We left early for our three day excursion to Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flats in the world. There were four of us in our tour group - Liv and I and two lovely Italian guys named David and Simon. We all hopped into the jeep and set off with our driver, Vincent, who turned out to be the best guide and friendliest chauffeur! Within minutes of setting off in the jeep I managed to completely humiliate myself in front of our new friends. We were told it was going to be very very cold at night and that we would only have three hours of electricity, so I piped up and blurted "I have a hairdryer so we can just blow each other for hours", to which Liv almost died with laughter and I deserved to be dead for saying such a comment. What a great first impression.

As we left Tupiza the four of us had no idea of the drive we were in for as the jeep literally began to climb a mountain in the beautiful canyons of Tupiza. I have never ever seen views quite like it and I doubt I ever will to that extent again. We drove through the canyon,
Over mountain after mountain for hours and hours, they just seemed to never end! It looked like another planet; honestly out of this world. We stopped to take photos but of course these do not do the surroundings justice whatsoever; I will never forget the picturesque road trip.

The scenery swapped from canyons to rolling mountains for miles, I found it hard to believe that Bolivia had this much uninhabited land and this breathtakingly beautiful. I cannot describe it, I've never seen anything like it! The mountains switched to flat desert land and we saw our first load of roaming llamas, which made me super super excited. We then stopped for lunch at a village which felt like it was up in the middle of nowhere as we had driven for hours through canyons, mountains, rolling hills, desert, distant snow capped peaks, rocky cliffs and more.

After lunch we visited the "ghost town", consisting of the ruins of an entire village that had been wiped out due to spread of illness. There had been 8000 people in the village and no survivors. It is said that the villagers were crazy due to excessive wealth as their village contained a silver mine, that was later emptied by the Spanish.

The jeep ride continued through more incredible scenery - I could not believe how many different terrains we had driven through, we hadn't been on an actual road once! We had essentially driven for 10 hours through rural, uninhabited, natural Bolivia and it was incredible. Our final stop of the day was at a lagoon over 4500 m above sea level; It was beautiful. We arrived at our accommodation for the night and were given welcome tea and snacks, before indulging in a delicious and comforting dinner. David, Simon, Liv and I made such a great group and got on so well. It worked out perfectly for me and Liv as David speaks Spanish, Italian and English so translated for us the entire time. We all went to bed at around 9.30 pm in preparation for our 4am start.