In the morning we had some breakfast, very basic bread and jam, then set off for the days adventures, though the hotel puppy didn't want Fergus to leave and tugged away at his shoe laces for a while. We are pretty sure we were supposed to go to a place called the Stone Army but we didn't. Our first stop was to view the smoking Volcan Ollague, 6000m high straddling the Bolivia/Chile border.

We stopped off at a beautiful view point amongst some interesting red lava formations. The colours surrounding us were beautiful greens, greys and reds with a blue sky backdrop. We had some time to climb over the rocks and take some pictures of the smoking volcano before moving on to a few lagoons.

Laguna Cañapa was the first stop. It was full of Flamingos with a lot conveniently close to shore. We took some great shots of them with their striking colours and reflections on the still shallow water of the lagoon. Meanwhile a few wild Vicuñas roamed nearby.

We stopped by another couple of pretty lagoons, also with flamingos, and had lunch at one. The drive from there took us past some colourful yet desolate landscapes. Red, grey, yellow and a variety of other hues appeared in the sandy and mountainous highland surroundings. Driving through a rocky canyon we spied some Mountain Viscacha, a local animal that looks like half rabbit had wallaby.

The Arbol de Piedra (Stone Tree) was a cool rock formation poking out from the desert sands, though it required some imagination to see the resemblance to a tree. There wee plenty of other cool rock formations around it but they didn't attract the same attention.

From there we entered the Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa. The park entrance is right on the outskirts of Laguna Colorado, a lagoon that displays a vibrant red coloured water due to microscopic algae. It is only 45cm deep on average and has several dried up salty patches as well, a white contrast against the red. It is also a nesting site of the flamingo so there were plenty around.

We drove to a headland within the lagoon and were told we could have basically as long as we wanted there. We made our way down to the water and sat absorbing the view and the colours, watching the flamingos feeding in the shallows. We walked along the shore for a while then returned to the car. When we did, our guide was getting angry that we were taking too long, and got even more so when others in the group couldn't be found. Once again we didn't have a reservation, which he decided only to tell us now!

When we did arrive at the accommodation we were the first group there. That night the 6 of us all shared a room, but at least it wasn't made of salt! We had a coffee before dinner and played some cards, taking a break to watch the pink sky as the sun set for as long as we could stand the freezing temperatures! We were after all over 4,200m above sea level! Since we had a stupidly early start (4am wakeup) we tried to sleep early though unsuccessfully.

Our last day in Bolivia started early. It was freezing and pitch black over a quick breakfast before we set off to the Sol de Mañana (Morning Sun) Geyser field. We arrived just as the light was piercing the morning sky, before the sun had yet appeared.

Scattered over a small area was a bunch of geysers, bubbling and steaming away. The smell was imaginably quite rotten egg-like, but the warmth of the steam was so nice in the freezing morning. We stopped initially at a man-made geyser, which was a really high pressure vent that sounded like a jet engine, then wandered 50m to the natural geysers.

Since the safety standards in Bolivia are so lax, we were able to wander amongst the holes with boiling bubbling mud within them, standing over them and peering inside despite the fact that falling in would probably result in a painful death. But is was such a cool thing to see! Some of the geysers were tiny holes that had tiny puffs of steam, some were big holes where the mud bubbled and the steam billowed, and others shot steam into the air under high pressure.

Next stop was the hot springs. We envisaged a peaceful spot where we could soak away in the warm waters with a nice view. How silly we were! Warm thermal waters naturally run down the gentle slope into a lagoon, where someone has built a fairly small pool to capture the water and built a change room beside it.

Being a small pool with stack of people around, there looked to be nothing peaceful or relaxing about it. Some people chose to still go in, but most decided to just wander around rather than add to the crowding of the pool, us included.

We continued along the road, and as we passed a surreal looking dessert scape, our guide told us it was the Salvador Dalí desert (due to the close resemblance to one of his paintings), but said we didn't have time to stop.

Instead we pressed on to Laguna Verde (Breen Lagoon). It was in a really pretty spot with colourful mountains surrounding it, but unfortunately it didn't really show its green colour until the afternoon and it was still quite early in the day. It was still pretty nonetheless.

That was our last stop of the tour before we were dropped at the border with Chile for our bus connection to San Pedro de Atacama. Other than having a pretty terrible guide and a few annoying aspects on the tour, the landscapes we had seen the preceding few days were incredible. Surreal, colourful and vibrant yet desolate and isolated. One of the most beautiful places on the planet without a doubt.

It was a great way to end our time in Bolovia. There are so many contrasts in this country, whether they be between the snow capped Andes to the humid Amazon jungle lowlands, or between the hard working miners of Potosí to the Porsche driving upper class of Santa Cruz.

We loved the local food, especially a mid morning Salteña, and we loved the way the locals spoke using a Spanish that we could almost understand. Perhaps on a future visit we would time it better, out of the rainy season so we could go searching for Jaguars, assuming deforestation doesn't destroy all remaining habitats and farmers don't shoot them all!

LAPFWT