We drove from Uyuni, again all on unsurfaced roads, nearly having our teeth shook out of our heads. We stopped at Villamar simply because the distance was too far to go in one day to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. We stayed in basic dormitory accomodation and got up at an unearthly hour the next day (4.30am!) to continue the journey and get to Chile through the desert in the light.

The next day didn´t exactly go to plan. We had a local guide to direct us through the desert as sand tracks randomly cross other sand tracks and there are no signposts (actually signposts don´t seem to exist anywhere in Bolivia!). We drove by Laguna Colorada which is a red lake with hundreds of flamingos and the local guide said it would be ok to cross over to the road closer to the lake. Unfortunatly we hit a soft patch and the back end of the truck sunk up to the back axle! We all got out and several attempts at digging were unsuccessful. The local guide went to get help and didn´t return for 4 hours, we thought he'd done a runner! Many lorries went by but were fully loaded and didn´t want to help. We were lucky that four bolivian men and a woman came by in Jeeps and stopped to give a hand. They jacked up the back wheels and put rocks and stones underneath for grip but that still didn´t work as the truck slid off and it´d only gained a metre. Luckily the local guide returned with another lorry driver, he was fully loaded like the others but saw dollar signs flashing before his eyes so agreed to give us a pull. He demanded $100 for the 5 minuite favour but think he only managed to get $50 from our tour leaders. With his help and more stones beneath the wheels we were eventually pulled free six and a half hours after getting stuck!!!

We continued the journey six and a half hours behind schedule. We passed Laguna Verde on our way which is a green lake, no flamingos this time as the lake contains arsenic! The border crossing for leaving Bolivia was a small building on it´s own in the middle of the desert. We then entered Chile an hour later and the roads were instantly better. We had to just about empty the truck for customs to inspect everything and with the time being a hour ahead from Bolivia we got to our campsite at 10.45pm.