Desert Brake Down

28 Oct 2002

[Well clearly I haven't managed to keep up with my 21-year-old self. My ME/CFS has required more wrangling than usual lately and I've had to jettison a lot of activities. I'm still keen to revisit this journey, but I'll be operating on #CripTime from now on.]

I was coming to the end of my allotted time for the central Andean countries, and was keen to head south for a summer of trekking in Patagonia. The scenic route into Chile is via barely existent roads through the salt lakes and volcanoes of the high plateau that sits above the Atacama desert. I had befriended an Englishman on the bus from Potisi to Uyuni - he gave me a lesson in macroeconomics and the collapse of the Argentine peso. His girlfriend was Bolivian but from a community of ethnic Japanese who farm near Santa Cruz. There are so few non-latinx immigrants in Bolivia that no-one believed in her nationality until they saw her passport. We joined forces and took a three-night 4WD tour from Uyuni in Bolivia to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

We started by driving across the giant Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat. It is really big, really flat, and glaringly white. Smack bang in the middle is the remarkable Isla del Pescado, a small island covered in giant cacti and, allegedly, one (and only one!) resident mountain viscacha.

Train graveyard at Uyuni

Isla del Pescado

Salar de Uyuni

We spent a freezing night dossing down in a rough hostel that sprouted out of the rocky wastes. After hours of driving at speed across the salt, we had wondered what sort of damage it must do to the 4WDs. We soon learned. From an email:

"First the driver took the starter motor out, so we had to push-start or tow-start all the time.  Then the thing ran out of power: carburettor problem. We waved down other 4WDs to help, and they eventually got it going.  Then the stereo chewed one of my cassette tapes.  Arg!  But I managed to sticky tape it back together and it works fine (Yay!).  Then, when we were going up a steep, rocky hill, it went out of gear or something weird, and we started rolling back.  The driver hits the brakes, but nothing happens!  All gone!  At this stage the 4WD behind us became rather concerned that we were going to plummet into them, but the driver did a damn fine job and turned the 4WD into the hill, whereupon we came very close tipping over.  Later that day, we got a flat tire and the jack failed.  All this in one of the most remote corners of South America."

Meanwhile my Amazonian gastro had returned with a vengeance. Bouncing around in the passenger seat, I would hold on as long as I could before begging the driver to stop, whereupon I would run around the back of the 4WD and do my messy business in the middle of an uninterrupted plain. A cairn of rocks was all I could do to obsure my passing.

Despite our travails, the scenery was gobsmaking and alien. Green-blue lakes dotted with pink flamingos sat below snow-topped volcanoes in vast reaches of red rock.

Laguna Pastos Grandes

4WD break down

Arbol de Piedra

The next morning we got up early for dawn at the mud pools and geysers of Sol de Mañana. The geyser was cool but I was disappointed to learn that it had been channelled into a pipe to make it more impressive. There were no safety barriers or walkways of any kind, so skirting the mud pools was a risky proposition! Bubbles of gas blurped out of the mud, a rime of colourful salts coated the surrounds, and steam created an atmospheric haze at ground level.

Geyser at Sol de Mañana

Exploding mud bubble

Sol de Mañana

Our final stop before crossing the border was at Laguna Verde, which sits under the ridiculously photogenic Volcan Licancabur. The green waters of the lake contrast beautifully against the red-black of the mountain slopes. Before the end of the tour, my English travelling companion tried to convey how unimpressed he had been with the safety  and reliability of the 4WD. But the driver was inscrutable, and certainly didn't comprehend the threat of outing the tour company on Lonely Planet's online forum The Thorn Tree (ah, the good ol' days before social media!).

Volcan Licancabur overlooking Laguna Verde

San Pedro de Atacama is a charming little desert town with low-slung white-washed buildings. We hired mountain bikes for a day and had masses of fun exploring some nearby ravines. Then we struggled along a desperately corragated dirt road to take in the sunset at the Valle de la Luna, where the light brought out a rich spectrum of yellows and reds in the eroded landscape. It was stunning, but what I really enjoyed was running/falling/rolling down the giant sand dune.

Within a couple of days in Chile I learnt two things: roosters do not "cock-a-doodle-doo", and Chilean Spanish is a completely different beast to Andean Spanish. Chilenos speak rapidly, barely open their mouths and don't; finish their words. Even worse, if you ask them to repeat something more slowly, they stare at you blankly and then repeat it at full speed. Sigh, just as I was getting past my Spanish training wheels, it felt like I had to start all over again.

Valle de la Luna