Huara, Pan American Highway, Chile: 270 kms (25103 kms)

We have arrived in our penultimate country after three days of high drama in Bolivia that will be almost impossible for me to summarise here in full. So here's the concise version, if you can call this concise!

Our intention in Bolivia had always been to visit the vast salt flats of the Salar de Uyuni and then leave the country to the west to rejoin the Pan American Highway in Chile. On my expensive, and what now transpires outdated, map this looked a relatively easy task on 'all year, all weather' roads. However, had it not been for the three new friends we met in Oruro, that conveniently included a motorcycle guide, we would probably still be riding around Bolivia looking for the exit. We all hooked up on Tuesday morning and rode south for 2 hours until the asphalt ceased to exist. We would not see it again until 500 kms later on Thursday afternoon at the Chilean border. The track to the salt flats, as our clothes, bikes and lungs will testify, consisted mostly of dust. It was simply everywhere. Smatterings of gravel, sand and partially constructed roads were thrown in for good measure. But riding off-road to Salinas, located at the northern extent of the salt flats and our goal for Tuesday evening, was nothing to the sensation of riding our own bikes across the Salar de Uyuni Wednesday morning. It was the closest either of us have ever come to being an ice-breaker and constant messages were required to our heads to fight the feeling we might just fall through the salt! From Salinas we left our new found friends to continue on our own. The first 25 kms went swimmingly well until Matt fell and I simultaneously discovered a flat front tyre. A hasty repair was administered before it punctured again 70 kms later whilst lost looking for a track that didn't seem to exist (see left). We were literally miles from anywhere in an area where food, water and fuel are all rare commodities. We had enough of all three but it was impossible not to stress, especially given our dependency on our trusty Yamahas to get us out of the country. Tracks lead off in a myriad directions and all were of a dubious quality. At various points whilst trying to find the border crossing Matt fell an additional 2 times, myself once and we spent an impromptu night camping in a deserted town in -7. It took a further 100 kms of riding through sand, dust, over the Salar de Coipasa salt flat and endless deserted Bolivian towns before we found the Chilean border, restaurant food and, most importantly, shiny black tarmac.

On hindsight it was a truly classic experience but you would've had trouble telling the both of us that at the time!