We left Tupiza, towards Uyuni, with good spirtits. We knew it was going to be hard, so we carried enough food and water for 2 to 3 days. It went uphill right away, but it was okay. About 4 kms (2,5 miles) after Tupiza the road turned into an unpaved road. It was a bad road and went pretty steep up and down until the little town of Salo. There we could eat something and refill our waterbottles. The scenery was beautiful, red rockformations and colored mountains surrounding a valley.

Right after Salo the road immediately went up steeply; 400 meters (1200 ft) in 4 kms (2,5 miles), an average of 10%. We walked most of it. We met a Canadian motorcyclist who asked us where thought we were going. He thought we were crazy. He told us the road would go up much further, till 4000 meters (12.000 ft). We were only on 3400 meters (10.000 ft). After that pass the road would keep going up and down for a long time, every time going back to 4000 meters. The last 60 kms to Uyuni would be pretty flat, but the road was very bad. So it wouldn’t be a walk in the park…

He went on to Tupiza and we walked another 2 kms (1,5 miles). But it got late and the sun was setting already. We decided to go back to Tupiza. We were too heavy for a hard trip like that. We had calculated that it would take us 4 to 5 days to get to Uyuni, but this way it would take us a lot more time to get there.

We didn’t make it back to Tupiza that day, so we camped somewhere. By the time we had pitched the tent, the sun had already set and over here that means that it’s cold in an instance. When we went inside it was about 6:30 pm and it was already only 2˚C (33 F) inside the tent. The next morning we discovered that our waterbottles were completely frozen and inside the tent it was only 8˚C (40 F). We waited until it was warm enough to get out the tent, had breakfast and went back to Tupiza.