South America

A busy day today. We started with Laguna Negra (the black lagoon) named after the rocks around it, one of which is shaped like a face.
Next, we drove through miles and miles of empty desert and weird rocks until we reached a viewpoint for Tunupa, a huge active volcano. After assurances from Zoli that we were not likely to find ourselves swimming in lava, we got out of the 4x4 and wandered around in the rocks. Vera spotted a viscacha, a bit like a rabbit with a cat's tail, and went of chasing it, eventually managing to persuade it to pose for a photo.
We continued through more desert, saw rocks shaped like trees, more lagoons with hundreds of flamingos, and had lunch next to a big dried up lake where we found the skull and some ruins shaped like igloos. We also saw lots more animals, llamas, alpacas, vicuñas and a couple of ostriches.
Finally, we reached the strangest place of all, Laguna Colorada (the red lagoon). A very bizarre sight with it's orangey red water, weird patterns in the mud and a mountain behind it. Apparently the colour comes from the algae and plankton in the water, it definitely looks like blood though.
In the evening we arrived at a big brick shed which was to be our accommodation for the night. It was very very basic, no showers and limited electricity. On the bright side, the lack of lights meant we had a completely unpolluted view of the stars at night, we could even see the Milky Way.Read more