Our plan of following the sun seemed to be working: when we arrived in Tupiza after a very uncomfortable minibus ride (squeezed in the back with barely any legroom), the sun was shining and the mountains around town were glowing in a beautiful red. A good welcome! On our first full day, we decided to climb up Cerro de la Cruz for a view of the city. It was a bit of a walk along dusty roads first, but the climb itself took shorter than expected and brought us up to a beautiful viewpoint. Seriously, the views in all directions were just stunning!

Since it was getting hotter and hotter, we then took advantage of the free swimming pool in the partner hotel of where we stayed. It was not as nice and refreshing as expected, but a reasonably good way to relax a bit before we had to get some things done, like booking the Uyuni-Tour, getting our laundry done etc. Travel life! We also spontaneously decided to book a 3 h horse riding tour for the next morning, since the prices were really low and it seemed like a great way to see this desert landscape.

Good idea! Next morning, we headed off together with Ladina and Kevin from Switzerland, who should also be our Uyuni group as we found out. We first took a colectivo to the place where the horses are kept, and off we went! The first place we visited was Puerta del Diablo, the devil’s gate, an impressive rock formation where we briefly got off the horses to take some pictures.

We then passed by Valle de los Machos – some more funny looking rocks – to Cañon del Inca, a really cool canyon. But anyways – the whole trip so far had been amazing!! Riding horses in this kind of landscape feels exactly like the thing you should be doing. Sometimes we were going fast, and it felt a little bit like in a Western movie.

So when our guide asked if we didn’t want to extend the trip to 5 h and add Cañon del Duende, we didn’t hesitate for long… We took a route that connects the two canyons – actually quite a long ride, but very beautiful once again. Cañon del Duende itself can be explored better by foot, as it’s quite narrow in the end and you have to climb up and down some rocks to see it. It’s a really cool place with unreal rock formations!

I’m really glad we came all that way even if it meant a long ride back whereas our bones and muscles were starting to hurt and we were out of water since we had only planned on a 3 h ride. But… the landscape and the feeling of riding a horse in these kind of surroundings more than made up for it! Very much recommended.