As we left Chile we hit dirt roads like we have never come across. Passing through some stunning scenery of lagunas of various colours, we camped our first night at 4700m in some rock formations on a large freezing sand plateau. We had all the ingredients for our worst night yet!!! James choosing to continue driving after we had found an ideal camp spot (lower in altitude and more protected), an icy cold wind howling, not being able to get out the wind totally, everything in the car freezing before we fully decamped, the gas being too cold to light and not enough oxygen in the back cab to cook anything and both of us having stinking head aches from the altitude. So at 7.30 we decided to just go to bed and try get warm. After a very long cold night where the temperature dropped to -12 degrees, we woke in the morning to find we were hidden from the morning sun by the highest rock for miles around. Lodzi was too cold to start and as we were parked in sand it too heavy to push. Finally at 10am we set off - What a night.

     This part of Bolivia has no official road, when the corrugations get too bad, a new track is formed hence you have almost 50 separate tracks heading across the plains with no official roads being marked. Add to this NO road signs and you have the makings of a truly horrendous journey. After being lost half the second day and not seeing anybody for hours on end we amazingly arrived at the little village of San Juan our next night stop. Here we booked into a hostel with warmish water for a shower and no heating. Ah well!!

     Setting off for Salar Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world we were immediately lost and by the time we came across a village that was on our map we were about a hundred kms from where we hoped to be. We were told there was access to the Salar and after following vague directions we managed to find the only access road into the Salar that is surrounded by water!!! We returned to the village to continue to Uyuni the town and enter the salar from there. After getting lost again we finally started heading in the right direction and we entered Uyuni at about 4.30pm. We had resorted to using the compass and not the map we had by this stage.

     As we had some time to spare we headed for a car wash (Uyuni's speciality due to the salt lake) and had Lodzi pressure washed all over and under for under $5. This also included the recommended "Fumigas" where they spray the whole underside of the vehicle with a WD40 sort of oil for added protection against the salt. We booked into a local cheap hotel where the only perk you had was 6 blankets on the bed. There was no room heating and it was so cold at night you could see your breath in bed. There was ice on the inside of all the windows and all the water in the room was frozen in the morning.

     We spent 3 days in Uyuni, mainly as we wanted some work done to Lodzi, increasing the security as we have been warned about the security further north and in Central America. Lodzi now has a metal sheet over the lower half of the rear pod window and a couple of metal upright struts that now bolt to the bottom drop down door. More of an opportunistic deterrent than a 100% proof security feature. Oh and for those of you that saw the news on the Earthquake, we were only about 300kms from the epicentre and Kerry "thinks" she felt it.

     Day 4 we finally left Uyuni and headed out onto the Salar, wow, what an amazing experience. You are driving at 90km/h over white as white salt that is frozen and dried to up to 5m thick. Below that is salt water. If you hit a shallow or soft spot you can lose the whole car. There is just white all around you as far as you can see and into the horizon. As with all lakes it has Islands and we camped the night on one of the islands before heading off the next day for a 5 hour trip to the Chilean border of Colchane where a local tour guide had drawn the route on our useless map.

     You can probable guess what happened, we found our way off the salar and to the first village, we then turned north and the next village was about 50kms up a deteriorated dust road. Well as the road met with a salt flat it branched into 3 with no signs. Choosing one, about 25km later we realised we were heading to far west and obviously were on the wrong route. Well instead of turning round, Kerry this time, decided from the map we could drive round this salt flat and still come out in the same place. After driving for another 5 hours we were still hopelessly lost and had only come across about two of the villages on our map where there should have been about 10. Not happy bunnies!! Well we continued North, North, North and kept stopping and asking as many locals as possible. Well the sort of area we were now in they don't get any tourists we gather and most of them have never left these little villages let alone been in a car so the info we kept being given, although enthusiastic, was totally wrong.

     We finally ended up at dusk, in a sand storm, in the middle of a huge mud/salt flat where the road just terminated. Yep, just finished in the middle of no where!!. James then decided to drive across the rough country to some "houses" we spotted and asked for more directions. A very helpful local then took us to the closest dirt road and sent us North where we found a spot to camp for the night. After driving for another 3 hours the next morning we finally landed on the right road to the border. As we got closer to the border we could see all the evidence of the previous weeks demonstrations as there were still huge boulders on the roads and many burnt out tyres scattered all over the road.