It was Friday 8th November, 2002, and I was part of a group of 10, making our way out of Bolivia, crossing the Andes into the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. Overlanding with Exodus, a UK-based travel company, home on the road for the preceding three weeks had been a purpose-built Mercedes-Benz truck. We’d camped out on the Altiplano the preceding night, and today was the “up-and-over” into Chile, reaching over 5000m, then thankfully returning to more sensible altitudes after three days up high.

I’ll let my diary from the time continue the story.

8th November, 2002

A really early start today (5 am), and I struggled to get up. Roads were pretty bad again from the outset, but the scenery was wonderful. Stopped for breakfast after an hour or so, in a small valley just off the road. Excellent pancakes! Lots more rough driving across the Altiplano eventually brought us to Lago Colorado, a large soda lake with an obvious red tinge to it. The margins of the lake were dotted with flamingoes, and we stopped at one point to carefully wander over to the lakeshore.

Lago Colorado.

To reach the water, we had to crunch over a graveyard of desiccated flamingo skeletons. Got some nice shots of the lake and mountains, and a few of the flamingoes as they took off in various groups. Then it was back on the bus, and further into the National Park (“Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa“).

The truck soon started climbing again, and eventually we reached a geothermal area that was decorated with industrial plant. Apparently, they make sulphuric acid here, and will sometimes allow a tour of the facilities — not on this occasion though.

We went back down the hill a bit, and stopped briefly next to a natural vent that was noisily expelling steam. Then it was on to a larger area of boiling mud pools and steam vents; Sol de Mañana. We stopped here for 15 minutes or so, exploring an extensive area of warm ground, with bubbling mud and sulphurous steam in various different pools. One was particularly active, throwing mud a good 20 feet into the air on occasion.

We then drove even higher before stopping for lunch at around 5000 metres (no running about!). We lunched next to some ice formations (penitentes) that we’d already seen a little earlier at a distance — spikes of ice grouped together on the otherwise barren terrain.

Penitentes at 5000m in south-west Bolivia.

After lunch, the landscape got even more impressive. We drove past another coloured lake (green this time), surrounded by volcanoes, before crossing a stunning section of Altiplano. The arid, gravelly plain was sporadically sprinkled with boulders, with incongruent outcrops on the distant hillside (painted by Salvador Dalí apparently), all backed by alien-looking mountains draped in multi-coloured screes.

Dalí Desert, south-west Bolivia.

This magestic yet bizarre landscape continued for some time, as we gradually climbed again towards the international border. We passed the “Republico de Chile” sign with a tooting of horns and manic waving at the border guards. Almost immediately after entering Chile we started noticing road signs again (a rare sight over the last two days), though we were still driving on the same poor quality dirt road. However, this shortly joined a tarmacced road — quite a sight after what we’d recently been across, and become used to.

It was now a long 2000-metre descent down the steep western slope of the Andes, towards the Pacific coast. Rob took it very slowly; looking at the various holes in the crash barriers and the subsequent truck wrecks, that seemed a sensible approach! The volcanoes and strange cloud formations to the north made for a memorable farewell to Bolivia.

Volcan Licancabur (left — 5920m) and Volcan Juriques (5704m).

After a protracted descent, we eventually reached an organised campsite on the desert plain, just outside the town of San Pedro de Atacama.