It was a surprisingly warm night in our room, given that it was made of salt. Most of the other guests had left at 4:30am so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. While we waited for Martha to bring out breakfast, Maria took a walk round the village, the square and the church. Apart from a few rusty cars and a couple of dogs, the streets were deserted. Breakfast was delivered to our salt table at 8am - bread rolls with dulce de leche and coffee. Nothing flas...

After a quick breakfast, we took our bags out to the waiting Toyota Landcruiser and threw them up to the guy on the roof of the jeep. Once the bags were wrapped in a tarpaulin and securely tied down, they guy came down to introduce himself. Juan Carlos was going to be our driver/guide for the next 6 days and he then introduced us to Martha who would be our cook. Our tour was going to be weather dependent, if the weather Gods were on our side, we would be climbi...

Breakfast was basic but good, we had freshly squeezed orange juice, yoghurt, bananas and bread rolls with some good coffee. It was enough to fill us up and get out the door to have a wander round the Saturday market. Today's market was an outdoor one and reputedly much larger than the daily one. We assumed that the market would start early and be in full swing by the time we arrived but lots of stalls were still to set up and some even to arrive. We walked the ...