North by Northeast

Severino knocks on the door at 4am. Everybody but Alex slowly gets up into the freezing darkness, flashlights illuminating the hallway every few seconds. We start early so we can cover the remaining few sights to the border with Chile and then turn back for the 7-hour drive back to Uyuni.

In the freezing twilight we see geysers at 5000m, a sand desert littered with giant stones as if in a Salvador Dali painting, a hot spring full of tourists on the edge of a giant volcano, a white lake full of flamingoes and a green lake full of arsenic. By the time we get to the border with Chile, the sun is out and I lean against the car and close my eyes. 

The two women from our car are leaving on a bus across the border, while Severino is driving the Waygoer and I back to collect Alex from the hostel and then on to Uyuni.

Alex is feeling better and has spent the morning talking to the children of the people working at the hostel. They have even given him some local grass to help with his ailments.

It’s a much nicer day, but we’re all tired out so we hardly speak. A 100km from our destination make a pit stop to change our flat tire. Of course, we’d given our spare away to the guys from the flipped jeep, so we wait by the side of the road for another Toyota to aid us. I help Severino with the tire change, while the Waygoer and Alex cuddle inside.

Once in Uyuni, we get on the Internet where I check for more details on the crash from the previous year. What I discover is quite disturbing. Since then there’s been another accident 7 months ago, when a Jeep flipped and killed another 3 people. I address a mental thank you to Severino and go back to the hotel. This adventure we were just on was a lot less safe than it seemed.

The next day at the bus station we run again into the injured guys from the desert. They have the 1000-mile stare and are trying to get on a 10-hour bus back to La Paz so they can go to their countries. The Mexican girl with the broken arm tells us that the worst injured of the group, the tall Englishman, will likely lose his hand. That’s a horrific price to pay for someone else’s mistake.

As we get on the bus for Potosi, a policeman enters and announces to all the passengers that he personally guarantees that the driver of the bus is 100% sober. Well, isn’t that good news!

The bus journey itself is a grueling 7 hours on a small dirt road over massive ravines, during which I first have a woman sitting next to me on a folding chair and then a man with a flute literally sleeping leaning over my seat. The highlight of the trip comes an hour outside of Potosi when we come up to a line of cars and buses stopped by the side of the road.

Up ahead there’s a muddy section with a bulldozer on one end and a stuck minibus on the other. It doesn’t look too good and the horror stories about buses stuck for hours we’ve been hearing all come to mind. Still, the presence of the bulldozer gives me some hope and sure enough, in 15 minutes the minibus is on its way. Of course, before our bus can get going, a white Nissan scurries past us only to get stuck as well. Luckily, it’s just a small car so three people push it away easily. Now it’s our turn. The bus creaks and lurches and for a second flirts with stopping in the most slippery section. The driver hits the gas and somehow we get to the other side. Applause, worthy of a plane-landing in the 60s, breaks out. Next stop Potosi.