We had a sparrow's fart 5am departure from the metropolis - it was pitch dark for about 5 hours and absolutely freezing - to the point that Michelle and I were on the truck snuggling under my sleeping bag! It was one of those awful experiences where you can't get warm therefore you can't keep warm. Anyway, eventually we got to the Argentinean border which was the usual hut full of gun-wielding immigration officers who told us all tom shut up. The funny thing was that they were playing pop music and 80s pop videos while they worked! We then discovered that we had to do a 100km illegal journey through Chile before reaching the Bolivian border as otherwise we would have to stamp the truck in and out of Chile which is always an absolute pain in the proverbial given their stringent customs laws. We finally reached the Bolivian border which consisted of 2 shacks and a burnt out bus!! We were then in the Altiplano which was just so remote and a bit surreal. It's very barren, virtually tree-less and just has random volcanoes dotted around and llamas - goodness knows what their predators are as we didn't even see any giant birds. We did see a load of flamingos though which looked amazing - they had black beaks and wings so were quite distinct. Our 1st stop was Laguna Blanca which looked like it was frozen over as it had a lot of white stuff around the edges and what looked like icebergs. It turned out that there is a lot of magnesium and arsenic in the water so it creates a kind of white salty scum (looked nice though!). We then had lunch at Laguna Verde which was a stunning aqua marine colour (again with the white salty scum!). Very blowy and cold at that point so it was a quick grab a sarnie and run back into the truck.

In the afternoon we reached 5020m as we had to pass the customs area to get the truck stamped in. This is where we all started to drop like flies. I mean, 5020m, that's over 15,000 feet which is about 3 miles high, give or take! I kept getting waves of nausea and had intense pains behind my eyes. Just breathing on the truck was hard so when we had to get on and off it required a huge effort. Michael decided to start administering oxygen to get us back on track and it's amazing the immediate hit it gives you. I was never scared but it's a weird feeling when your chest suddenly tightens for no reason. A lot of people were chewing on coca leaves which are supposed to alleviate the symptoms. Coca is the raw product of cocaine (and also used for the secret recipe for Coca Cola!). I couldn't get to grips with it as you have to stick it behind your teeth (like the old tobacco) and it just kept making me gag. I'm planning to get some tea and some sweets for when I do the Inca Trail to keep me in check as gasping up there is going to be a real challenge!

Anyhooo, we went to some geysers called Sol de Manana with boiling mud pots and sulphurous fumaroles (don't actually know what these last things are but copied this bit out of the LP!). The rest of the day in between stops was spent having bush wees - and that's one thing I can't do - I just wee all over myself - along with getting stage fright of weeing in public (there aren't many bushes around this area so you either find a tiny rock to hide some of your modesty or just go behind the truck with everyone else!). But, when you're drinking over 3L of water to combat altitude sickness, when you're gotta go, you've gotta go!

Our overnight stop was a place called the Refugio on the shore of Laguna Colorada which is a bright red lake fringed by that white salty scum! We had dinner and were in bed by about 7.30 as it was freezing and there was actually nothing else to do!

Next morning I was suffering from intense pins and needles in my fingers that didn't go away for about 2 hours (altitude related of course) accompanied by a nose bleed but put my martyr hat on and off we set towards Uyuni. We stopped at a beautiful river setting for lunch with loads of flamigos and at one point a few of them took flight - they were just so beautiful and graceful.

We were making good time to get to Uyuni and were about an hour away when Michael suddenly came into the truck and said there was a miners' strike up ahead and we would have to pretend that a few of us were really sick from altitude and needed hospital attention immediately. We have a doctor on board the truck (an anaesthetist actually) so he came to the front with the medical kit and we hooked one of the girls up to oxygen while Michelle draped herself across my lap holding a sick bag! The boys got out to negotiate with the strikers who basically didn't give a s*** that we might have people dying. The trucks in front of us had been sitting there since the day before - noooooo!!!!! They spoke to the head honcho and said they would take loads of photos and post them on the internet to help their cause if they let us through. They thought about it for a minute but then refused. We were going to go off-road and drive through the river but they warned us that they would stone the truck if we tried that. We waited for 30 minute or so and then the boys decided to find an alternative route which involved randomly driving across a load of scrubland, coming across rivers we couldn't cross or banks we couldn't get down. We then drove across a ditch and got stuck - whoops! We all got out while Michael successfully manoeuvred the truck out and off we set on our random route again. We were in the middle of nowhere and miles from nowhere when we came across 2 local people wandering along a track so we picked them up and gave them a lift! A bit further along the track we got stuck again - this time quite seriously. It was all getting a bit stressful as the sun was starting o lower and we didn't really have a clue where we were on these awful dirt tracks. After a lot of pushing the truck backwards and forwards to free it, we set off again, hell for leather, through rivers and almost killing some people in the back of the truck who were bouncing around all over the place! But, we made it, all alive and in one piece, and well in need of a wee bit of alcohol (we'd had 2 dry days up until then as you're not advised to drink at altitude).