We had another early breakfast and are set to leave around 7.30am. It's a crisp cold morning and there was even some ice outside, so it must have been pretty cold last night. I didn't sleep that well either, so am pretty tired today. Once we'd had breakfast, we loaded our luggage onto the jeep and set off again. We drove past another small village and carried on driving through the beautiful backdrop of mountains. Not long after we left, we saw loads more herds of llamas, there were so many all in big groups. We stopped to take a look, but just through the car window. Lots of them were looking at us.

I am actually writing this blog entry in the car, so am juggling writing and looking at the scenery out of the window every now and then (it's a hard life) . While on this tour, this will be the first time i'm actually writing the blog as and when things happen. Some may say that's a bit sad, but i'm far behind on the blogs and while you're in the car for nearly 12 hours a day, I may as well be doing something! We carried on driving and Janet points out some birds to us, they were called Andean ducks. John took some pictures from out of the window so not to scare them off. You couldn't see them that clearly as it was from a distance, but we were seeing a species we hadn't seen before, so it was cool. 

Llamas

Janet said look at that parade of llamas and there was a single lady herding hundreds of them. I wonder how one single woman can make all those llamas follow her, it amazes me. We didn't stop this time, but carried on driving. Then shortly after, we passed even more llamas, there must have been about a hundred of them all contained in a gravel pit with stone walls surrounding it . This time they asked if we wanted to get out, and we all agreed we'd like to. All the other jeeps had also stopped here too. I couldn't believe how many llamas I could see all in one place. We approached them cautiously, so not to scare them and managed to get right by the wall. Some of them were directly in front of us, so we were able to get close enough to get some pictures. Further away, I noticed a cute little cat coming towards us along the wall. When it was passing the llamas they were all trying to get the cat. It was hilarious watching the llamas following the cat along the wall. When the cat came towards me, it tried to jump on my shoulder, so I picked it up and cuddled it. It was so sweet, it looked like the cat from the whiskers advert. John was snapping away taking pictures of some llamas. There were also a dog on the wall, which was there to herd the llamas, so he got pictures of all the animals. I could have stayed watching the llamas for ages, but it was time to keep going.

Flamingos and lagunas

There are so many amazing landscapes to see today, and every ten minutes or so, we keep stopping to get out and look at all the awesome things surrounding us . The next place we got to see is stinky lagoon, which is a red lake, and when we got there, we saw loads of flamingos. There are 3 types of flamingo here in Bolivia, the Andean, Chilean and the James. The latter being the most common ones here. The colours in the lake were muted tones; pastel pinky shades. It's a sulphur lake and it does smell slightly putrid, but not too bad. You can see the reflection of the water here, which looks pretty amazing. Within another ten minutes of driving, we came to our next stop; Colpa Laguna. This is a mineral lake, also containing sulphur and it's nicknamed stinky lake because it smells vile due to the high levels of sulphur and minerals. Then after another few minutes of driving, we came to a mini salt flats. It would be the first time i've actually seen any salt expanse, so it was cool to get up close. I decided to get even closer and stepped on the salt. It's so white, and had a real rough surface. There were also more flamingos all in a straight line, but when we got out to take a picture, they all flew away! John liked seeing tiny houses made out of stone so went to get some pictures of those .

Vicuñas

Our next stop is going to be Polques hot springs. I'm looking forward to going in them to relax. The scenery now is even more beautiful than it has been already. I'm finding it hard to concentrate on doing my blog now, so am going to give up on that for a while to admire the views. There are multi-coloured mountains and volcanos in the background, and at one point, three countries converge; Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. The road is more open here so it's just wide road and mountain peaks surrounding us. A bit further on, we saw a group of vicuñas. The wool of these animals is the most expensive in the world. The male vicuña leaves the group to be by himself and if there is any signs of danger, he raises his tail and waves it about signalling danger to the rest of group.

Hot springs

We arrived at the hot springs and the scenery was just as amazing as we've already seen . It was an outdoor pool of thermal water of about 34 degrees celsius. All the other jeeps were here too. We went to get changed in the banos and went in. The water was just the right temperature, it was lovely. It had a gravel bottom and was quite shallow, so you could just sit in the water and relax. We stayed there for about an hour, but we couldn't have stayed too much longer as the water was too hot after you've been in there for a while.

Laguna Verde

After the hot springs, we drove for a while until we came to the Laguna Verde. As we were driving towards it, Janet said over the other side about 15 minutes away is Chile, it's the Atacama Desert. The sand was a deep red colour. We will be crossing into Chile after our tour, so will see some of the Atacama Desert then. We pulled up at the lagoon and it was such a vibrant turquoise colour. Around the lagoon was a lot of white sulphur. It's really toxic, but actually looks like you could go for a swim in the water . It's so beautiful around this area and we've seen so much today already. It was so cold and windy around the lagoon that we didn't hang around for long. Janet did tell us that we'd be having lunch near the lagoon, but when we walked over there, it was in a more sheltered area. We sat on a rock and had lunch there. Our guide and the driver are really nice actually, i'm glad we ended up with those in our car. We had another great lunch, I think Janet our guide cooked and prepared it last night, so it was a cold vegetable salad with potatoes, so I was happy. It was much warmer there than at the lagoon. Carmelo our driver was experimenting taking pictures with Dave's camera, he seems to be a bit of a photographer!

Geysers

After lunch, we drove for about an hour, it felt like we'd been driving for a long time. We all fell asleep during the journey as we were so tired. I woke up and soon after we arrived at the geysers. As we approached them, there was a strong smell of sulphur, which was like rotten eggs . We are at the top of a volcano and when we arrived there was smoke blowing from one of the geysers. It looked pretty cool and i've never seen any of them before. We all got out of the truck and had to stick together because it could be dangers with all the hot pools of bubbling mud there. We walked towards a cloud of smoke and it was blowing everywhere. We walked further around and saw hot pools of boiling mud, which I really enjoyed seeing. They were grey and bubbles kept popping in them, it reminded me of a witches cauldron! We are at 5,000 metres here so it's one of the highest points on the trip, even waking up a small slope feels like a huge mountain. We all stuck together and walked around some smaller pools of bubbling mud. I found them quite fascinating to watch. We weren't here for long, but it was soon time to get back in the jeep and head to the last place for the day. It was another hour drive until then, so I think we dozed off again.

Laguna Colorada

Upon waking up, we had arrived at Laguna Colorada, which is a multi-coloured lake . I'd seen pictures of it online and it really did look like the those pictures. There were hues of reds, pastel pinks, white, and slightly light green tones. It was a large lagoon and there were also lots of bright pink flamingos there too. We had to walk down the hill to stand near it, or you could have walked around the whole thing. We decided to just take a walk down to the lagoon rather than walking around it. It was such a beautiful lake, and it was one of the main ones i'd heard about from the salt flats tour. I never realised there were so many other lagoons we actually visit on the tour. This was one of the lakes I enjoyed visiting the most. Taking pictures of it just can't capture the beauty of the place. I wish I had a wide angle lens to do some kind of justice, but even they isn't enough to capture what you can see with your own eyes. Once we walked down by the lake and admired it, we watched the flamingos balancing on one leg and fishing for crill, we had to leave. 

Luckily, our accommodation was just round the corner, so it wasn't too far to drive . When we got there, it was exactly the same set up of our previous accommodation. We shared a 4 bed dorm with Dave and Libby, the other couple we're on our tour with. The Laguna Colorada is the lake at the highest altitude of the whole tour, and it's over 4000 metres. Carmelo the driver was checking the jeep, making sure everything runs well. He really works hard, and for long hours.

Once the sun went down, you could certainly feel the cold air, and there was a real draft blowing through when the doors opened. When it got dark, I was freezing cold, so had to put on more layers to try and stay warm. John was saying we could do with a fire. With a stroke of luck, after a while, a local lady came in with some sticks and there was a small wood burner in the room that we hadn't seen, and she lit it. Once the fire was going, everyone stood real close to get some warmth. It felt nice and toasty inside here now, so hopefully we'll sleep ok. When we'd all had dinner, one of the French guys from the other group started playing his guitar and having a sing song around the camp fire, which was lovely. Everyone gathered around and started clapping. It was a lovely end to an awesome day and we've loved every minute of the tour so far. Afterwards we all went to bed as the fire had gone out and it was starting to get cold again. I got in bed with all my clothes on to try and keep warm. Let's hope I get a good nights sleep.