SALAR DE UYUNI DAY ONE

18TH APRIL

We were up bright and early and were eagerly awaiting 9.00 a.m. After breakfast we wandered over to the Tupiza tours office to begin the start of our tour. We were introduced to the other members of our group - Fiona a girl originally from Sheffield, Jannik a graphic designer from Denmark and Jason and Cynthia a couple from Edmonton, Canada. They all seemed nice enough and again it was good to hear a familiar northern voice! We instantly bonded with Fiona, she was great and had done loads of travelling but now she was near the beginning of a round the world trip, so it was good to chat about all the great things we’d seen. We were also introduced to our driver, Hualdo and Christina, our cook. Hualdo was impressed with the size of our bag as we had left Rob’s main rucksack at the hotel which we had booked into for when we got back from the trip.

After finishing off all
the necessary paperwork we all climbed into another trusty old Land Cruiser and although a little cramped in the back due to the raised floor, generally it was fine. We headed out of Tupiza and hadn’t gone more than 10 minutes before we were stopped by a guard and Hualdo showed all of our necessary paperwork. After this we were on our way and heading into Moon Valley, a superb looking red canyon. After a quick stop for photos we headed up a long, bumpy and steep track to Quebrada del Palala. This place was out of this world and set at 4200 metres it was mightily impressive. We had a fantastic view of the red rock canyons below and although a little out of breath due to the altitude it was a truly magical place.

Then it was back in the jeep and we were off again and climbing even higher to the gold producing village of Nazarenito. The word village is a very grand description for a fairly