longest serving company in Tupiza and have a good safety record, which is an important factor when choosing a tour. Someone recommended Hotel Mitru to stay at, as the tour agency next door is Tupiza Tours. We booked a couple of nights here before the tour started. As we stayed there, they gave us a discount off the price, which was a bonus.

Setting off on the salt flats tour ...
 
So this morning, we got up early, had breakfast and were picked up from the hotel at 8am. When we booked, we asked if we could be put with an English speaking group of people if there were any. The lady booking our trip said there was and that they had requested an English speaking guide also. You have to pay extra for the guide, so at first we weren't that bothered about having an English guide, but perhaps it's a good thing to be able to understand what the guide is saying. So we decided to pay that little extra for the English guide. This morning, we still didn't know who we'd be taking our tour with, but we'll find out soon.

Once we'd paid and checked out of the hotel, we took our things to the jeep and loaded them on. The other couple of people on our tour were there ready and waiting for us. They are an English couple called Libby and David. We introduced ourselves and they seemed nice people. I'm sure we'll all get along well on the tour. After all the introductions, we set off . Our English speaking guide happened to be the lady who booked the tour from the Tupiza Tours office. I was pleased about this as she was really helpful. She introduced herself as Janet. We also have the driver, who's just Spanish speaking. We started driving and the realisation kicked in that we are doing our salt flats tour, another of the places i'd always dreamed of coming to. 
 

Red rocky canyons
 
 
Most of the morning, was spent driving in the jeep. We were surrounded by rocky canyons, green valleys, cactus forests, huge geological rock formations and pointy red sandstone rocks. We stopped at the mars-like red rock formations, which have been formed due to the erosion of earth when it rains, causing the shapes of rock that we see before our own eyes. Janet also told us that Tupiza means red mountain, which exactly describes this place. You really feel like you're in the Wild West. Then after an hour of driving through the most spectacular scenery, we drove past Valle de la Luna, which was similar to the one we visited in La Paz, only more stunning . We stopped at a lookout point and stood there to admire the views; endless canyons, deep valleys and beautiful rays of sunshine upon us. There were some very tall cactus, some had pretty pink flowers starting to bud. Then we carried on driving for a while until we came to a heard of llamas. We headed out of the jeep for some fresh air, and got as close to the llamas as we could. I love llamas, I can just stay watching them for hours.
 

Afterwards we got back in the jeep to carry on driving. We've been driving for a few hours and it's so hot in the jeep. If you open the windows, you get a ton of dust blowing in, but if you don't, you get too warm. I expected it to be cold on the tour, but it's summertime, so I was completely wrong so far. I expect it will be cold when we're at high altitudes. After driving for another two hours or so, we stopped for lunch. We pulled up on the open road and found out that our English speaking guide is also our cook. Somehow she managed to prepare our lunch from the boot of the jeep . We all sat on the ground admiring the views. Janet told us about llama wool, the most expensive is the white fur, then it's the brown, and the cheapest wool to buy is the black wool. I guess that's because you can't dye that wool any other colour.

After we'd had a tasty lunch, we carried on driving for another few hours, only making a few stops along the way. One was a very small village with a really old church, one was at some sand dunes, surprisingly. They reminded me of being back in Huachina with all the sand dunes there. We also passed through some small local communities with as little as five families living in one remote village. It's amazing how they can live so isolated from the rest of the world. We also keep stopping regularly for short breaks, it's actually quite tiring driving in the jeep. There is hardly any suspension, and the roads are really bumpy, so you're constantly rocking from side to side. Come the afternoon, it felt like we'd been in the jeep for an age, and we were all starting to get really tired now . 
 

Inca Ruins 
 
 
Later on, we visited an ancient Inca ruin site, which was later taken over by the Spanish conquistadors. There were some Inca ruins, and also some adobe buildings. People would have been sacrificed here. They were pretty impressive ruins, but still nothing compared to Machu Picchu. We wandered around the site for a while exploring, inside the ruins, we found lots of bones. I hope they are of animals and not human sacrifice bones. When we'd seen enough, we got back in the jeep. All the groups from all companies seem to congregate in the same place, so there were about ten different trucks pulled up here.

We carried on driving for another half an hour or so and came to a Laguna called morton, which was a turquoise blue colour. We stopped and got out of the jeep to admire and take photos, but at 4,800 metres, it was pretty cold and windy up there, so needless to say, we didn't stay there for long. After that we carried on driving and watching the sun go down in front of us . We arrived at the entrance to the national park and paid our entrance fees. It really feels like we've been going further and further away from civilization. Afterwards we drove for another half an hour before we reached our accommodation.

Soon as we arrived, we had to unload all the bags from the jeep and we were shown to our room. We had a 4 bed dorm to share with Dave and Libby. Once settled in, we had tea and biscuits, which were just what we needed. We arrived here around 7pm and it's been a long day as we've been driving in the jeep for nearly 12 hours. We've covered a distance of 350km, so we are all shattered. we are staying at a high altitude, so just as I expected, it's very cold up here. We had to wait for a few hours before dinner, which came around 9.30pm, then all went to bed. I was freezing cold, so it's going to be a long night....