¡Hola a todos!

A word of warning everyone: I have uploaded no less than three blogs today (sorry!). Needless to say, I am sure you can be forgiven for reading them in multiple sittings (after all, that was the method used in their writing).

My friends and I awoke to a cold morning in San Pedro, where we said some quick yet heart-felt goodbyes to the rest of our Pachamama group before embarking upon a minibus destined for the border between Chile and Bolivia. The journey was highly enjoyable: a steady climb for over an hour with wonderful vistas of the surrounding mountainous area. As we climbed higher the altitude began to tell with small explosions punctuating the silence as crisp packet upon crisp packet blew open - one poor chap lost three bags! Finally, after what seemed some fairly arduous crawling up a particularly steep assent, we arrived at the border, where it was blowing a gale: I was able to literally lean on the wind, reminiscent of the stories told by my parents when they visited Iceland. We were bundled into a border patrol office to undergo the usual passport-orientated matters. One of my friends, Erin, is American and I was once again left rather appreciative of my British nationality; where I could enter Bolivia at no cost, poor Erin had to cough up 135 US$ for the privilege. The necessary protocol dealt with, we were on our way and the adventure could begin in earnest and, dear me, what an adventure it became!

It quickly transpired that not only did our all-in-one driver and guide speak no English, he was not particularly susceptible to conversation in Spanish either (two of our six-strong party were fluent Spanish speakers, one - Luis - was a native of Barcelona!). After less than an hour of driving, we came across our partner vehicle (we were, rather handily, travelling as a duo). The driver had seemingly failed to recognize a rather large bank of rock and ploughed straight into it, utterly destroying his front right tyre in the process. We, the second vehicle, therefore returned from whence we had just driven to collect a spare, while those in the other vehicle waited around in the blustery, near-freezing conditions as their 4x4 was fixed, arduously. Incidentally, this very vehicle contained Rachel and Tina, my two friends from the southern Pachamama loop - happily, we had stumbled upon each other in San Pedro on a fruitless search for cash (the only Visa ATM was broken at the time). Somehow, we were later able to rendezvous at our lunch-stop beside a thermal spring, where we exchanged stories of poor communication with our driver and hazardous driving skills. Not surprisingly, considering our driver's penchant for mimicking inferior Formula One racing drivers, our vehicle suffered its first puncture early that afternoon. We stepped out into the cold while our driver, Jesús, went about rectifying matters. Eventually, with our second vehicle long since left behind thanks to our driver's hasty style and nowhere in sight, we arrived at our lodgings for the night. I do not think that I have ever felt so cold. The building was breeze-block with single-glazing (I suppose I should be lucky that there was glass in the windows at all). The central area, where we ate dinner, was heated by a sole - and very small - log burner with a rather limited supply of wood. The preliminary effects of the altitude beginning to set in, I went to my sleeping-bag that night shivering, with a pounding headache, having drunk nearly a litre of water in the final hour before bed alone.

The following morning dawned, bringing with it a still sore head but, the happy realization at least that our second vehicle had indeed arrived safely the previous evening and had simply settled in a separate part of the building, cut off from our own. After a fruitful search for more water, we set off once again into the Bolivian highlands. Alas, barely ten minutes later we were headed back to our lodgings once more, for Jesús had forgotten to re-fill the water tank and we were running on empty - just as well that this discovery came so early in the day and so near to some form of civilization. Finally, some twenty minutes later, we were - definitively - on our way. The scenery upon our route was absolutely breath-taking in places: huge mountains rising up to dominate a sparse landscape dotted with the occasional hardy shrub. Beautiful lakes broke forth from down low, a multitude of colours; one green due to a high sulphur content, one near-pure white due to the salt within its waters and yet another red because of the clay mixed within its body. I soon had chance to reflect upon this brilliant scenery at more length as we suffered another puncture during our lunch-break besides the final lake we would see on our trip. Worryingly, it was the same wheel (back right), albeit a different tyre. During the wait, I made the euphoric discovery of one of my favourite folk-songs on a CD player at the café we had eaten in and had now re-grouped within while we awaited the fixing of the tyre. 'Bolivia' is a simple, national song that I was introduced to through the Bretan folk-group, 'Micamac', based in Brittany, north-west France. This version, unsurprisingly, was being sung by a Bolivian group but, it was still very similar and helped pass some of the time waiting.

Later that afternoon, travelling in convoy with our partner vehicle, it became apparent that the other 4x4 had a worsening, though elusive, problem under the bonnet. After an hour of fruitless tinkling and with the sun setting, Jesús made the decision to continue to our night's revised destination, for by this time it was far too late to reach our intended target. In fact, he had wanted to travel alone, leaving us with not even a vehicle to shelter within; of course, we soon rubbished this brilliant suggestion and piled in before he had chance to drive off without us. As darkness set in, and in the middle of nowhere having recently traversed a particularly punishing set of rail-tracks, we suffered, yes, another puncture to, yes, our rear-right tyre. Mercifully, we had picked up a new spare tyre during our lunch-stop, when it became apparent that we had developed our second flat: Jesús once again did the honours while I went for a short walk to fail yet again to capture a beautiful yet elusive sunset. Thirty minutes later, we were powering on to our revised destination for the night, everyone's spirits a little low, truth be told. Of course, this seemed nothing to any of us compared to the travails being suffered by our partner vehicle, including Rachel and Tina, who were waiting upon us and would now have to wait even longer, thanks to our latest pit-stop. Our hostel of sorts for the night did at least prove an improvement upon the previous night, even offering warm showers at ten Bolivianos (little less than one pound), to the obvious glee of the female members of our group, Erin and Laura. Better news yet arrived in the shape of our fellow travelers who, remarkably, had been able to overcome their gremlins under the bonnet and journey on not an hour behind us. To top the evening off, dinner arrived in the form of dubious-looking sausages and chips that were chunky and fried, just like Down Gran makes them - of course, they were not quite up to Gran's indomitable standards but, they were uncannily similar and, not surprisingly, brought to my eye a tear or two as I sat reminiscing about home and yester-year down the hill at Granny's.

After a short yet revitalizing sleep, we rose at 5am in order to see the sun rise over the salt flats, the very location we all so desperately wanted to see. Unfortunately, we suffered another rear-right puncture barely forty minutes into our ride (I could not make this up), after Jesús had mercilessly driven rough-shod over some particularly bumpy ground. We piled out, into the freezing early morning temperatures, where the sun rose slowly, lethargically to mock us from the horizon. I caught a couple of photographs but, alas, there were no salt flats anywhere in sight. Furthermore, we had, finally, run out of spare tyres (or the poor substitute that Bolivians apparently employ). Therefore, Jesús had to reconstruct our badly ripped tyre with parts of rubber stripped from another badly ripped tyre: imagine a bicycle inner-tube, simply upon a larger scale. Of course, Jesús did not have the car equivalent to a puncture repair kit and so he made do with a knife to roughen the rubber and water as an adhesive (I am far from joking). This was the lowest point upon the trip I am sure and, one hour later and far beyond the cares of any of us, we finally limped on and into the salt flats.

I must confess, despite having seen many, many photographs of the incomparable Bolivian salt flats and after the traumas of the previous hours and days, still the sight of the sheer vastness of pure whiteness unfolding before me as we entered the flats was mind-blowing. Words are, as ever, simply insufficient and so I shall rely once more upon my poorly-shot photographs to do further scant justice to the scene, just as soon as I find an uploading station. The scale of the flats, although clearly huge, seemed deceptively smaller due to the lack of objects with which to form an impress of distances: it was only once we had picked out our destination of a small "island" within the sea of salt and then had taken nearly an hour to reach said location did something of the scale of the place begin to sink in to our minds. Of course, this was after an obligatory stop when our battery went dead and we boys had to get out and push for a time - oh well, at least it was not a more time-consuming flat tyre for a change. We reached the island within the salt, a centuries-old mound of rock upon which grow mind-dizzyingly old cacti - I saw one that had died in 2007, aged approximately 1,300 years! Beside it was a 900 year-old neighbour, seemingly in the prime of life. I also had ample opportunity to observe some brilliantly coloured birds, able it seemed to live upon the mound and feed from the insects living upon the cacti - my favourite was a green-backed bird a little smaller than a pigeon with an eye-catching yellow under-belly. Of course, I have no idea what was its name. It was here at the island that we enjoyed our final breakfast of fresh cake and strawberry yoghurt, bread, tea, coffee and dulce de leche (thankfully less sweet than the artery-clogging Argentine equivalent). It was also here that we took multiple, surrealist photographs upon the salt flats, able to play with perception and distance to create some images worthy of any prog-rock band's album sleeve. My particular favourite was a shot of a diminutive Erin, cupped in my hands, shouting at me for some unknown, though surely deserved, reason.

Time moved on into the afternoon and with it us, travelling now to our journey's final destination of Uyuni, the closest town to the salt flats and the entrance to the rest of Bolivia. Needless to say, the final leg would not have been complete without one last stoppage - this time Jesús seemed fixed upon there being another puncture, when in fact it appeared that the break-pad was simply rubbing the front-right tyre (nothing like a bit of variety). Quite inconceivably, we actually arrived in Uyuni just one hour behind schedule, something I put down to Jesús' driving-style and a limited time on the flats (though, in reality, time enough for us all I feel). Awaiting us was lunch and my first opportunity to taste llama-meat, which I found roughly akin to a mixture of beef and lamb, although decidedly tough to provide a satisfactory comparison to either. I shall try again no doubt, in the optimistic hope that there are others in this region who can cook the meat a little more sympathetically.

If we had imagined that Uyuni brought with it the end of our tour-based woes, we were painfully deceived. After an hour wandering around the "city", it became apparent that with the sole ATM out of order (surprise, surprise) and the exchange office decidedly off-put by my badly-shrivelled, journey-tired US traveller's cheque, I was completely without money, along with some other members of the group. Worse still, Erin was being held to ransom by some crooked old Bolivian woman who clearly belonged to the local mafia: after handing over her passport at the outset of our trip, Erin was now unable to retrieve it from this dour female's grasp - apparently, two members of the other 4x4 (neither Rachel nor Tina) had yet to pay for the experience and Erin's passport, of course, was being used as collateral. As if it was not bad enough that the tour had been so utterly useless and yet we still were without any form of refund, we were now being painted as the crooks. I confess that this was easily my lowest and worst experience upon my adventure thus-far: thank goodness it was not me in Erin's position - although naturally quite hysterical, she did a wonderful job holding herself together until, at long last, the two other members found a restaurant offering cash-back that allowed them to pay for their trip and Erin was able to secure the recovery of her ticket out of Bolivia (after just three days, she was intending to return to Argentina - what a mess!).

In an on-going saga that could rival the best paperbacks, we discovered (better late than never) that Uyuni was to indulge in a strike affecting all transport from midnight that very evening: the Bolivian government, understandably considering that Uyuni is a place completely without redemption, had thoughtfully decided to asphalt all roads around the country, with the exception of those going anywhere near Uyuni. Slightly less understandably to my biased mind, though perceivable nonetheless, the locals were less than happy with this state of play: cue a mad rush for all of us to find transport out of the accursed city before the midnight shut-down. Thus it is that I find myself writing this blog from the grimy streets of La Paz, haunted by altitude sickness, and not Potosi, my originally-intended destination after Uyuni. As it is, feeling rather rough thanks to the aforementioned altitude complications and decidedly out-of-love with this the highest capital on Earth, I am due to leave tomorrow for Lake Titicaca and pastures anew - of course, I am unable at present to upload this blog-entry and so, by the time anyone reads this, I shall hopefully have arrived at the lakeside (or beyond) and escaped the worst of the thin air on offer in this hitherto frustrating country.

¡Saludos a todos!

David xxx