Last cooking for a few days!! We woke up and put the kettle on. We had to borrow matches from another group staying on site as our matches were inexplicably wet (although it probably didn't help that someone had left them out in the rain after partying all night). Kumuka Overland was staying here and we took the opportunity to have a nose around their bus which was much bigger and cleaner and totally differently organised inside. We cut fruit for a fruit salad - including the leftover melon from lunch time and the uncooked bananas from the night before. We toasted stale bread on the gas burners and then basically sat raround most of the day not doing too much which was actually quite nice. Ed went white-water rafting at 3.30 pm but Jo opted ... read more

We both slept really well as the bed was comfortable and went into breakfast for 8.00 am. A glass of orange squash, a cup of coffee and a mini Danish-type pastry and a triangular thing that was a little like a scone with butter and jam... We walked towards the main square as we needed to change the little Chilean currency we had into Argentinian pesos. We stopped at a coffee shop (as only one cup of coffee at breakfast in the morning is insufficient). We each had a really nice latte which was brought with a big glass of soda water and a sample piece of cake. There were really long queues outside every bank and we walked into one that changed foreign currency and asked why all these people were queueing. Apparently, they all ... read more

Apparently, it is well nigh on impossible to drive across the border from Bolivia directly to Argentina. Therefore, Dragoman drives from Bolivia to Chile first and then into Argentina. Today was all about crossing the desert to ultimately reach Argentina..... A 5.00am start with bread rolls toasted on the Dragoman gas burner and a quick hot drink of tea or coffee, then on the road towards Chile. Across the desert with a local guide along mainly single tracked dusty compacted tracks.. The drive across the desert was extremely varied. We stopped for a late breakfast at a stagnant lake at which a large group of flamingos had settled. Bumped along many more tracks over a high pass of over 5,000 metres to a plant where they made boric acid and which was the border point for ... read more

Had a very good breakfast including pancakes with maple syrup and freshly-made bread (which makes a change!) At 10.30am we were collected from our hotel and we all piled into four Toyota land cruisers and were driven 30 minutes down dirt tracks to a little village selling tourist wares and where salt is brought in from the Flats to be dried. We were then given a demonstration of how the salt was dried by some enterprising little kid of about 12 who showed us the process and then blocked the exit with the aid of a spade and would only let people out on the basis of a small payment. Quite entrepreneurial! There was a salt museum with bits made out of salt (a salt llama and other objects/animals which Ed didn't bother to look at. ... read more

Woke up early but didn't want to disturb the others so stayed in warm sleeping bags till 6.45 am. Breakfast was most odd... biscuits and some fried bready-type stuff. Then we had a guided tour of parts of the village. The Head man showed us his house and some of his collection of arrowheads and local stones. He was also the Shaman for the village and used a collection of about nine bones which were rolled onto a mat like dice and depending on which side they fell he could foretell the future/answer questions such as: Will it rain? Will the world end in dec 2012? All pretty useful stuff!! There were lots of alpacas penned in for the night with some very young ones - two-day old llamas. It turned out there are only 15 ... read more