The changed mission

by Lotte Janssen (Netherlands)

A leap into the unknown Bolivia

“Laguna Colorada – we’ve got to go there! Have you ever seen a lake red in colour?” I said. “But we don’t have a four-wheel drive Lotte.” my sister answered. “What if we get stuck?” There we were, in San Pedro de Atacama, having a picnic on the roof of our motorhome, debating whether we should endeavor going on a mission to find this blood-red lagoon, filled with hundreds of pink flamingos. The only fellow nomads-on-wheels were some German engineers, having built their own monster-trucks with tires reaching up to our waists. They did go up there, teamed up with another truck with a winch. They had lost a tire along the way. Stubborn as we were, we decided to go alone. We got an extra fuel tank as our fuel consumption would double above 5,000 meters altitude. Temperatures would drop to minus 16 degrees, so we got ourselves some fluffy pairs of alpaca socks and off we went. It was a two-kilometer climb in altitude in just 50 kilometers. Once we made it into Bolivia, our navigation stopped working. Well, there weren’t really roads anyway, neither traffic nor phone reception. No trees, no plants, just rocks. The Bolivian altiplano is an awe-inspiring, otherworldly landscape. A myriad of deep tracks in grey grit. Endless choices on which trail to follow. Leonie walked ahead of the camper to throw away big rocks that were in our way, like a human excavator. The altitude gave her a stronger and stronger headache. It took us four hours to drive twelve kilometers. Then the storm hit. There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to shelter. Just our Chev on the rocks with a giant volcano in the distance. The sun started to set, so we decided to camp up. Nobody there. Just us and the sound of the wind. We parked the bonnet facing the wind, hoping that the gusts wouldn’t rip off the solar panels from our roof. Leonie had a terrible headache. We tried getting some sleep. “Will Leonie be alright? What were we thinking? What if she gets too ill? There’s no way I can drive away in the dark, we just nearly got stuck in the piles of loose rock.” it kept repeating in my mind. I hardly slept that night. The sunrise had something mystic. Mystic and optimistic. We explored the best way out from these tricky trails and to our enlightenment saw the soil was getting better. Next to Laguna Blanca we were. Stunning. We agreed to continue our mission onto her red sister. We were approaching Geyser Sol de Mañana. The rocks were getting sharper. Our tires were still withstanding, thanks to Leonie helping me were to drive. We camped next to the geyser, watching the fumaroles by sunset, accompanied by tens of little balls of fur running around; a type of altiplano mouse. The next morning, my cup of tea had frozen and an icicle was hanging from our tap. We were surprised how we were handling the cold and the altitude and amazed how our tires were surviving. The road narrowed, more snow and ice started filling the tracks up to the point where our double rear wheels didn’t fit in anymore. We felt like we shouldn’t push our luck. Avoiding having to pray for a tow truck, we reversed some kilometers, managed to make a turn and made our way back to Chile. Sad that we couldn’t make it all the way to Laguna Colorada, the ‘Customs Villains’ had more bad news. They wouldn’t let us exit the country, stressing that we must get a ‘Temporary Vehicle Import’ from Bolivian immigration, which was a eight-hour drive away. They insisted that one of us should drive to immigration while the other should stay with them at the secluded border post. That was our biggest nightmare. Bribing didn’t work. An hour of Spanish negotiations followed. Suddenly they gave up. Quickly, we jumped into our truck and got the heck out of there. Glad to be back in cute San Pedro, we felt extremely fortunate that we suffered no damage and most importantly, that we were fine, which turns out to be the number one mission to have.