Breakfast was at 7am so we got up around 630am. There were no showers so it didn’t take long to get ready. As we were packing up the jeep a friendly baby llama came to investigate, it was so sweet. We had another quick stop at Laguna Colorada to see it from a different perspective and we managed to get another group photo – with Rodolfo too.

The first major stop of the day was to see the stone tree or Arbol de Piedra. It is an isolated rock formation projecting out of the sand dunes of the Siloli desert. It is about 7m high and was formed by the strong winds in the area.

The desert itself was also pretty stunning, it’s actually one of the driest areas on the world. As we drove through we came across an unusual animal called a viscacha which is kind of a mix between a rabbit and a kangaroo. I have no idea of the English name for it.

We drove on to see a number of high plateau lagoons – altiplano. The first lagoon we stopped at was Honda Laguna. Again extremely impressive views with white borax areas.

We drove past the next lagoon, Chiarcota but made a stop at Laguna Hedionda which actually means ‘stinking lake’. It didn’t actually smell at all.

There were more flamingos at this lake too and this sign made me smile.

We stopped here for lunch. I don’t know how they produced such delicious meals with the most basic facilities but they did.

After our delicious lunch it was time for another group photo.

After which we headed to volcano ollague overlook and Rocas Sora Valley or valley of the rocks. The volcano is not completely inactive and sometimes smoke can be seen from it. It stands at 5,868m and towers over the surrounding area

The rocks in the valley were fascinating with one in particular that looked like a condor.

We drove through San Augustin and it was amazing to see the change in the scenery with much more vegetation. Due to this there were a lot of llamas around too and many of them just oblivously crossed the road in front of us. We also saw the Andean deers which are called Vicuña, but they were always too quick to get a good photo.

From here we drove to Juluca train station which is an abandoned train station.

We got there as the sun was setting and it seemed wierd to be in a place that used to be active but was now completely abandoned apart from being a tourist attraction. The station was used as part of the route to transport the minerals from the Salt Flats out of Bolivia. We had some fun lying on the tracks and climbing on top of the old train carriages. A few of us also had a quinoa beer which just tasted like ordinary beer to me.

As the sun went down it got quite cloudy and windy and Laura took this amazing photo that looks like the end of the world is coming.

We then made our way to our accommodation for the night which was the Salt Hotel. This place was amazing- the walls, the bedside table, the bed, it was all made out of salt! We had a delicious dinner here too, along with a nice bottle of red wine.

After dinner we did a bit of star gazing – we saw the milky way and the southern cross. I didn’t actually know what the southern cross looked like but some of the girls had been on the astronomy tour in San Pedro so knew what to look for. You can just about see some stars in this photo, again courtesy of Laura.

It was then off to bed. I shared a room with Ellie and we both had a good night’s sleep even though we were still at quite high altitude, 3,600m.