California - Wine Country

The white Chevy Impala sat gleaming in the garage, hazard lights flashing orange, beckoning. It was time to begin - the Road Trip.

We spent about half an hour trying to figure out the electrics, the automatic gearbox, and deal with other Americanisations. And then the car basically drove itself - spewing gasoline into the engine, and struggling to break 25 mpg. There is a reason why even in the USA, no-one drives American any more and Detroit's emergency city governor is a former bankruptcy lawyer...

With San Fran in our rear view mirror, we sped across the bay bridge towards wine country. The vines of California were beckoning - wines that we traditionally have paid little heed to were going to get 4 days of Mhairi and Toby action, broken up by camping amongst the redwoods in Sugar Loaf Ridge and Armstrong Woods.

Gundlach Bundschu, and our only Napa stop - the Vintner's Collective were up on day 1. And we started to learn about the different wine sub-regions - the valleys and ridges within Napa and Sonoma and Mendocino. The minute temperature differences, climate quirks, and soil types that lead to widely differing tastes and styles, all labelled 'Californian'. As night drew in, we encountered something we hadn't expected - the wilderness. Despite what vigilante border patrols and Republicans say, America is not full. Not even close. Our drive to Sonoma from Napa climbed across a mountain range that took us an hour to navigate, with narrow, winding roads barely wide enough for the car. The road was full of hairpins and switchbacks, with steep drops into wooded gullies. There was one other car on that road, and by the time we entered Sugar Loaf Ridge park, I'd found the headlights and revved the engine in 'L' gear to keep us going up to our mountainside campsite. We arrived and a slightly stoned camp-host gave us a big smile: 'Glad you could make it, it was getting kind of lonely up here'. Indeed, there was no one else camping.

It had begun in San Francisco, it started to become clear in wine country, and by Oregon/Washington we'd have nailed it. As I write this in Seattle it seems blindingly obvious. Mhairi and I can rough it with camping, rent an economy car, and wait for half-price days in museums - queuing for hours to get in sometimes. But we will not compromise on food and drink. So as we finished setting up our tent, we popped the boot and put on our smart clothes for an evening at Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bistro. More relaxed than his other restaurant, 'the best in the world' for a time - French Laundry - Bouchon's less formal style let me get away with jeans and Mhairi wear her new fancy vintage jacket. We had some great food, great service, wiped our mouths on a crisp linen napkin and then went back to our tent.

In the morning we had our second California realisation - northern California is very, very cold overnight in March. Especially when you are on a mountainside. Coin operated showers at 25 cents a minute were our only means of warming up. Our little stove gamely sputtered in the cold wind to make tea and porridge, but other than that mornings were to be decidedly cool affair.

By 10am, we were on the road for our first wine tasting. We had Lynmar, Hartford and Copain on the books and by the end of the day would squeeze in Garagiste, in downtown Healdsburg. Driving the roads of Russian River in Sonoma was enchanting. The earth, rust red and ochre, supported the vines in their winter state, cut back gnarled stumps. Buttercup yellow flowers bloomed in the grass and the trees arched over the roads, covered in spearmint green moss. Copain certainly won the award for most beautiful winery - an incredible aspect overlooking the Russian River valley certainly helped improve our enjoyment of the wines too.

Another cold night in the tent, but we compensated by burning a load of wood in the oildrum firepit.  My firelighting skill showed a little rust, but a roaring blaze was soon up, courtesy of a paper wine bag as a firelighter. It meant we had to buy at least a bottle of wine a day to make sure we had a paper bag for the evening... Well, that was our excuse.

Lynmar Estates with some ARCHITECTURE!

Ridge vines...

The next day we hit Ridge. Organic, Biodynamic, the Wholefoods of Sonoma wines. We had an excellent vineyard tour from Elliott, gaining a deep understanding of Ridge's ethos; and their struggle to keep their land pesticide free despite near-Caddyshack Gopher problems. A private tasting, and an expensive purchase later, we'd loved Ridge and what they do. With only one winery on the list, we spent our afternoon walking the Sugar Loaf park. As we were learning, very few Americans trouble with walking in these parks in March, so we had the views, the wildlife and sun to ourselves.

Ridge Winery

Deer in Sugar Loaf Park

A final chilly night on Sugar Loaf Ridge left Mhairi basically wearing all of her clothes to sleep in. Trying to cook breakfast as the icy gale blew around me proved almost impossible. It was an hour before the cold water boiled. And just as the porridge was heated, the camping gas sputtered, and died out.

We were to move on to Armstrong woods that day, via a great Italian style lunch - four types of firm pasta with fresh Italian sauces paired with wine at the legendary Seghesio wines. We loved the experience, but wished we'd been eating at Everett Ridge to enjoy their amazing view, a winery we'd stopped into first during the day. We also picked up a tip there about Seattle Bites... About which you'll find out later...

Post lunch we trawled Healdsburg, stopping off at the glossy but vacuous Thumbprint winery to taste their forgettable offerings. We watched as the 'Barrel Tasters' mobbed the streets. These revellers paid $55 to get free tastings across Sonoma on specific weekends. Some take it seriously, many are there for a boozy crawl and walk the streets, glass in hand; and a few probably have run-ins with the 6ft plus, stone-jawed muscle men wearing hi-visibility vests who patrol the streets as 'wine road hospitality'.

Our last stop was Stryker - we sped out of town to make it before they closed,  and were rewarded with the classic Californian experience. Big fruity wines, heavy use of oak, those chardonnays that the English now hate, the type of wines that Gallo churns out by the bucket load. Set in stunning grounds, it had charm as a stop-off in its own right for anyone who wants to know why 'Californian' wines can be loved and loathed depending on your palate. We probably fell towards the latter but had fun nonetheless.



We high-tailed it into Gurneville that evening for a stop off among the redwoods of Armstrong park. Fatigued and out of camping gas, we succumbed to takeaway pizza, ready for a full day's walking on Sunday. Our campsite was again on top of a mountain, set next to a beautiful pond full of bullfrogs.

In the morning, the redwoods towered around us: walking amongst the giants is incredible - they dominate their woods. A hush descends amongst them, as there is little other flora for any wildlife to feed on. Trees date back to 900 AD, and look set to live forever. But here and there are the downed carcasses of the giants, sometimes with entirely new trees growing out from their decaying bark. I can't do the redwoods justice, no in picture or words. Luckily, good friends had recommended we read John Steinbeck's 'Travels with Charley' and he conveys the experience much better than I ever could:

  "The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes a silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time... they carry their own light and shade... Respect - that's the word. One feels the need to bow to unquestioned sovereigns.'

After wandering the tourist paths lower down, we went up to the hiking trails that led out from our mountainside campsite. All the other visitors had left and we walked around to the sounds of wild turkeys and other unusual birds. Night time saw us still alone, looking up at the stars as we barbecued our dinner and drank our last Californian wine for a while. Looking up at the stars, listening to the bullfrogs calling in the darkness, we felt our isolation from the rest of the world. The next day we packed up and headed west, to the coast...

Hello San Fransisco

A brief change in Houston - where re-checking our bags and another raft of security measures confirmed that yes, this was it, we were definitely back to the West Proper (Peruvian border controls clearly not trusted to safeguard US security  sufficiently) - and we landed into a slightly overcast Californian morning.

California baby! My first ever West coast adventure. And the final leg of our journey. Putting aside all End of Days thoughts in favour of the month ahead - a week in San Francisco followed by a two-week road-trip through wine country and up along the redwood coast until Seattle beckoned and our final stop in Vancouver - we prepared to melt back into home comforts.

And then some. We'd had an incredible three months heading up through South America and, despite our rudimentary Spanish, never felt alienated by the language barrier. Nor, indeed, had I ever felt hindered in the lands of steak, jamon y queso, pique macho and guinea pig by my vegetarianism. Quite the opposite, I'd only struggled occasionally and more often than not we were excited to find quite decent vegetarian fare along our winding route. But. By the time we'd spent day one getting settled, meandering up through the City's North Beach to take in the exhilarating panoramas from quasi-socialist mecca Coit Tower (for anyone who, like me, has long harboured a San Fran crush from afar) and catching up on proper Earl Grey and strong coffees in Beat-famed Caffé Trieste, we were knocked even further off our feets by Akiko's on Bush Street.

It is almost impossible to underestimate how great this meal was, nor how ecstatic we were to find ourselves gorging on deep white miso flavours, delicate agedashi tofu and sesame wakami. From having felt I'd got on fine foodwise in South America, I suddenly remembered what I'd been missing and right then, perhaps, over Japanese beer and maki rolls in the packed Tuesday-night dining room, we realised with a searing clarity there was a good chance this week was going to get expensive...

And so it began:

Day 1: Japanese dinner at Akiko's. Heaven for a vegetarian and so too for a man freshly emerged from three months of red meat dining to rediscover the joys of a seaweed salad. Lord we give thanks for umami. 

Day 2: Californian Mexican lunch at Pancho Villa Taqueria in the Mission. Recommended by our pal April, a former Mission resident, this was another wake-up to some of my core, neglected, foodie loves - the citrus, avocado, chilli nexus. Re-adjusting to US portions led to a terrific over-order (of course nachos come with everything anyway...) Which we then ripped through in no time. Bliss.

Dinner at vegan pan-Asian Golden Era on O'Farrell. Crazy cheap. Crazy awesome. Spicy noodle soup is one of my twice-a-week fixes at home and bar a couple of notable exceptions - an unexpectedly brilliant Japanese cafe in Thamel, Kathmandu sticks out - I'd been without for six months. All over it.

Day 3: Proper old-school Italian at Franchino's in North Beach. Fantastic gnocchi with pesto and some good Italian reds. Pricey compared to the Asian and Mexican places we'd been frequenting but in keeping with the Little Italy norm around this way. Warm, busy and family-run, with friendly chat from the slightly half-cut paterfamiliar watching the world go by from his regular spot outside the front door.

Day 4: Tasty Vietnamese over in Oakland, spicy soup yet again... And a slightly disappointing tipsy dinner at Chilango's in Castro. After living it up a little wine-'tasting' stylee at super duper Pause, we were pretty starving by the time we hiked down to Church Street and this may have been our downfall, with a less than inspiring set meal where the regular menu might have yielded better results.

Day 5: Burger time! T had been lusting after a proper dirty burger, diner style but reaching Saturday tired and in expectation of an early night, we went bourgeois instead at the SF mini-chain Roam Artisan Burgers on Fillmore in pursuit of a proper veggie offering. Which I more than found, matching the organic veg burger with Dijon mustard, Gruyere and avocado. Not for the first or last time during this month, the sheer breadth and fine execution of US eateries caught us bewailing the paltry-by-comparison UK offerings...

Day 6: A shopping and pub crawl along the Haight took in a flawless hot-dog lunch (with two vegan options to boot) at Rosamunde's Sausage Grill before a few beers at Toronado next door. Getting the hang of the massive range of US microbrews was already proving a mammoth (and risky, given the high alcohol content) task. 

But one we continued to hammer away at in the name of... research, at Magnolia further along Haight Street, before Starbelly for a decent though overpriced pizza dinner.

Day 7: Splendid over-ordering dim sum lunch at in Chinatown and yet more fab sushi for dinner at Otori on Oak Street. Before more turbo-charged, 8-12% microbrews at the Amsterdam Cafe.

Day 8: And on to our final evening with a stand-out Greek meal at Kokkari. This was the one 'fine dining' treat we'd promised ourselves. The odd evening out where we put on the one outfit which can possibly pass as, well passable, I stick on a bit of mascara and we both walk in hamming up 'Gosh, terribly' English accents and hoping no one looks at our shoes. This place was immense. Super friendly, not uncomfortably formal and T had what he still maintains was his Best Lamb Ever.

So the eating and drinking was fairly tremendous then. Of Mendoza proportions. Money got spent. Though not too intensely, San Fransisco eateries and bars being  such good value for the most part. Like any foodie city, there is something for any budget and taste. For me, the return to a full veggie menu months after India was pretty epic - and we were both quite ready for the broader return to more a more familiar culture. We'd never felt out on a limb in South America, despite the language obstacles, but still felt an inevitable balm from being able to make small talk with strangers, buy proper tea and more generally relax into a more accessible world, with all its creature comforts.

Back in the Uco Valley, near Mendoza on a wine visit, we'd picked the brains of an English-Canadian couple who'd spent lots of time in San Fransisco. I'd mused on how it felt a bit risky, expectation-wise, being one of the cities I had a bit of a crush on and always assumed I would like. He'd shook his head briskly, batting any possibility of under-delivery away with one wry blink; 'It doesn't disappoint.'

And it doesn't. From the British/European perspective the very best of the US is here. It is beautiful and walkable, the hilly landscape interesting and varied; the Bay Area filled with notable cities, towns and national parks. Restaurants, nightlife, culture, nature on the doorstep and great street-life - as well as being a liberal hotbed to boot. 

Perhaps the problem with a week anywhere is that it's long enough to get a glimpse of what it would be like to live somewhere, but not long enough to get through everything you might wish to do. A list that tends to grow each day. We spent a few days exploring the Mission and Haight, buying cheap second-hand clothes, enjoying the beer, visiting Mission Delores and finding great coffee. We spent a day out walking in Muir Woods with one friend, meeting the coastal redwoods for the first but by no means the last time, and another day over in Oakland with another at the fantastic Museum of California checking out its illuminating Gallery of California History. We went to the huge, superlative Asian Art Museum of San Fransisco in time to catch the eerie Terracotta Warriors we'd seen back in London a year or two before.

We hired bikes from the Marina and cycled across the Golden Gate Bridge, on a day so foggy - as many of them are - the epic red suspension literally disappeared from our view when standing right next to it. Seriously, where did they put the bridge?We rode across, wind battering through the largest Pacific estuary in the Americas and whipping ominously around us, to Sausalito - a picturesque if cutesy little town stuffed with art galleries and expensive seafood restaurants - before returning by ferry alongside Alcatraz.

We tramped the streets and hills (literally, only starting to play around with the bus system properly by day 5), exploring Chinatown, North Beach and Golden Gate Park. We even found time to flirt with our all-too-impending return to routine and dip our toes into the horrors of consumer culture with a 3-trip nightmare to Best Buy to purchase a cheap new laptop for our final month of travel (who remembered retail was such an exhausting, traumatic process??)

By our last day or two, I was itching to be on the move again - one week having been our maximum anywhere since last September - and yet regretted all the places and neighbourhoods we'd yet to see. I think we'll be back. I hope we'll be back. The promise of wine country a little further north was too hard to resist, and the excitement at picking up our wildly oversized Chevrolet from a few blocks east on Bush Street and dusting off the camping gear too live.

But still I craned my neck round wistfully as we sped out, T nervously grappling with the automatic transmission, over the bridge towards Napa. You know, because... San Francisco. You would, wouldn't you?

Colca Canyon, and Lima

We returned to Arequipa on one of those long, multi-phase bus trips that were becoming so easy for us. Three buses and a border crossing later, we pulled into the familiar vista of El Misti Mountain, the giant sleeping volcano that the city nestles beneath. Our return here was specific - to take three days and do the Colca Canyon trek. The deepest canyon in the world, twice the depth of the Grand Canyon, Colca would still keep us thousands of metres above sea level. Only with Lima would we return to less dizzying heights.

The highest point on the Colca Canyon trip around 6000m above sea level. Pretty chilly early in the morning.

After our earliest morning start yet at 3am, the little minibus we had booked picked us up and started the 4hr drive to Colca. We stopped at the highest point, around 4200m, where snow lay inches thick on the ground and our exuberant guides threw snowballs at each other.  A little while later, we stopped at Condor Cross - aptly named, we watched the magnifcent birds soar in the sky, still far above us but casting huge shadows as they wheeled searching for carrion prey. Their bald heads swept the ground left and right, beady eyes stuck under folds of wrinkled brown skin.

We started our descent into the canyon around 9am. As we were winding down from our big treks, we'd taken the slow option and had two full days to reach the Oasis before a 4am start to hike the canyon wall back out on the last day - a 1000m ascent: any more vertical and it would be considered climbing. As it was that gave us 3hrs  walking a piece on day 1 and 2. Our first day's descent slowed more by the constant need to photograph the huge canyon walls, whose impressive size were just impossible to capture properly. Our guide Juan bounded ahead and back frequently - constantly talking as he remained cheerfully full of breath, while the rest of us took a more steady pace and deeper lungfuls.

Our afternoon was much more relaxed - Mhairi fell asleep, her body in total recovery mode from all the early starts and overnight buses we'd suffered in the past few days. I wandered in the light rain, taking some photos and reading. Both Mhairi and I were trying to focus on enjoying our time and relaxing. North America loomed large in our thoughts and Colca would be our last gasp of the great Andean altiplano.

The next day was notable for some slightly more strenuous walking, with Juan daubing war paint on our faces from the blood red cactus parasite Cochineal: now used in lipstick around the world. We took a break on a small ridge after a hard climb to take in some more views and look at the guinea pigs, being fattened up on a mango, awaiting their inevitable culinary doom. And then the oasis, cool, clean water piped into swimming pools from the fast flowing river beneath. An afternoon to swim, take a couple of beers and again relax the afternoon away on the canyon floor.

By the time we'd completed the 3hr ascent in near dark the next day, more views greeted us. We made a refreshing stop to drink Colca sours (with pisco and cactus fruit) while having birds stand our heads; a further hot springs trip let us soothe our sweaty and aching bodies from the climb; and then we were done. The trip back to Colca was long in a stuffy bus. We broke out to have posh dinner in Zigzag once we arrived, where my medley of steaks was served on a sizzling hot plate, and I was kindly wrapped in a bib before beginning, as the fat sprayed outwards, missing Mhairi's dinner by inches. And that was it. A day lounging around to do admin and ship our Bolivian knitwear home, and then an excellent spicy mexican dinner at Tacos and Tequila, and we were done with the Andes. 6 weeks at over 2000m altitude and we plunged back down to sea level on the super-luxe Cruz del Sur bus, to rest up in Lima before returning to the Western world...

And finally, there was Lima. Ah, Lima - we really can't say too much about Lima. Really. Exhausted still, with our heads full of our South American adventure and the pressure of organising our affairs  in San Francisco, we sold Peru's capital short. A promenade along the sea front to gaze at the mighty Pacific Ocean turned into drinks at Ayahuasca, where we downed enough pisco to slide merrily off of our bar stools. Days spent relaxing around Park Kennedy never turned into anything more cultural or edifying. The sun, and the pisco, did their work. We were caught in the eye of the storm. Weeks of travelling, with barely more than two nights in any one place before moving on, were to transform into a torridly busy week-long San Francisco immersion. And Lima was the sacrifice it seemed. By day three, we rallied somewhat. To the north of Park Kennedy sits one of the largest pre-Incan sites, Huaca Pucllana. Built by the Peruvian coastal inhabitants over 1000years ago, it is a laboriously constructed ziggurat, each mud brick crafted by hand. The mud has stuck around, because it never, ever rains in Lima - only a coastal fog moistens the earth. And so the pyramid survived, was added to by the Incans and their followers and remains now. The edifice itself has been revealed as the burial tomb for many nobles of this period and with work ongoing, it remains a grave for untold numbers more. They haven't even excavated the very top, where we could see the greatest finds. In the meantime, a stunning restaurant sits at the Huaca Pucllana's base. But NO, for our time was booked elsewhere - Astrid y Gaston. This famous Peruvian restaurant has spawned clones in most South American capitals (the rich ones, anyway), but the original is the best. Here the pisco sours were super smooth and garnished with the freshest, tenderest of coca leaves. And I finally relented, those small furry little squeakers could escape me no longer. I had the guinea pig - in all its crispy fat, sort-of-like chicken glory. Deconstructed and spread across my plate on a variety of salad and quinoa bases, I foraged the flesh of the rodent out, and it was pretty damn good... Mhairi's main course was similarly sumptuous, and too stuffed for dessert we had coffees to keep us awake. For Astrid y Gaston was our last South American hurrah... The plane left for North America just after midnight, 26th March.

Warning! Extreme pictures of food from Astrid y Gaston:

South America had been an incredible experience. On almost all counts it had over-delivered for us, and yet perhaps only a piece at a time. The food and wine in Argentina had been stunning, in quality and value, even considering Mhairi's continued vegetarian affliction. And Perito Moreno looms large as an incredible sight. But the cost, was hard to bear, with European style prices: and perhaps to our shame, we didn't really meet too many Argentinians. Chile had some of the most awesome landscape - its long spindly shape taking us from the heights of Torres del Paine to the even greater heights of the Atacama, with a surprisingly beautiful capital in Santiago (given how others had reported it to us). And yet both the southernmost South American countries are so sparkly and new that they for the most part left Mhairi and I wanting a little more history. Perhaps it is an unfair comparison, but in Peru and Bolivia the people have old souls. Suffused with Colonial, Incan and pre-Incan settlement the countries have an incredible charm. Like India, you can wander most cities of the Altiplano, and experience a different way of living - quite removed from the westernised South of the continent. And we were fortunate to hit Bolivia for carnival in Oruro, where the soul of the people was laid bare to the banging of the drum and the dancing of the performers. But everything we've seen - The salt flats of Uyuni and the mines of Potosi, the citadel of Santa Catalina, Colca canyon, and, of course, Macchu Picchu have reminded us how big the world is. And it's waiting just outside the door. But before you go anywhere, always have a glass of Malbec from Mendoza.

And finally, from Arequipa:

Shoe lace man! Do you need laces, HE HAS LACES!

Into the beyond: Salar de Uyuni and goodbye to Bolivia

Driving into the Salar is not quite like anything else. A South African woman we'd chatted to in Potosi a few days earlier described it as like driving into heaven. And even for secularists, this turned out to be no hyperbole. Half-flooded bone white salt flats stretching out as far as the eye can see, met by a vast pale blue sky, occasional reflections casting the clouds beneath your feet just as they suspend overhead. And even with land rovers dotting the horizons, lumbering out daily - ceaselessly - into the distance with their eager tourist cargo, the landscape is so vast, so epic and so silencing, it seemed to render our strange, ant-like little odysseys merely irrelevant, rather than intrusive.

Leaving Oruro had been a little messy, our having given little thought to just how mobbed things would be on Monday as virtually all of Bolivia barrelled out from the heart of Carneval madness and back towards work, sobriety and life outside the dance. There were no available seats down to Uyuni until at least Wednesday or Thursday, it transpired. After a quick re-appraisal of our options in the midst of the evacuation camp that was the small city bus station - there being little left for us in Oruro but debris, the stench of beer and urine, and extremely expensive accommodation - we scored the last seats on an afternoon bus back down the road to Potosi. A de-tour that would at least get us halfway there and hopefully towards more transport options. So once again we entered the chilly, dark streets surrounding the Cerra Rico and, after a night back in a Koala Den dorm, were Uyuni-bound the following morning.

You would not find yourself in Uyuni for any likely reason under the sun if not for the Salar. I say this of few places but poor dishevelled and wind-battered Uyuni presents as a godforsaken land bereft of most charms; if it was not for the fact it lies on the edge of some of the most remarkable scenery in Bolivia, it is hard to imagine travellers pausing even for the night. Low-rise with a feeling of abandonment, the Western town with tumble-weed coursing its arteries, Uyuni figures on the itineraries of virtually all foreign tourists to Bolivia for one reason only and that is the Salar loop. Jeep tours of the startling salt flats, geyser field and lagoons which litter its hinterland, just over the border from the epic landscapes we'd explored on the Chilean side during our Atacama stay a month or two before.

Arriving into town on Tuesday, then, booking a tour for as soon as possible was our priority, with our days left in South America now numbered. The problem being that, as with many such activities in Bolivia, the quality of tours is a tricky thing to assess and the trade almost entirely unregulated. And unfortunately, in the case of Salar loops, the dodgy end of experiences tends to veer far beyond the typical complaints of the pampered 'my pasta was overcooked and the bed springs were broken' brigade towards 'the driver was drunk/the jeep in front of us overturned' variety. Rare perhaps - not as rare as they should be, with long driving days typical and tiredness and drinking not uncommon. We had a couple of recommended agencies to aim for, but with Carneval still ongoing and tipsy revellers intermittently parading Uyuni's dusty streets with brass bands in tow (the kids, as ever, ready with the foam spray), both were shut on the afternoon we arrived. And then turned out, unsurprisingly, to be booked up until later in the week. So in the end we just took a punt. Wandering into the pleasant enough signed up for the next morning. A day and a half feeling more than enough in Uyuni itself, we then booked a night bus for the day of our return, planning an exhausting Uyuni-La Paz-Arequipa exit strategy to ensure we got our final week in Peru.

Our two evenings in the pleasant little Hotel Avenida thus passed with some bad wine and good cable. Buying the former on our first night, we paused for a good five minutes at the counter of the corner shop for the eleven year old proprietress to finish tracing her picture before selling us the bottle of red; clearly and unsurprisingly disgruntled at being left on duty while everyone else was out getting battered with Pachamama.

And Thursday morning we loaded up the jeep with our driver, a cook, a Catalan rock climber and three young Austrian women and set out in convoy with a jeep-load of party-loving French bohemians already merrily cracking into the beers at 10am. With Uyuni, there is no gradual movement out of town - you simply turn the street corner and that is it: town to no town, you fly straight out into the wilderness, as the road disappears into gravel track and the forlorn wide streets vanish in the rear view mirrors.

The 3 day tours typically begin with the Salar itself, the world's largest salt flat that extends across over 4000 square miles of Bolivia's south-west and remains at a serious elevation of over 3.5 thousand metres. Flamingos and other exotic flora and fauna are a huge draw and the lakes (black, blue, pink and green), mountains and thermal fields that cover the lithium-rich terrain constitute a peculiarly stunning alien land, as well as an under-utilised economic resource for Bolivia.

However we were setting out to go in reverse, covering the long, long drive south to begin with the lakes and thermal springs before working our way back up to the Salar itself on day three. This ended up working well for us, as while the salt flats themselves are always full of tourist vehicles, at most other stops we had the place to ourselves. Nonetheless, the tours in general make for a drive-heavy trip and day one in particular was pretty cooped up as we tore through the dry desert-scapes for hours on end, pausing at lengthy intervals to pour out of our jeep - the legs of whoever was doing their time in the cramped back seat row creaking painfully as we disembarked to examine some other-wordly rock formations, pink laguna or to pursue ethereal and displeased flamingos across a barren shoreline. 

But these silent, eerie landscapes were always worth the aching joints and hair-raising speeds across uneven dirt roads, without fail. Jagged rocks rising out of the earth in random communities, like primordial Stonehenges, and salmon-hued Martian lakes dotted with thousands of flamingos trotting in the distance - alone and sovereign in their strange land. We spent our first night at a huge, desolate stone refugio near the Laguna Colorada, where the six of us commandeered a tiny little orphanage-style dormitory with ill-fitting window panes. After a tasty lasagne dinner (Maria the cook having overcome her initial grumpiness at the news of my vegetarian affliction to produce a very pleasant line in quinoa and veg substitutes) and a few free bottles of wine produced by our driving team, we headed off to sleep, wearing all our clothes to guard against the bone-chilling temperatures, ready for the 4.30am start in store. 

The geyser fields on this side of the border were a fascinating juxtaposition to the beautiful, deadly pistons we'd encountered in Chile in January. While the latter had been gorgeous beauty queens lit up in the freezing blue dawn skies, guided by a knowledgeable and safety-conscious Canadian-Chilean, the Bolivian fields were a ghoulish, simmering cauldron of fire and brimstone, barely visible in the overcast pre-dawn haze. And this being Bolivia, of course, we wandered around the boiling, spluttering fissures in the earth's core freely, like the dappy little sheep we are, only being cautioned once or twice by drivers through the dark billows of steam, when they spotted someone staggering cavalierly amidst the lethal caverns while snapping through their camera lens (mentioning no names, oh love of mine...)

As dawn broke we approached the thermal baths, where we paused only briefly to admire the views, still all too frozen through to even contemplate the removal of layers, even if the springs were not crammed full of other tourists bathing in a veritable soup of of traveller-grime.... After a tour up to the astonishing Laguna Verde, where the reflections of Volcano Licancabur are as lovely as any sight we've seen and where we all wandered mutely, pausing to sit and stare from various rocky outcrops, we returned to a deserted baths. Clever clever Oasis, we thought as we tucked into a good breakfast spread of pancakes, corn puffed granola and yoghurt and gazed out at the 8am sun. With only ourselves, the happy French troop and maybe one other group, we then had the spring to ourselves as 9am hit in and the sub-zero night finally entered into a blazing sunshine morning lighting up the frosty, steaming altiplano. Now, by this point in the trip we'd hit baths in the Chilean El Tatio geyser fields, as well as in the appropriately named Agua Caliente in the shadow of the Macchu Piccu hills. And both were more than a little grim when you really paid any attention to the through-traffic they were seeing. 

But not the Termes de Polques. Filtering in and out naturally through the rocks, the water was clear, hot and backed by stupendous views. Your basic altiplano paradise. The Austrian girls and I clumsily peeled off our fifteen layers of clothing, socks, hats and scarves behind a shed to change into bikinis and by the time we were all gazing out into the distance, we could happily have splashed around all day.

But all things must end: 'Vamo!!' came the familiar shout as the sternly efficient Maria loaded the last of the breakfast dishes into the Mary Poppins-like supply stashes of the jeep boots and we reluctantly dried off and stepped back into sun-baked jeans and trainers. The rest of day two passed in another procession of exquisitely lonely lakes, mountains and rock formations. We had lunch in the epic constellation that contains the Arbol de Piedra and mercilessly papped more flamingos at the Laguna Hedionda. You take one step forward, they take two steps back and so it goes. 

Minding the off-sales

The night was spent at the tiny hamlet of San Juan. Arriving too late for our first guesthouse option, Maria was most disgruntled to end up at a far busier place where every space in the kitchen and dining room was to be fought for tooth and nail and the hostel shop largely manned by five year old children. But arriving in the first onslaught of some 8 or 9 jeep-loads that evening, we lucked out by lobbying our drivers for better rooms than the tiny broken bed spaces we were initially allocated. The French leading the revolution, of course, and sweeping us more docilely obedient Europeans along in their fabulous wake. Dinner was the Bolivian smorgasbord of Pique Macho and everyone was in good spirits, putting away a good few beers and merrily toasting our driving team.

Train cemetery outside Uyuni

Day three brought the Salar. We stopped first at the odd little 'Train Cemetery' which hordes dozens of decrepit old steam locomotives - a strange graveyard to the Industrial age full of late 19th and early 20th century vehicles which used to transport minerals to the now lost-Pacific coastline (those damn Chileans, still unforgiven in this land). Tourists clamber over them now like monkeys and with most tours including little guiding per se, it is hard to know what to make of them until you research the sights later. And then they are all the sadder, left rusting to dust on the Uyuni plains, the lost coast hundreds of miles away and the industries they served eroded.

The Salar. Half-flooded in rainy season, the routes through the plains are limited in February and you barely make it out to the edge of the expanse. But it is no less awe-inspiring and the chatter dies away as you approach. We clambered up onto the roof for the slow careful drive through the thinly flooded approaches towards one of the salt hotels (an environmental controversy in themselves). There are little words I guess, as you gaze out, and we wondered how indigenous Bolivians perceived this ethereal white sphere. 

Because despite the tourists, dashing around manically with cameras and engineering ever more elaborate perspective illusions across the flat lunar plains, it feels silent. And silencing. You are enveloped here, just as you are in some mountain ranges, and the sublimely indifferent and bizarre beauty of the world is  palpable and heavy. 

We left Bolivia two days later after a madcap chase back up the altiplano and back-to-back night buses, pausing only to catch our breath and stock up on gifts in rambunctuous La Paz. But the Salar and its environs linger. And there is something comforting in the thought of it sitting there still, silent and vast, as we dive back into the frenetic mazes of our little lives. Something powerful and old, something inaccessibly Bolivian.