Trippin' High

Today's plan was to take a tour up to the the Crater of the El Taito Vulcano ate 4280m. The idea was to be there for sunrise, which required us to get up at 4 am and getting picked up by the Bus in front of our Hostel at 4:30. We were not the only ones from the Hostel who were going on this trip. Ben from Germany was there as well.
Just at 4:30 a bus came and Ben got picked up... but only Ben. The driver didn't have us on his list and told us there must be another bus coming around later. Our Hostel manager told some time between 4:30 and 5:15 the buses come and pick everyone up. Fair enough, we though and waited 45 minutes.
Every time we heard an engine approaching we were hoping for hoping for the best, but we were disappointed every time. At 5:15 we decided to call our Hostel Manager and woke her up. She said she'll make calls and come back to us.
Just a couple of minutes later we got a very apologetic WhatsApp message saying she messed up. As we were to change hostels that night (because ours was booked out) she had mistakenly booked the tour to pick us up at the other hostel. She was really sorry for the mess up and told us she would try to arrange something else for the day and get us a much better price. One possibility was a tour the Salar de Pujsa salt flats. That tour would start at 8 am and she would get us the confirmation if she found a spot by 7.
It was 5:30 now and I didn't see a point in going back to bed, so I made some more coffee, relaxed in the little court yard and waited for the some to come up while reading my book. It was actually quite nice and once we got the confirmation that we could join the tour to the salt flats all everything was forgotten.
Being on the later tour had the advantage that got to try the nice breakfast once more.
This time the bus did come on time. Another Ford Econovan took us around town to pick up all the other people form other ho(s)tels, "horse with no name" was on the radio, the sun was shining and we were ready to go.
As it usually is in deserts we drove along a very long, straight road with barely any way judging the distance. Not much to see so far. Just an hour or so later I though I might just check my GPS and by then we had already climbed to 4800m above sea level. We really didn't realize the climb - the landscape didn't indicate any significant gradient but it must have been a constant uphill drive since we left (at still 2500m). We were still in a valley surrounded by much higher "rolling hills". We passed by street signs saying (<== Bolivia 3km)... It was really cool feeling and the soundtrack in the van was just right. The driver did well with explaining things an soon we reached our first stop. The Salar de Pujsa salt flats and enjoyed our second breakfast with a cup of coca tea watching flamingos.
From here we drove on to the Monjes de la Pacana, which are rock fingers sticking out of the ground. Here we were told to just stroll around the place a bit and take some Photos. Kai being a climber obviously didn't enjoy taking pictures of these rocks from the ground and climbed up one of them. I also thought that that is a great idea and followed him.
Soon it was time to get back to the Van or rather the Van picked us up. Kai was just climbing another pillar and just when he got back down we headed off in the van to our next destination.
I can't even remember all the places we went to, there where red rocks, white rocks we visited. We went off road over a very large boulder field (for probably 20km or so) until we got to a vantage point, where our guide showed us that we could find obsidian stones here and how they were used as tools in prehistoric times.
A late Lunch was then servered in from of some typical Chilean empeñadas (pastry parcels with chicken, pork or vegetables) at another stunning site: Salar de Tara.
From here we stopped by two more Lagunas (a green and a white one as far as I remember), where barely anyone had enough energy to even get out of the Van. It was hot, we were above 4000m and didn't get a lot of sleep you have to remember, so it was a bit of a struggle to enjoy the wonderful scenery.
We got home before the sun set but were really wrecked now. Unfortunately we had to change hostels (from Mama Tierra to the Desert Hostel).
The Manager was nice enough (not only because she had to make up for her mistake) to drive us over with our luggage. But I have to say, the Desert hostel had nowhere near the great atmosphere as Mama Tierra did. It was not bad, dirty or unfriendly really but it didn't have the vibe of a good traveller's hostel as the Mama Tierra did.