Last night we stayed at the highest altitude we've been on the whole trip, at a height of 4,600 metres, we were certainly feeling the cold. I hardly slept at all last night, I was freezing cold. I really should have hired a sleeping bag, but completely forgot. We got woken up at 6am by the driver; Carmelo, who's so happy in the mornings. I think i'd only got to sleep at around 5am, so the thought of getting out of bed was not appealing to me. We all lazed in bed for a while longer and then decided we needed to get up. We had pancakes for breakfast with dulce de leche, which is like a creamy caramel sauce, it's delicious, that was enough to tempt me out of bed. We also had apple juice mixed with milk, which tasted good surprisingly. We were the first ones to breakfast so had a head start on everyone else. After breakfast, we packed up and loaded everything into the car and set off. We must have driven about 10 metres, and the car just came to a holt. One of the drivers from the other car got out to help Carmelo check what was wrong, and within minutes, they'd fixed the problem. Our driver works hard, and when we come back in the evenings, he spends hours on the car, checking the engine over and making sure it's running well. After that was fixed, we were on the move again.

Mirador Aguas Calientes 

We went back to Laguna Colorada again this morning because Janet said that there is a different light at the lagoon . We drove to a different view point (mirador) this morning, it only took a few minutes to drive there, as our accommodation was really close to the lagoon. When we got there, I know I keep saying this, but the scenery was much more beautiful from this viewpoint. There were loads of flamingos by the lake, but this time, as we are higher up, we can get a better overall view of the lagoon. The water still looks red in sections, but parts of the lake looks a pastel shade of pink. It's a lovely spot for taking pictures. We stood by some rocks and looked down by the lagoon and saw more llamas by the lake. The other group have got in to the habit of calling themselves the sexy llamas and it's suck with me! Anyway, our driver wanted to take some pictures of us both and wanted to take pictures where we are jumping, so we gave that a go. We actually got a cool picture of John jumping, I look silly when I was jumping. But it was good fun trying anyway. Afterwards, it was time to go again, so we set off in the jeep.

Desierto de Siloli - Arbol de Piedra

Next stop is the Siloli desert . There is a tree shaped rock called Arbol de Piedra, which is a really famous shaped rock in this desert. It stands at 7metres and 20cm high and looks pretty impressive. There are other gigantic rocks in all kinds of shapes. We wanted to get the classic pictures of the Arbol de Piedra, but there were so many people crowding around it, that we had to wait a while to get some. I've never seen a rock shaped like a tree so it was cool to get some pictures surrounding that. After we'd got our classic pictures that we wanted, John loves to climb the rocks, so he went off to find the biggest rock he could find and climbed up it. The rocks are so big, so John looked small when up on the rocks. I took some pictures of him up on those big rocks. After John went up, another group of people went up there and tried to climb up the same bit that John did, but they couldn't all get up like he could. I definitely won't be climbing up that rock myself! However, I did climb up some smaller rocks and I must have looked even tinier than John did! After we'd had our fun on the rocks we all got back in the jeep to set off again .

Viscacia hunting

After setting off from the desert, we went hunting for viscacias. They are a desert animal a bit like a rabbit, with a tail. I'd say it's a cross between a rabbit and a rat because of the tail. We drove along the desert rocks and stopped by some huge rocks to look for some. That's the natural habitat that they can be found in. John and Dave climbed up the rocks, while Libby and myself just looked along the bottom to find some. Unfortunately, we didn't find any here, so carried on driving. We are heading to a canyon, Janet said we'd probably see some there anyway, so we weren't too bothered about nor seeing any. We carried on driving until we came to the canyon and then in front, two of the other Tupiza Tours cars had pulled over and they were blocking the road, so we also had to stop. As soon as we pulled over, John noticed a viscacia out of the window, so that's why everyone had stopped. We all got out of the car to take pictures and stayed there for a few minutes . We seem to be driving throughout the whole tour with the other Tupiza Tours jeeps, so we've met them and they seem like a fun bunch of people. They had written on the back of their dust covered jeep "sexy llamas"! It was hilarious to see that they were all having a laugh. It's been good to travel with the other jeep and not just our own, as we only have a group of 4, whereas, they all have bigger groups.

More lagunas, lakes and flamingos

Back in the jeep and having drove through the canyon of rocks, we had yet more lagunas to visit. As we've all seen so many lakes now, we're a bit reluctant to keep getting out of the jeep to look at them all. One of them we did get out to have a look around was Laguna Honda, which was pretty, but we've seen better lakes, so we walked around it and waited for the jeep to pick us up. There were a few flamingos in this one, but you couldn't get that close to them anyway. Then we saw yet another Laguna that we didn't even get out at as it wasn't that impressive . We then came to yet another stinky lake, Janet said we'd want to get out for this one as the flamingos are tame here, so we would be able to get close to them. So out we get to see yet another lake. The scenery was nice, but nothing special to look at. It was just nice to be able to get a closer look at the flamingos without them flying away. Janet said we should be able to differentiate between the three species of flamingo here, the Andean have red legs, the James also do, and the Chilean have yellow legs. I looked out for them and as we were so close, it was possible for me to identify all of the species. They must have only been a foot away from us, so this was the most interesting thing about this lake. It also smelled of sulphur, but the flamingos only go in the non sulphuric part of the lake. We got our pictures and headed to our last lagoon on this trip, it's the Laguna charcota. It was another 15 minute drive until we arrived. It was another sulphur lake that contains borax and is toxic. There were some nice mountains and volcanos in the background, and also plenty more flamingos, which were close to us . We've taken enough pictures of flamingos now, so no need for any more. I do love seeing lagoons, but as we've seen so many on this trip, I won't need to see any more lagoons in a while.

Lunch and more viscacias

After seeing all those lagoons, it was time to drive a bit further for lunch. Along the way, one of the other cars from our group had a flat tyre, so our driver stopped to help them change the tyre. While we were all stopped, the members of the other group all got out and one of them started playing the guitar and everyone started singing. Apparently they have had four flat tyres on this trip already. Although I'm not surprised with that as the terrain is over loads of rocks and it's so bumpy along the way, i'm finding it difficult to do my blog while it's like this in the car. So when he'd fixed their tyre, we were on our way to lunch. We stopped by a load of rocks, I thought it was a random place to have lunch, but Janet told us it's a place where viscacias hang out . When we got there, we saw quite a few of them all perched on rocks. We sat down to have the best lunch so far, well for me it was. We had chicken, potatoes, salad, and camote, which is sweet potato. After we'd eaten, we managed to get a closer look at the viscacias because some of the other groups had given them their leftover food. Apparently, they like salad and tomatoes, in particular. I just so happened to have a bit of tomato left, so I tried to feed it to one of them. I held the tomato out to it and it cautiously came over to take it out of my hand. That was so cute, it really reminded me of rabbit as they eat the same kind of food too. We got some cute pictures and then we had to leave to go to out next destination.

Salar de Chiguana and coral rocks

The next place we're passing through is a small salt flats called Salar de Chiguana, which is only tiny in comparison to Salar de Uyuni. After lunch we drove for another hour before we reached the salt flats . This one doesn't look so much like a salt flat as the ground is more brown than white. While driving through it, I thought it was still quite big, but it just doesn't resemble the salt flats as much. We only really stopped on this salt flats to look at a railway line that is used to take cargo, but is not open to members of the public. We did stop to look at the railway lines, which run through these mini salt flats. John was messing around and found a gap in the ground, so went right down under the tracks! It would have been good to stop longer to admire the flats, but they are not white like the Salar de Uyuni ones we'll be seeing tomorrow. After stopping for a few minutes, we went to see some coral rocks. These rocks are evidence that there was once a sea in this part of Bolivia millions of years ago. There were hundreds of rock formations and they were really sharp and jagged. There was also a tiny lake behind, which we didn't bother to go and see. Apparently lake Titicaca once joined up to the sea they used to have in Bolivia . We stopped there for a short while and are going to our final destination of the day.

Galaxy and Graveyard

So the last place we are visiting today is somewhere called galaxy. I hadn't heard about this place on the salt flats tour, but it's basically a cave that was discovered in 2002 by some locals, so it's a very new discovery. It's a cave that's made from coral rock and lava from a volcano that erupted, although I don't know how long ago the volcano erupted. What they do know is that the cave is around 40 million years old, so it's very ancient. We had to pay more money to enter, but it was worth it because we are getting to see something millions of years old. The cave looks like it's made from bones as it's all white in colour. There are really cool formations of coral inside the cave. It did have an eerie feel about the place too. It was only a small cave, so it only took us a few minutes to explore around it. I just can't believe it's been here for 40 million years, that is amazing . 

After walking through the cave, we went to the graveyard next door. This has also been discovered and it had a load of mummies inside, however, some local people stole the remains. Inside the grave are some empty tombs, there are about 10-15 graves in total. These remains would have been here since the time of the incas and would have been people who were sacrificed. You can see some human skulls in the graveyard, along with some pottery, which must have been buried with the dead. The graveyard is inside a cave, and this has an even spookier feel to the place. It's strange to think this site is here at the foot of the salt flats. When we came outside, we went up to a lookout point. You can climb some steps and see views over the salt flats, along with some cactuses which are made of stone. The reason for them being made of stone is that they once were cactuses, but lava rocks from the volcano covered them, so the rock is still in the shape of a cactus, but the cactus no longer remains .

The salt refuge

We've managed to cram so much in today, it's been such a busy day, and we're exhausted now. We get to stay in a really cool salt hotel tonight. The whole place is made of salt, from the walls outside, to a table of salt, to chairs made out of salt. The possibilities are endless. When we arrived, you can see the bricks made of salt, and it looks like a pretty well maintained place. We got shown to our rooms, and luckily we got out own private room made of salt. It was surprisingly quite warm inside the hotel, as the last place we stayed in was freezing cold. Some of the lads from the other groups were all going to play football, so John went outside to play with them, but at an altitude of nearly 4,000 metres, they were all knackered after about half an hour. I went to have my first hot shower in three days, as the previous places we stayed didn't have a shower. We had to pay 10 bolivianos each, but it was money well spent in my opinion. When we went to dinner, there were loads of groups of people from all different companies on different tours. We noticed there were a big group of people all wearing silly ties. We later discovered at dinner that it was somebody's birthday, so they all dressed up like this for it, so that's a good way to celebrate a birthday here on the salt flats. We had to wait a really long time for our dinner knowing that we have a really early start tomorrow. We have to get up at 4am as we are watching the sun rise over the salt flats. After we finally got our dinner, we went to bed ready for that early start tomorrow. So excited to be finally going to the salt flats tomorrow.