15/5 birthday tupiza The day starts with a bus from 00:30 to 07:30 to cross the boarder into Bolivia. We arrive a little groggy and a little early than planned into the boarder town in Argentina. At this hour in this sleepy village its freezing cold both inside and outside the terminal. We rug-up and walk down the road following the wiki-travel directions. Sarah's wearing most of her clothes and I've wrapped a blanket around my head, as seen in the photo. We arr...

13/5 buses and salta A long full day. All you want coming off long distance flights is to get the body clock right. The plan was to land early morning, catch a night bus and sleep the night, then change in Mendoza and sleep the night on the bus again to arrive in Salta on the morning of the 13th of May. The plan!! I crashed out in the old hostel in Santiago and had a nap before the first bus. It was a lucky mistake as I had a Chilean immigration nightmare. Not ...

I'd set my alarm for 3:30am as I was being picked up for a tour of the El Tatio geysers at 4am! I dressed in 8 layers of clothing on top, 2 pairs of trousers, 2 pairs of socks and a hat, scarf and gloves - I'd been warned about the extremely cold weather out there! We were on the road after picking up sleepy travellers from other hostels and starting our ascent to the geysers. Our guide warned us that we were travelling from around 2500m altitude to 4200m altitud...

I woke up late and was feeling un poco (a little) worse for wear after the previous night. So, I used the morning to catch up on admin and write blog entries. After lunch I walked into town to visit the church. It's a colonial adobe building with lovely cactus wood rafters inside. I then visited the museum which was really interesting. It had lots of information about the geography of the region and it went in chronological order through the way of life of the...

I had a bit of a lie in - didn't realise how tired I was from my night bus - before walking into town to meet Jenny for lunch. I browsed some of the market stalls and then we headed to lonely planet's top choice restaurant for a bite to eat. At 3pm we headed on a tour of the nearby Valle de la Luna (moon valley). The three others from my hostel that we'd been drinking with the night before, Ryan, Lena and Ketz, were also on the same tour. We drove out of town an...