And so began the 4 day 4WD jeep safari of south west Bolivia. I'm going to split this day by day, if nothing else to track the route we took. Don't worry, I won't go into Galapagos detail.

After the luxurious night of bus and sofa, we met Simon and Caitlin, our jeep (and room) buddies for the next 4 days. A great couple from Melbourne. And we also met Nancy, our guide. She turned out to be one of the most insane and hilarious people I've ever met. Luckily she somehow combined this with being extremely knowledgable and so was an amazing guide.

The tour was to take us through canyons, deserts, prairies, lava fields, salt flats. Exactly what I came to S America to see.

Day 1 was primarily canyon country followed by high altitude prairies. Innumerable llamas, the odd ostrich and several vicuña (can't remember if I've mentioned these before, similar to llama but under threat and so a protected species. You can't eat them).

Our lodging for the night was a very basic hostel in the hamlet of San Antonio de Lipez. Here we met up with the other jeep in our convey and the French/American and German couples it contained. They had omitted to request an English speaking guide and so had spent the day nodding and smiling. Apparently their guide didn't really notice and talked at length all day. We had to bite our lips when he came in to explain the next day's itinerary to them to Spanish. We graciously allowed them to eavesdrop on Nancy's English version.

We had been warned to expect subzero temperatures at night, and whilst it was cold it was nowhere near Arctic conditions and so a good nights sleep was had.