Monday, December 6, 2012, 7:30 am, and we are leaving for our so expected tour in the natural beauty of the south, a mix of mountains, lakes and the famous salt desert.

We had 4 days, 9 travelers from different parts of the world, 2 jeeps, 2 drivers, 1 cook and 2 days without a shower and it was simply amazing! The tour exceeded all our expectations and is almost impossible to describe all that we saw. During four days we went through stunning landscapes with totally different styles, all jaw dropping! This post was perhaps the most difficult to do so far, there were so many wonderful photos that was hard to choose.

During the trip almost everybody got sick due to the altitude, which reached up to 5,000 meters! We had heard that it was complicated but we always think it will not happen to us … Headache, difficulty to sleep, dizziness, motion sickness! Yeah, it got us. We all were bad the first night, Carol was pretty bad after we visited the geysers on the second day and Alexis almost fainted after bathing in the thermal waters. To get better we sucked the famous coca leaves, we took coca tea and medicine for headache. But in the end we were all well and enjoyed a lot. It worth every second!

Our incredible journey:

DAY 1
We begin with a far west landscape with towering dried mountains like Cerrillo going through a complicated and dangerous dirt road and we went up from 3,000 m altitude in Tupiza to 4,250 m in the village of San Pablo. That was the first and worst night where everyone got sick and could not sleep. The first effects of altitude!

DAY 2
We start at 5 am and continued up to 4,855 m in Step Mars, where it was snowy. On the way we passed the ghost city and various areas of mining of silver, gold and other metals. We visited the Lagoon Hedionda.

We relaxed in the hot springs.

We visited the Geyser (the highest point of the trip, at 5,000 meters) and arrived in the late afternoon to admire the beautiful Laguna Colorada (Red Lagoon), with about 10 thousand flamingos.

DAY 3
We made a path toward the exotic Salar de Uyuni, passing through flooded areas as the Salar de Capina and a huge and beautiful region of volcanic rocks formation, such as the World Cup and Italy lost.

We also stop at the stunning’s Laguna Vinto and Laguna Negra (Black Lagoon).

We passed by the volcano Ollagüe view point, a former lake area where we could see a dry sea coral that looked like stones and crossed the old railway line in Salar de Chiguana to get to Salar de Uyuni and spend the night in a salt hotel. And it was really made of salt, because Carol licked the wall and proved it!

DAY 4
The most expected day… We visit the famous salt desert. We begin with the sunrise.

And then we break through an area that was flooded and that seemed like a mirror, doing an amazing reflection of the volcano Tunupa.

Until we got on the exotic island of cactus.

From there we had an hour in the jeep with an infinite landscape of salt that seemed never change until we stop again in a dry area to make fun photos and then we finished the tour in the weird town of Uyuni.

Definitely it was amazing, we loved every moment, the exotic locals we found along the way, the different and beautiful animals, each scenery and the good company of our super group!