Day 193 - Friday 31st March 2006

After nipping into Tupiza town to get some breakfast (a pastie type thing named a Salteña) we loaded our packs onto the waiting 4x4 whichwould be our transport for the next 4 days for our trip to the Salt Plains. Things started slowly. The driver made a few stops picking up last minute provisions and obtaining our tickets for the National Parks which we would be visiting. We left town via a track on yet another dried up river bed, bumping our way along the gravelly surface.

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Day 192 - Thursday 30th March 2006

Close by the town of Tupiza there were a few opportunities to spendan afternoon hiking,and in keeping with my idea of getting out of the town more often, that is exactly what I decided to do. The six of us all decided to hike to a place known as El Cañon, and with a name like The Canyon we supposed it must be impressive. Or maybe it was just that the locals lacked imagination.

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Day 191 - Wednesday 29th March 2006

Arriving at the Bolivian border at 7am the formalities were pretty straightforward and I got another stamp in my passport. It was immediately obvious as I walked from the border to the bus terminal that Bolivia was definately not a first world country.

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Days 188 to 190 - Sunday 26th to Tuesday 28th March 2006

After the Saturday evenings events my Sunday was dintinctly quiet. Monday was only a little more active, I bought my ticket out of Argentina for the following evening, had a wander around town and watched Spurs beat West Brom.

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Day 187 - Saturday 25th March 2006

Part two of The Road Trip started out with a very uninspiring vist to a cheese-making factory, but this was soon over and it was into the good bit. Between Cafayate and Salta there were numerous locations to stop and take in some of the most impressive scenery I had seen in all Argentina.

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Day 186 - Friday 24th March 2006

Once our hire car had arrived, we loaded our stuff uop and set off pretty much straight away on our two day, 550km road trip around the Calchaquies Valleys. We were three, myself and and an Israeli couple. Our transport was a VW Gol, equivalent to a Polo in the UK.

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Days 184 & 185 - Wednesday 22nd & Thursday 23rd March 2006

To celebrate my success at leaving the town for the day, I had enjoyed a few beers the previous evening with 3 Swedish lads. It was due to this that I woke up late. Feeling a long way behind in both my diary and the blog I needed to spend a few hours trying to catch up.

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