We didn't see any traffic during the whole day, and wondered several times if we were in the right path, since signs are extremely rare in this area. We often found a confusing "Y" where both roads had the same hierarchy, it was just a matter of instinct (and luck) to choose the right one. Fortunately, our map indicated that the road roughly followed the train track, which we could see every now and then. Just before pulling out the GPS, we would always find a clue that confirmed that we were in the right track. When crossing one of the few towns encountered (they all looked abandoned), we found a barrier interrupting the road but no one around. After a few minutes of waiting, I got out of the car and saw a little booth with the door open. In its dark interior, a Bolivian soldier awaited behind a desk that only had a bunch of blank receipts on its surface. This is normal procedure in Bolivia, no matter the importance of the road, there are toll stations/control booths managed by the military, in which you are expected to stop your engine, get out of the car and walk inside a booth where you will be asked where you are coming from and where you are going to, among other things. By the way, we haven't been able to understand the usefulness of these two questions yet, which were asked to us many, many times throughout the continent. We could answer that we were coming from the States, or from the nearest town, or from anywhere in between and that wouldnt make any difference. We chose to always mention the last town we had been as our origin, and the next town as our destination, and soldiers seemed to be happy with that. Rather than a security issue, both questions were probably an official way to satisfy the soldiers curiosity about where the heck us two, a dog and that weird vehicle were coming from. Anyway, this particular officer was charging us for a municipal tax for crossing that particular town. There were so many reasons why this was wrong that I had to pause for a second before replying. I mentioned, for example, that this was a federal highway (use the term "highway" loosely), and thus paid by the Bolivian citizens through taxes; that this was not a good incentive for tourism to that beautiful area, which can most probably bring much more money into the region than the tax in question; that the condition of the road was simply terrible, and evidently the money charged was not being used for improving it; that  there was no way to know who would keep this tax contribution and what would it be used for; etc. etc. After all that, I paid the so called municipal tax, mentioning that I did not agree with it, and took off. We left a very astonished and speechless soldier inside that booth.

By mid afternoon we finally reached the eastern edge of the Uyuni salt flat, a place of magnificent beauty. It is hard to describe the feeling coming from being surrounded by hundreds of miles of a pure white, perfectly flat area at 12,000 feet above sea level. The distant Andes mountains in the back seemed to be floating in the air, the wind was the only sound. The three of us spent a while experiencing all this, until a caravan of 4WD Toyota Land Cruisers showed up in the horizon, traveling towards us. They made their way zig zaging through the flat, with their lights on. When they finally reached us, we learned that they were transporting foreign tourists, back from a 4-day expedition in the area. There is a hotel in the middle of the salt flat that is entirely made out of salt blocks, including its furniture. I recalled reading about it in an article about the worlds most exotic hotels.

We followed the Toyotas to the town of Uyuni, and arranged to stay at the gas station attendants backyard. This is a unique town, the foreign tourist population seems to be about 30% of the local, there are internet cafes, hotels, restaurants, crafts, tour shops, etc. Things you don't expect to see in such a desolate part of the world. Our minds, however, were focused in our journey out of the area the next day. We had asked around about the condition of the road, and the answers, although diverse, had been mostly negative. We were told that we could not do it in our vehicle, only in a 4WD. The main obstacle being the infamous Km 33, where sand piles up on the road, creating good sized dunes. We wandered through town looking for anything resembling a metal plate that could be used under a tire in case of being stuck, with no luck. With so little resources and no wood in many miles, we had little chance of finding anything like that discarded. That night was a bit on the chilly side, and when trying to turn on the Eberspacher gasoline heater I realized that one of the many rocks I hit that morning had bent the unit and its fan was not working properly. So things remained not as warm as we would have liked for the rest of the night...

We found a diesel truck stopped before the second dune, with it's driver and passenger in the process of finding the best way to proceed. We helped them with the shoveling and were able to go across it successfully, not without some interesting maneuvering work. I got to the third dune before the truck , and after the usual scouting I realized that our chances to go through it without getting stuck were minimal. We agreed to try going around it, over a surface that seemed to have had water at some point but it was still not hard enough to make us feel confident about driving over it. We had to act quick, because the truck was behind us and if they decided to take the road option and were successful in doing so, we could be stuck with no help for who know how many hours or even days. So I caught some speed and went by the side of the road. Guapo started to dig into the surface as soon as drove off the road, until it got stuck. . . We were too far away from the road for even a long cable or rope that could pull us out with the help of another vehicle. We DID NOT want to spend the night there; we were starting to be burned out from the high altitudes, extreme temperatures, desolation and terrible roads. To our despair, and having seen our incident, the other truck decided to go straight over the dune on the road, and was able to cross it. They were nice enough to stop after doing so and helped us out pushing Guapo. After pushing (with the help of the engine) the vehicle back and forth we were able to compact the surface enough to catch some movement and made it back to the road. Close one!

Well, we didn't have much time to celebrate. Contrary to what we thought and were told, we were not done with the dunes. . . A short half an hour later the road was again interrupted by sand, this time a long stretch of about 200 feet. We had to shovel it's center section entirely in order to prevent contact with our vehicle that would make us loose valuable momentum and could even damage something. Just when we were about to give it a shot, we saw a 4WD Toyota Land Cruiser passing by, cutting through a secondary path in the desert in order to avoid the sand obstacle on the main road (and us, I presume). It must be bad if even 4WD vehicles avoid it, I thought. On the other hand, the route that the Toyota had taken looked too primitive for Guapo, so we decided to stick with our original plan. Once again, I backed up about 300 feet and caught some speed, and was able to cross the sandy area. While waiting for Barbara and Chance to walk back to the vehicle, I was so happy and loaded with adrenaline that started dancing and screaming, celebrating our success. Shortness of breath caught up with me pretty fast though, due to the lack of oxygen at those altitudes.

We had a hard time reaching our goal for the day, the city of Tupiza in southern Bolivia. At one point we decided to pull out the GPS, since we thought we could be lost and heading back into the Andes towards Chile! Fortunately this was not so and we reached Tupiza by late afternoon, extremely happy to be back in a populated area. We slept in a parking lot that night.

July 31, 2002

Tupiza, Bolivia

Odometer: 208,863

Written by: Cris

So we spent my birthday #37 in this pleasant town, famous for being where Butch Cassidy and his partner were shot. It was nice to relax here for a whole day, after all that challenging driving. The weather was very pleasant and we spent the day wondering between the main plaza, the market, and the Internet café. We found the flag stickers that we were missing for our back hatch: Bolivia, USA and Argentina. If we could only find a Belize sticker we would be done!

Luckily, I found a tire shop in town that had an air compressor, which allowed me to clean our dust-clogged air filter. Later, we checked into a much-needed hotel and enjoyed it's few amenities, mainly the hot water shower.

August 3, 2002

Tilcara, Argentina

Odometer: 209,048

Written by: Cris

Today we caravaned to the nearby Valles Calchaquies with my parents. This is a beautiful area in the foothills of the Andes Mountains of northern Argentina which I used to frequent at a younger age. Not the most direct road to Buenos Aires, but worth visiting. We went from the Jujuy province into the Salta province, crossing the latter's capital city (of the same name) and then heading west to the mountains. By early afternoon we arrived to the picturesque town of Cachi. We walked the tranquil streets, surrounded by old adobe houses painted in white, a characteristic of this town. My parents stayed in the recently-renovated hotel of the Automovil Club Argentino (Argentinean Automobile Club) or ACA for short, and we slept in our little "hotel on wheels" once again. That night, both weather and surroundings were particurlarily pleasant; we went to sleep feeling completely safe and contemplating the many stars visible from this unpolluted part of the world.