Keith Richards can´t be killed by conventional methods. Surviving a Bolivian Salt Flat tour.

Well I made it into Bolivia. We even made it to Tupiza. The idea, which we did end up going through with was to hop on a 4 day three night Salt flat tour, from Tupiza to Uyuni. Mind you, this tour is usually done in the dry season. It is not the dry season now, and we had been warned that it can be significantly more dangerous in the wet season. Dangerous? No, can´t be that bad I thought. Boy was I ever wrong. Those four days, technically three, but ill tell you about that later were possibly the scariest days I have ever experienced in my life. Cliffs, a 1989 Toyota Land Cruiser we dubbed Keith, muddy roads, and rivers combine to make the Bolivian driving experience unique to say the least.
First of all, there is only one major high way that is paved and runs across Bolivia. At no point during our trip did I see anything resembling a paved road. Everything was dirt. You don´t need to be all that smart to know that when dirt is mixed with massive quantities of rain water, mud forms. "Keith", our car was suppose to be four wheel drive. It wasn´t the front wheels never moved. This would become a serious issue later on in the first day. So we left the hotel we were staying in that cost a whopping $6 a night at about 10am. The day started out innocent enough. None of else felt all that great because the town we were in Tupiza, is about 8,000 feet high, and we would only be getting higher as the days went on. Altitude sickness in a car going over a bumpy ass dirt road is another terrible combination. WE all managed to hold it together though. We being myself, Natalie (Israel), Annabel (Australia), and a couple Anthony and Vanessa (Australia). Our driver, who was inexperienced to say the least was named Daniel and we had a cook with us as well, her name was Marta. The beginning of the first day was actually quite spectacular. We were driving on a one (and a half) lane dirt road that winded through the mountains. There were giant cliffs that were a bit intimidating, but at this point the road was dry so we didn't think much of it. We stop for a pretty decent lunch, and then we proceed on as normal. Then it begins to rain. Let me stop for a moment and explain rain in the mountains of Bolivia in the wet season. It is not a sprinkle. It is a downpour of epic proportions that causes rivers to rise quite rapidly and causes the roads to deteriorate into piratically undrivable quagmires. Anyway, our driver being new at this whole trip is relying on our cook who has been doing this for two years for directions. We come to a fork in the road. Left or Right. We chose right. I will forever regret going right because right was low ground now a good place to be in a torrential downpour. As we are driving we are fishtailing ever 20 or so feet, and this becomes a very nerve racking experience when you are fishtailing while next to a sizable cliff with no guardrails. Guardrails, seat belts, stop signs, speed limits, and the rest of the common sights on the roads in the states are non existent here. As far as I can tell on the road the bigger car or truck going faster gets the right of way, and if you get in an accident there isn't going to be anyone coming for hours anyway so who needs safety precautions. There is probably a better chance of freezing to death in those mountains if your car breaks down then having someone come and find you. The mountains are quite cold by the way especially at night around 15,000 feet. Anyway, back to going right, we end up driving along fish tailing and what not and then we come to a river. I´d say it was about 40 feet wide with a small island of mud in the middle. Daniel gets out of the car. He surveys the situation, we turn around we lose two hours, we go through it we´re on schedule. Keep in mind the river is getting progressively more treacherous because of the continuing rain. So what does Daniel decide, go across. Stupid, stupid, stupid decision. We floor it. We make it to the mud island, and then the inevitable, the back tires dig into the mud and we are stuck. The front tires on our "4 wheel drive" vehicle fail to move, this will be a problem for the rest of the trip. Four wheel drive is necessary driving like we were. Bu no, not in Bolivia. Daniel tries rocking us out of the mud, no dice. He then tries to dig us out, no dice. The water is rising and our cook is beginning to panic, because as she told me "we are in a very dangerous situation". Alright everybody out of the car. We step out, barefoot, into a mix of ankle deep mud and freezing cold water. It is unpleasant. Daniel hands me a pick and tells me to walk across the rover to dry land and begin to dig bushes and whatever else out of the ground so we can throw it all under the tires. So I do. Swinging a pick at 12,000 feet is an unbelievably tiresome ordeal. After 5 minutes I was dying. Once we think we have enough brush for the car to sufficiently grip. Daniel floors it again, nope, not moving. We go in even deeper and now the river is coming up onto our little "island" filling the hole the tire is in with mud. Bad news. All right, everyone stand in the river behind the car. We are pushing this bastard out. The water was moving very fast, it was very cold, it was mud brown so you could not see where you were stepping and it was thigh deep in some places. Who cares we have to get out of this spot. So we get behind and push. 20 minutes later we are dirtier, colder, and wetter then we were before, but we are still in the mud. It has been an hour and a half of this by now, and we are tired. Luckily, two tour trucks like ours that went the intelligent direction, left, are driving by about a half mile away and they see us. They drive to us, and out hop all of the tourists with their cameras to take pictures of the other tourists, us, who are stuck in the mud. About thirty minutes later, with the help of more people pushing, the winch of one of the rescue trucks, and mother nature for stopping the rain so our tire hole drained we dragged Keith out of the mud. He seemed to be no worse for the wear, but all of his passengers were wet, cold, and sore. Anyway, the other two drivers, recognizing a novice driver when they see one, tell Daniel that they will follow us the next five hours to the place where we all are suppose to stop for the night. Great.
We continue driving the road is still muddy, we are still fishtailing however there are fewer cliffs to be frightened of. But the possibility of flipping the car was still very real. About 2 hours after we were freed, we are going up a hill, and Keith stalls out. By this point in the day Daniel had managed to stall the car about 30 times so I don't think much of it. He turns the key, the engine whines, and doesn´t turn on. Again, same result. Shit. Stuck again, at least there is no water anywhere near us. Daniel and the two drivers following is spend the next 35 minutes apparently hitting the engine with a wrench and yelling "¡dale!" to whoever is behind the wheel until the car starts. Great, everybody back in. So we continue on.
About 2 hours later around nine at night we come to a town. We have a choice, sleep here, or continue another hour and a half to two hours in the dark to our actual final destination. By the way, every town we went through was tiny, cold, and filled with pit toilets and not enough electricity. It is third world, so one town is the same as the next. We choose to go on, and for the second time I would forever regret a decision that Daniel made. Being followed as before we continue through the darkness and certainly close to freezing temperatures. Keith had no heat and no defroster. I could see my breath in the car, and no one, including the driver, could see out of the window in front or next to them. This made for interesting off road driving. about 30 minutes away from the town we come to our second river of the day. Again, it is river, little island this time more solid cause it had not rained there, and then more river. We floor it to the island. WE make it. Daniel stops and surveys the crossing. He gets back into the car and say "I cant see the road on the other side." Logical decision? Gun it. We fly into the river at reasonably high speed. We are making it! Then, We hit the opposite bank, hard. The front bumper bends, and the car is at a 45 degree angle. The back wheels are not getting out of the river no matter what Daniel tries. about a minute later Vanessa informs us that the back is filling up with water. We are sinking deeper into this river. The cook bolts out of the car like greased lightning the moment she hears us say there is water in the car. Her and the driver are the only two that can get out without getting wet unless us in the back wanted to go out to the window. Daniel now decides the good decision would be to back up and try to go forward again. ¡Stupid! We go backwards, the front tires drop from the bank and plunge into the wet ground. Now we are really stuck. The water outside the car is up to the door handles. There is water on the floor steadily rising. What do we do. We decide to get out. I am upstream, and I decide to open my door first. Not a good idea. I open my door fighting the current and as soon as it is cracked water rushes in. We are now seat deep in water, and panic is setting in we have to get out of this car. Because who knows what is going to happen. We open the other back door, the downstream door, water actually begins to flow out. We all decide to make the 15 foot or so walk to land. We take off our shoes and roll up the pants. What we fail to realize is the water is waist deep, and there is a whole along the path we need to walk to get out that will soak all of us thoroughly. Natalie actually completely falls in. We clamber through the stream and emerge onto dry land. We are very very cold and very very wet. It is 1030 at night and we are very high up in the mountains all barefoot and wet. Not a good combination. Daniel is still in the car, which now won´t start because the engine is under water. The two jeeps behind us manage to spot the road and head across the river in its direction. They make it out no problem. Finding the road would have been logical, but logic is not something commonly found on these tours I discovered. the drivers spend the next hour trying to winch, drag, , push, and pull the car out. Nope. Keith is stuck. my friends and I were all given blankets to try to warm up with. I set about trying to start fire to every piece of shrubbery I could walk to barefoot, but to my dismay it was all to wet. No one in my group can feel their feet or their legs for that matter. The people in the other group let us sit in their cars to warm up. Two Irish guys had Valium and let me tell you in that situation that shit was a god send. Everyone took one We were still freezing but we felt better. After some time we end up all piling in the other cars leaving Keith with all of our bags on top of him in the river for the night. The drivers actually went back later to try to get him out but it didn't work. We arrive at this little town in the middle of no where. myself and my group all immediately pass out underneath llama blankets without even saying goodnight or thank you to the other groups for the lift. We wake up in the morning and we are informed that we will be getting a new car and driver later in the day but we have to stay in this town for a day. It is Sunday, it is Annabel´s 27Th birthday. So we scour this town that has one and a half main streets and is probably no bigger than a square acre for beer. We find it. We begin to drink at noon and continue all the way until 10 at night. Altitude helps in the getting drunk process especially at 13,000 feet which is what we were at. About halfway through our birthday drinking session however we hear a truck stop outside our little hut where our beds are. We look outside and there is Keith. Looking no worse then he did when we first got into him. He even turned on. Those Toyota people sure make a bad ass car. We are then told we will be going back with Daniel and Keith for the next two days. We are also informed we will be leaving at 5am the next morning. Great. WE end up finishing out the day taking some funny photos in the process of me chasing llamas and an assortment of other stupid crap. (They will all be on facebook eventually). As I said we go to bed at 10 and wake up the next morning nervous as ever for the rest of our drive, partially because it poured the night before. We pile back into Keith, and off We go. The first three hours were the scariest I think of the trip. It was a mud road with a large cliff next to it for the majority of the morning, I cant tell you how many times I thought we were all going to die. By the end of the morning I was sadly numb to the prospect of death by rolling off the cliff. The road does get better though, and we start to see some really cool and interesting stuff. Geysers, colored lakes, flamingos, hot springs that we swam in. The day in total ends up being upwards of 16 consecutive hours driving it was tough, but worth it. We would still stall all the time, but we had no river crossings and other then the morning the day was reasonably tame. (Photos to be posted)
The next day we wake up early again but it hadn't rained and Keith was performing reasonably well except for a grinding noise if we were in first or second gear, which we were always in. We end up making it to the salt flats which were some of the most amazing things I have ever seen,. They were submerged in water and you could not tell where the land ended and the sky began. It was truly amazing and it made the whole trip´worth it.
To be honest, looking back on the whole situation, it was an amazing trip and certainly a character building experience. I may have gotten over my fear of death, as I think did everyone else in the car. My standard for a road has dropped drastically (if there are are tire tracks on a dirt path that were made by another car it is fair game), my definition of puddle has changed (if the water isn't muddy, cold, rising, and moving its not a puddle), and if I am ever in the car with my kids on a wet paved road and we fish tail and they scream. I'm going to tell them about time their father was in Bolivia, and then leave them all on the side of the road to think about how good they actually have it. Would I recommend this trip. Yes. But then again you could just go straight to Uyuni and take the tour from here avoiding most of the hazardous shit we had to put up with the first day. Overall, good time. I hope you all get a chance to come down and see some of these things one days because, the salt flats (flooded or not) are certainly a wonder of the world in my mind. Take it easy all. I go to Potosi Bolivia tomorrow. The highest city on earth and get to do a tour of the silver mines. hopefully its not as dangerous as my four day tour. Ill write about it in a couple.