Day One – Leave at 9am, travelling from Tupiza up into the Altiplano towards San Antonio de Lipez where we will spend the night.

Day Two – Leave at 6am, travelling west towards Aguas Termas and beyond to the Laguna Blanca and Laguna Verde, finishing at Huallajara for the night.

Day Three – Leave at 8am, heading north past the Árbol de Piedra to Puerto Chibica to stay the night.

Day Four – Leave at 8am, driving across the Salar de Uyuni to the Isla del Pescado and finishing in the town of Uyuni in the afternoon.

The deal is that there are between four and six people travelling in the jeep, with a driver (Hector) and cook (Perfida). There were six people in our jeep and I was lucky to get a good group of people: three Australian girls (Corinna, Elisha & Beau) and two Israeli guys (Uriel & Dudu).

Day One

We left Tupiza in the morning, following a dirt track uphill. The first part of the journey was a little like a roller coaster as Hector flung the jeep into tight curves just inches away from steep drops into the valleys below. Our first photo stop was El Sillar, with great views over the valleys and colourful mountains of Tupiza.

We continued on, climbing higher and higher, following the dirt road across a plain with mountians raising up on both sides. We stopped for lunch in a desolate, windy location called Huama Pampa. There were llamas nearby, and a man in blue overalls working on what looked like a fuel tank in the middle of nowhere. I’m not sure what he was doing but it struck me this is a pretty awful place to earn a living. There was a small adobe hut by the tank and I hope that it wasn’t his home.

In the afternoon we stopped in a small village called Cerillos. Some kids came running to meet us and we gave them sweets and took photos, and watched amazed as one little girl kicked another and took her chocolate and ran off into the distance. The village was small and desolate, a small group of adobe houses. Perfida explained that the people here herd llamas for a living. Once a week a truck comes and they take llama meat and wool to Tupiza to sell so they can buy supplies. This was the first remote village we had stopped in and we were to see several more during the excursion. It amazes me that people live in these high, remote places, far from civilisation, battling the wind, cold and altitude to eke out a living.

In the late afternoon we came to San Antonio de Lipez, a staggering 4200 metres (13700 feet) above sea level. This is more than three times higher than Ben Nevis. The six of us shared a room with an outside bathroom (with no shower or hot water). Luckily the beds had plenty of blankets because the temperature overnight typically drops to minus 12 degrees celsius and there was no heating….For us an uncomfortable night to spend but worth it because of the amazing places we’re seeing, but imagine how it must be for the people who live here.

As the sun set I walked around the village taking photos. There were a lot of curious kids, I saw some playing basketball and others looking at me from doorways or windows. They were curious but shy and didn’t want their photos taken (the people here can be very suspicious of outsiders and I’ve read they believe that a photo can take their soul) except for one little boy called Esteban who posed like a wannabe rock star.

Sunset, San Antonio de Lipez

Church, Pueblo Fantasma

Near the thermal baths