16TH - 18TH APRIL

Our basic but sturdy bus pulled into the bus station right on time, 3.45 am! We didn’t quite know what to expect and were hoping to catch a taxi but no such luck. It was far too early in the day for taxis in this small town, so we wearily hauled on our rucksacks and headed off in search of our hostel. After a few wrong turns we finally saw a person and asked them if they knew where this hostel was. Result! They pointed us in the right direction and we were keeping everything crossed that somebody would be up and expecting us.

Thankfully we only had to wait a couple of minutes before a tired but friendly looking lady opened the door and said “Hello, you must be Robert!” We apologised for our early hour but she said she was well used to it and didn’t seem to mind the inconvenient bus times. She was quick to show us our room and we were quick to accept! After

giving us the key she said she was back off to bed and we could sort everything else at a more respectable hour - phew! It didn’t take us long to climb in to bed and finish off our nights sleep.

After a great rest of our sleep we headed down in the hope that breakfast was still being served, thankfully it was! The breakfast was great and it made an nice change to have scrambled eggs and toast rather than that awful Dulce de Leche and hard bread! Our first priority was to arrange a Salar de Uyuni tour. Most of these tours leave from Uyuni but we had heard constantly good reports about Tupiza Tours so wanted to check them out. The salt plains were very much on our list of top 10 things to do when we first started to think about this trip so we didn’t want to end up with a cowboy outfit that crams as many people as it can into a jeep and heads off for a few days of terrible food and dodgy