2017-07-10 Day 85

Followed a blue truck full of people. The road is quite windy with lots of switch backs. Caught up to the blue truck at a village where we had to pay 2 Bolivia to have the barrier lifted.

Drove carefully into Cochabama to visit a supermarket our first in Bolivia. Did a major shop, buying among other stuff, yogurt cheese and meat. 

Went north from there bought diesel only 20lts as they were charging international 8.8 Bolivians. About A$1.7 The most we have paid. Will fill up outside of the cities if possible. Filled with water.

Drove north out of town on a yellow road. Cobblestones. Drove up and up. Just on dusk found a campsite beside a river and waterfall. Very noisy night. About 30 trucks and buses passed in the first few hours.

Very warm night so had a basin shower. Nice to have clean hair again.

2017-07-09 Day 84

Found John a squash court!!! A little big with no back wall. They play Fronton on it.

Lots of colors in the hills purples, whites, yellows and reds.

Some major problems with erosion.

In one village we stopped to buy buns. A father and son accosted John for a ride so we finally let them in and off we went. They got out before their village I think the son was a bit car sick…

Lots of people and animals on the move.

Especially late afternoon when they are being herded back home.

Camped just off the road by a telephone aerial. Had a visit from a guy and his son from the near by village. I cooked a vegetable casserole for dinner

2017-07-08 Day 83

No Diesel at Uncia so had to drive on into Llallagua, where a tanker was unloading it’s fuel. We waited until the station reopened. 

John went in search of getting his phone and the Bolivian SIMm talking properly. I filled with fuel cost 5Bs per litre A$1 not bad. 

On the way out we got EC a good clean at a cost of 30Bs. Got rid of all the salt and dust.

Stopped back in Uncia to buy a few vegies at the market. Found some grain for bread making.

Followed a truck load of people out of town. I’d met the truck at the fuel station so their were lots of waves.

Took the stove out again and found a loose wire in the pump.

2017-07-07 Day 82

The Plan – yep plans are supposed to be followed but I as navigator missed the turn off and by the time we found out we decided to take the next yellow road which would add a number of miles but that doesn’t matter, and if we wanted we could shorten the loop by 50km’s by taking a white road.

A slightly corrugated road with open land. The road slowly rose in altitude. Well what a road and what views.

Came Upon a really tidy functional village.

All the llama’s were in a pen watching one of their mates being butchered.

 











Lots of small potatoes of 4 or 5 varieties laid out in the sun to dry. Some looked like they had been flattened.

As we were leaving a guy came running down the hill to us and asked for a ride to the next village. We obliged and he sat in the back with his wonderful hat on.

2017-07-06 Day 81

Continued around the edge of the salt pan.

We made a small detour to a Thermos. This was a large rectangle “swimming pool” under a roof. With troughs on the outlet where locals were doing their washing. All the bushes were covered in clothing drying.

Into the pool we went. Of the 15 kids about 6 were wearing floaties. So the lessons started. Had lots of fun. We lost all track of time, 3 hours later we got out an did our washing in nice warm water.

Stopped in and watched some farmers picking Quinoa. They bring it on bundles on their backs and lay it on a tarp. Then the 4x4 rolls over it "Threshing it"

Drove another 50 k’s and camped on the dam wall at Tacagua Represa.

2017-07-05 Day 80

Not such a cold night only got down to -9°C so the running of the engine was not really needed.

Drove towards Volcan Tunupa on the edge of the salt pan. There are 3 or 4 roads going up we chose the one that went highest.

 looking back to the" Island" 40 km's away

A very rough unused track up through the “fields” . The fields/paddocks are created by stone fences by the hundreds.

Amazing number of fences and their creativity was amazing. They put NZ vertical fences to shame. How do you build a rock fence almost vertically up a hill?

We had to walk the last bit. We perched on the lip of the crater. The view was stunning both of the colors in the crater and of the salt lake.

Continued NE to a Meteor crater near Jayocota, and camped on the edge of it. The Crater was nearly perfectly round and one km across

2017-07-04 Day 79

A slow morning but only -3.5°C so nice and warm…

Drove down closer to town and spent a few hours catching up with emails etc. We have been without Internet since Iquique.

Back into town, filled with water and I wandered the markets buying fresh produce, oats and flour.

Out to the salt pan. Amazing we drove 40km’s and stopped for lunch.

The pan is at about 3700m altitude and contains an estimate of 10 billion tonnes of salt. The salt crust is up to 2 meters thick.

Drove on another 40km’s to an “Island” just had time to climb to the top to watch the sun sink. Looking towards the sun set the salt pan seemed to extend upwards like we were in a big dish. The salt pan is flat only 1m difference in altitude over the whole pan some 11,000 sq km's

Headed out into the sunset – not quite we drove north towards another volcano on the edge of the pan. It looked about 10km’s away but the map said 40km. We stopped after 10km’s pulled off the “road” and made camp.

Stove didn’t work so John did up the filter hose clamps another half turn. All good now we are in for a cold night about -17°C or so we were told by the locals on the “island”.

Will be doing 3 hour shifts to run the engine for half hour to try and keep the fuel filter liquid.