Salt Flats Day 3: Swap an Aussie for a tyre

The earliest rise yet. 5am. I felt like I had finally fallen asleep when I heard the knock on our dorm door from the driver and his wandering lazy eye.

We had lots to do, he´d told us the night before as we downed the wine, so a 5am wake-up call was necessary. I parked up particularly when I heard the border to Chile was open now, having been closed earlier due to dangerous snow on the road. So it was looking like I was finally getting to Chile, where my flight home (home... sweet home) was due to leave in a few days. "Vamos vamos" you could hear me cry, as the others begrudgingly packed their backpacks and stuffed breakfast pancakes in their mouths.

Freezing cold, we piled into the Jeep and tried to regain feeling in our extremities. Task almost done, we stopped at our first site to see how sulphur geysers spraying hot air (thank the heavens!), then to a lagoon with a small thermal pool in front. There was nothing stopping me from going in there. Not even massive wind gusts and what I am pretty sure was still below zero temps.

Stripping down to my bikini and running from the bathroom to the pool with my poncho on top, I had the Bolivians in military regala laughing at me and the rest of my tour group shaking their heads at my craziness. Except the kooky French couple, the man of which was in the water with the woman taking pics. Running back to the bathroom brought on the beginning stages of hypothermia, and I wondered for a moment as a shivered back into my many layers why I chose to expose myself so recklessly. Ahh well, only live once eh.

Then we went onto Laguna Verde, which sits in front of an inactive volcano also topped with snow... a picture perfect sight if ever there was one. But of course still with ice-cold wind, we continued to freeze.

Our driver didn´t take me to the border after all, because apparently it was now closed. So we headed back towards Uyuni, with me sulking in the back because we had been within 5 minutes of the Chilean border and were now driving 9 hours back into Bolivia. Getting to my flight was proving more difficult than first thought. And that was before we even encountered the Jeep heading to the border...

Said Jeep was broken down when we first saw it, trying to change its tyre that I soon found out had broken 3 times already that day. While the driver scratched his head, my driver struck a deal and had soon offloaded me to the broken vehicle. They were headed to the frontier, I wanted to go, they needed a new tyre and so instead they got a tyre and an Aussie girl. I was literally swapped for a Jeep tyre.

Elated I was finally going to the border, which was apparently now open, I chatted away to the Swiss guy in my new car while the somber group of English girls slightly dampened the mood. I was soon to find out why... they had started towards the frontier the night before, staying in a random village before starting out at 4am that morning to make it to the border by 11am. That was about the time I ran into them on the road, having had 4 tyre punctures and made considerably slower progress than hoped.

We got to the border without any more tyre problems, but found ourselves waiting at the dodgy-looking immigration office while our driver and the police officer from immigration drove the car up a hill for phone signal. We watched in confusion as they, with all our possessions still in the car, faffed around for a while and finally returned with somber faces.

We can´t cross the border today, they said, because of the snow. Hmm. So why didn´t we know this earlier? And what the hell are we meant to do now? We had 2 options, we were told. First, stay in the nearby refuge overnight and hope the situation improves tomorrow. Second, walk 7 hours with our backpacks to San Pedro. Well, I know which one is absolutely fucking ridiculous. Especially considering the time - 4pm - and then the time after 7 hours of walking. We would freeze to death.

So the refuge it was. Except the refuge had no food, snow in the toilet and insufficient blankets to shield us against the howling wind and unforgiving night cold. So we chose the other hostel near the national park guard, and had to pay inflated prices for a bed and dinner. The first of many Bolivians to take advantage of us in our predicament.

There were more people in the same situation as us, from Brazil, and we all sat around the window trying to absorb the last rays of light before it disappeared and we were forced to wear all our clothes to keep our limbs from going numb. Dinner warmed us for a brief moment, but there is only so much packet pasta and tomato paste sauce can do for a thawing one´s body.

We settled into our dorm giggling like school girls, I think a little delirious and incredulous from the day´s events but hopeful a solucion would come to pass tomorrow. Hoping. Hope. A word soon to scratch at my throat like a cat possessed.