Customs and immigration was a breeze and we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama a little after lunch. The entire town's buildings are made up of reddish mud/clay and very, very quaint. Kerry fell in love with the town immediately. We booked into a "campsite" where we parked in the car park but used all the toilet facilities. We also met Chris, a Scottish guy not much older than us, who has been travelling around for 3.5 years in his customised Ex-Military Series 2 Landy, Mathilda. He has driven from the UK across Siberia through Alaska and is still heading south. He is a bit of a dab hand with Mechanics and James took great joy in both of them trying to fix all the little niggling jobs we needed to do to Lodzi. Therefore we now have the compressor fixed, all the dash board lights working and a kill switch fitted.

     We then headed off into the Atacama Desert for a few days of rough camping. At first we attempted to drive across the salt flats on a "track" that we had on our map. Well before you even hit the mud you cross the fine whitish powder that just sinks the vehicle. After 2 hours and 5 kms we turned around and changed plans. Although we used the diff lock the whole time, we were fortunate not to get bogged down. Next we drove out the Los Flamingos National Park for lunch and then took a drive up into the mountains to see two stunning lagunas, the most impressive being Miscanti.

     After a night camped in the Atacama Desert basin, we headed for Laguna Ceja not far from San Pedro. A little hard to find but absolutely worth it. We both agreed probably the most beautiful camp spot we have found to date. There are about 7 little dispersed Salt Laguna's of crystal clear water. The water is so salty you just float on top and another amazing characteristic is the top 10cm is ice cold, below that the water is luke warm. Not being able to sink, you end up floating in the ice cold water! We both had a cheeky skinny dip until disturbed by two locals on horseback. We hope the pictures show what a stunning setting it was.

     Another night in San Pedro and we headed out to Calama to send off our next Landy Mag article as the internet in San Pedro was too slow to send the photos. Our return trip was via El Tatio geysers, where we spent another night with the temperature dropping below -10 degrees at about 4300m. Fortunately Chris had given us an extra blanket but due to the condensation from our bodies overnight the blanket was covered in ice in the morning! On waking at 6am we were camped in the middle of about a hundred geysers ranging from little steam jets to huge boiling pools of water and spent the whole morning walking among them all.

     Unfortunately the road up to the geysers was exceptionally bad with corrugations and while high in the mountains the brakes went all spongy and we lost them altogether. On immediate inspection James discovered the front right brake pipe had broken off at the entry to the callipers and we had proceeded to pump all our brake fluid out over the wheel. After clamping the pipe and refilling the oil we continued with the car pulling violently to the left when the brakes were applied.

     Returning once more to San Pedro, James with the help of Chris found some spare brake pipe at the local mechanics yard and managed to make a new pipe and bracket for the connection. "Good as new" so far! James and Chris also managed an afternoon of sand boarding in Valle de Muerte (ominously Valley of Death) it was great fun although you soon miss chair lifts when you spend 10m walking up 50m and 15 seconds coming down. Not quite snowboarding but excellent fun.

     After over a week in San Pedro where we had been following the political problems in Bolivia, we decided to head up the SW part of the country where we were assured by the tour agencies there were no road blocks or local hassles.