We wake-up with the sunrise ... The weather is superb.

We drive in direction of the North on immense table lands. In the middle of the sand, we stop to watch a natural sulpture : The stone tree ...

The tracks are superb and our Land goes in the sand, stones, ... without any difficulty..

Far away, we see a nearly dried lagoon. We stop, it is very hot and dry ... The water for the meal doesn't heat quickly because of the altitude.

We see a Defender ... Immediately, we reach it and we meet Lia et Friedrich. They are German and they travel around the world with 4x4s. Always purchasing their 4x4 vehicule in the continent they visit. For South America, they have purchased a Defender V8 dated of 87 in very good condition from a Swiss in Equator.

We exchange some good adresses and informations before to continue our way ...

Behind them an other lagoon with pink flamingos ...

When we restart our journey, we take a wrong direction. After some km, we hesitate to go back and finally we decide to continue ... Usually here, all the tracks cross at a moment or another. ... It was a mistake which will cost us some extra hours and above all some stress ...

The track followed is completely deserted, no one in sight of us ... We come down to the valley and arrive in front of a river. Daniel tries to see if it is possible to cross it and bore the bottom ... The depth seems OK but we hesitate about the quality of the ground as air bubbles are coming out ... We are alone, we do not have winch, ... no right for a mistake. We start with the low gear and it goes perfectly well ... Daniel is happy when we have crossed the river.

We continue and take a track which climbs a mountain in the direction of our GPS point. The track is first all right, then after starts to be difficult and at 4800m of altitude, disappears completly ... With the trailer it is too late to go back. We continue driving in the mountain without track. The Defender does a fantastic job but is close to its limits. At a moment, we recover the trace of an old track. We are happy but not for long. We arrive in front of very big ruts. We decide to by pass them but the slope is high and the car takes a very dangerous inclination. We evacuate and Daniel stay alone for the driving ... Finally we succeed, but it was very close ... we would have been obliged to abandon the car ... Here there is nobody and we are far away of everything ...

When we reach the valley, we are happy ... We arrive very late in San Juan and we decide to establish our campsite at the entrance of the village ...

The day after, we discover a small village with 120 families ( 500 inhabitants ) ... We decide to stay there for some days.

Our children make the school surrounded by their new friends ...

It is the celebration of the end of the school year ...

We visit the Necropolis dated from 1200 years BC. The momies are in their cave built with mud...

A Toyota 4X4 arrives with a group of tourists. We meet them, they are very sympathetic. Hélène, french, is travelling alone in South America. A couple of swiss is traveling with their baby. A girl from Honk-Kong and another one from USA are also visiting South America.

In the evening, we take our diner and bolivian children come to sing typical songs ...

A woman throws grains in the wind ... In reality, it is a step of the process of preparation of the quinoa. After having slightly roasted, they brake the grains and therefore they recuperate the good parts throwing the grains in the wind.

The quinoa supplies a big part of the food of those people but not only, as it represents the most important part of their revenues.

When we leave the village our children are sad ... they would have appreciated to stay longer.

On the way to the salar, we stop in Marianna's house restaurant. We eat delicious lama with some grains of quinoa ... Superb, especially with the beer of the region.