Tupiza is a small town in the south of Bolivia, usually visited by people on their way to/from Argentina. It is surrounded by the most fantastic red mountains and canyons - it really reminds you of the Wild West and cowboy films! I arrived into Tupiza at 2am and went in search of a hostel, luckily I found one pretty easily! Tupiza is the home of a tour they call a triathlon which includes a visit to some canyons in a jeep, some horse riding and cycling and I was keen to give this a go even if I had never ridden a horse - but some time has to be your first time! The first day in Tupiza I was too late to start a triathlon so I decided to walk to the top of one of the local hills - everyone said it was a really easy path so I headed off - I struggled to find the path, asked a few locals and eventually found what looked like a path - it was a path of sorts - but certainly not the path - by the time I'd come to that conclusion I was quite far up and really hopeful that if I made it to the top I'd be able to come down the real path. When I was near the top I found the real path which was a set of steps the whole way - to be honest I prefer the way I ascended (although not sure I could have descended the same way). At the top it was just amazing, in all directions I could see red mountains, the town was below, I just sat up there and watched the birds flying and listened to some music - I was pretty content!

I returned to the village, went on a walk to see a big white Jesus on a hill (something I've done quite a few times now) and then returned to the hostel where I joined two others and we went for dinner. The next day I went on my triathlon trip with 2 South African guys, we went first in the jeep and saw some cool and strange rock formations and then went for a walk around an awesome canyon. The three of us had similar senses of humour and spent a lot of the day laughing!

After the jeep part of the trip came the horses, as I'd said I'd never ridden a horse before so was a tad apprehensive! The complete lack of instruction didn't really improve that! It started off ok with a little gentle trotting, before long we were cantering which was uncomfortable but I felt ok - then came the galloping which was a lot smoother but a lot quicker - I wasn't a massive fan of this! My horse wasn't the most gentle of creatures and bolted a couple of times - but I managed to stay on - eventually we got to the canyon and I was glad to get off and have a bit of a walk - again the canyon was pretty stunning! Then we had to get back on the horses, I was starting to get the hang of it on the homeward stretch (I'd stopped shouting and swearing when the horse galloped) however when we came to stop at a stream - the horse stopped, I kept going and ended up flat on my back on the ground - I was winded, had a bit of a sore back and a sore leg (which is still sore now when I'm writing this 2 weeks later!). You know what they say about when you fall off the horse - you should pick up your stuff and go home - why would you get back on one of those crazy animals! Not really, when I got my breath back I got back on the horse and was ready to carry on - luckily it wasn't far and soon my first horse riding experience was over and I wouldn't exactly call it a success!

From there we went to biking - something I'm more familiar with (although also something that has hospitalised me twice - but a long time ago). We drove up a windy, steep, narrow, unsurfaced road. At the top we jumped out of the jeep and were given our bikes and off we went - it was a lot of fun, the scenery yet again was stunning, the biking was at times a tad precarious, as I approached steep corners with sheer drops at quite high speeds - but fun nonetheless! At the bottom we stopped for a well-deserved and very, very enjoyable beer! We returned to town where we had a few more beers, dinner and a few more beers before I ran off to get my overnight bus to Potosi!