At Tupiza we were met by a lady called Ellana. She had a hostel, we had not booked anything and we were exhausted so we headed there. It was only 30 bolivianoes a night and was a big room so it ws all good. We woke up about 9ish and showered and then headed to town. We went to the market and picked up some tasty sweet pastrys, one had dulce de leche in it. Its a national treat and it is a sort of caramel sauce. There was another one with apple in it, all so good. We then booked our horse riding expedition for 2 in the afternoon for 3 hours. The town was a cute little town surrounded by mountains like out of a western. We headed for our trip and we dressed in cowboy hats, bandanas and some leg pads. We certainly looked the part...we were then taken in a car to the place to pick up our rides. There were 3 horses a brown one which was mine.. and two white horses. Our guide did not speak any English so we made a little conversation on the tour. It was the first time I had been on a horse, same as Aimee. It took a little while to get into the routine but soon we were underway.. our horses got very competitive and would begin to run to overtake each other. At first it was frightening but then we got used to it and managed to get them back under control. The scenary was like something out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid and there are a lot of references made to it in this area. Apparently they did pass through this area back in the day at the beginning of this century. There were massive canyons with the colours of red and orange but there was also green and yellows as well. We made three stops on this trip. The first was Puerta del Diablo which had some lovely catus's in front of it. We then stopped at the Valle de los Machos and lastly we stopped at the El Canyon del Inca. We stayed there for 20 minutes and took some funny pictures of this magnificant landscape. We pretended we were cowgirls hiding from the Indians in the mountains.. me and Aimee have an active imagination at the best of times :) We then rode back on the horse to town. We met some other people on their horses, it is one of the popular things to do in Tupiza. One of the last hurdles was when we were close to town.. the guide indicated to go over this little water area one by one.. well we did not see what we were doing but the horse jumped over it then went galloping down this hill.. it was funny but blimey in hindsight quite dangerous as we could of fallen. My horse was also the fatty and kept stopping to pick up food or scraps he could find. I did bring an apple for it but it turned its nose up at the apple!! Funny and spoilt little b*****!! We eventually got back to drop the horse off and we were giggling about the trip, we really did feel like something out of a western and well Aimee and I like to role play so we really enjoyed the afternoon. We then headed back, really tired after the trip and chilled for a bit. Later on we popped out and I backed up my pictures to send home with Aimee. We then went to a restaurant called Alamo which was really lovely and cheap. We shared some battered jalepenoes with cheese in the middle.. they were mega hot.. our main was a massive plate of chips covered with chicken, meat, olives, peppers, tomatoes, eggs and other bits.. I really enjoyed it. We then headed back and fell asleep. We were getting up at 6am the next day.

The next morning we headed for the bus station for 7.30 but when we got there, there was no bus. We were baffled as we had popped down the day before and there was due to be a bus at 8am. We debated getting a cab but they were waiting to fill up the cab so we decided to wait for the 10am bus. We went and got some breakfast which consisted of more empanadas and this rice ball thing which had meat inside- lush! All off the streets and all bloody good! We then got the bus and it took 2.5 hours to reach Villazon.The bus journey was pretty hairy and we were going fairly fast around non existent roads which were uneven and with drops into the csanyon below.. not for the faint hearted.. also lets not forget the 2 way traffic on these mental roads..as we turned a corner one of the seats actually fell to the side out of its position and Aimee and I giggled with the locals about that.. interesting bus ride.. Villazon was a bustling little town and was really big. We went for some lunch and then looked around the stalls before we went and cleared customs. It is a very simple process clearing customs but I learnt already that I would need to improve on my Spanish as no one spoke Spanish.. thank god for translation books. We then learnt we would need to change some money over.. we had some dollars so we had to sneak back across to Bolivia to the money changers. It was quite amusing but we managed to do it. When you get into Argentina they do not give you the paperwork that you get for Peru and Bolivia..- thats more of a FYI. We then waited for a while for a taxi.. people were ruthless and people fought over the taxis but I managed to get one and we jumped in with this old lady we had seen a few times about. We got dropped off at the bus terminal and we were instantly approached by men touting for business. We booked our bus.. or buses as there was no direct route and waited in the hot sun for the bus. When it eventually came the guys were loading the cargo on.. and I mean cargo.. there were boxes and boxes going on and we wondered if our bags would make it. When we put them on we were asked for 4 pesos but we had never done this in Peru or Bolivia so we refused and no one else was paying. We then got on the bus and I bought some doughnuts off a women who was selling them. Aimee and I joke that we will come back with diabetes with the amount of sugar going into our bodies at the moment. The bus ride took the best part of 5 hours as there was tons of stops.. we then got to San Salvador and had 2 hours to wait for the next bus to Salta. We went and had some chips-- they were amazing.. like home chips and a chorzio sausage sarnie.. so good. I picked up some popcorn, Aimee some nuts and then we got on the next bus. We were so tired we dozed off and less then 2 hours later we were in Salta.