The second day started very early in the morning. The first stop was at this flamingo paradise where we were able to spot hundreds of flamingos flying freely around the lagoon (you will probably be sick of flamingos after so many pictures).
But the fun started just after that, before lunch. While easily driving through the desert, PUFFFFFFF!!! A tire exploded!!! Probably tired after so many rides through the dry and rocky road.
No worries! Our super little guide Juan got off the truck and in 30 minutes we were on the road again with our spare tire. All happy and singing when PUFFFFFFFFF!!!!! And another tire is gone!
We got a bit worried, what the hell would we do? But we thought: Juan is here and he will get things going again...
But well, he didn't... For the first time since we left the Chilean border our guide did not have that relaxed look we got used to. He was tense, white and sweating... and to make sure we understood we really had a problem, he said: "Amigos, problema!". We all imediately got we were in big shit...
The deal was: we had no extra tire, we were on a "road" where nobody would pass on that day and we were 25km away from the closest village. The solution: Juan would walk all the way to the next village, get a ride from a friend and bring us a new set of tires. We? We had to sit and wait for the next 6 to 8 hours....
The first 5 minutes we laughed, then we had lunch for 15 minutes and when we finally realized in what kind of shit we had fallen into, we started getting worried. But then we did what most people do when they have a problem: we started drinking!!!
After that time went by really fast. We spent hours drinking wine and pisco while talking about life, philosophy, relationships, traveling, sex, football, cultural shocks, etc, etc, etc.
Luckily some hours later another truck passed by us and very kindly gave us their extra tire and helped us to change it. Robert and I wanted to drive the car to find Juan but we had 2 new problems:
1: We were totally drunk and the italian ladies did not allow us to take the car
2: We did not know where to go. There was no road, just an open desert.
After a small conflict that lasted a few minutes we managed to convince the italian ladies that Juliana could drive, as she had not drunk as much, which was not 100% correct... And then Juliana started driving the big truck through the desert, hoping we would find our lovely little guide. And the fact is that we were lucky enough and we found the man. He was so happy to see us and also to realize that the problem was solved. We had gained at least 1 hour.
Then Juan took the car and drove for 5 hours (after having walked for another 5h) to take us to our next hotel in the middle of the Uyuni salt desert.
It was 9pm, everybody was tired and I was excited to have lived the best day of this trip.
But the fun started just after that, before lunch. While easily driving through the desert, PUFFFFFFF!!! A tire exploded!!! Probably tired after so many rides through the dry and rocky road.
No worries! Our super little guide Juan got off the truck and in 30 minutes we were on the road again with our spare tire. All happy and singing when PUFFFFFFFFF!!!!! And another tire is gone!
We got a bit worried, what the hell would we do? But we thought: Juan is here and he will get things going again...
But well, he didn't... For the first time since we left the Chilean border our guide did not have that relaxed look we got used to. He was tense, white and sweating... and to make sure we understood we really had a problem, he said: "Amigos, problema!". We all imediately got we were in big shit...
The deal was: we had no extra tire, we were on a "road" where nobody would pass on that day and we were 25km away from the closest village. The solution: Juan would walk all the way to the next village, get a ride from a friend and bring us a new set of tires. We? We had to sit and wait for the next 6 to 8 hours....
The first 5 minutes we laughed, then we had lunch for 15 minutes and when we finally realized in what kind of shit we had fallen into, we started getting worried. But then we did what most people do when they have a problem: we started drinking!!!
After that time went by really fast. We spent hours drinking wine and pisco while talking about life, philosophy, relationships, traveling, sex, football, cultural shocks, etc, etc, etc.
Luckily some hours later another truck passed by us and very kindly gave us their extra tire and helped us to change it. Robert and I wanted to drive the car to find Juan but we had 2 new problems:
1: We were totally drunk and the italian ladies did not allow us to take the car
2: We did not know where to go. There was no road, just an open desert.
After a small conflict that lasted a few minutes we managed to convince the italian ladies that Juliana could drive, as she had not drunk as much, which was not 100% correct... And then Juliana started driving the big truck through the desert, hoping we would find our lovely little guide. And the fact is that we were lucky enough and we found the man. He was so happy to see us and also to realize that the problem was solved. We had gained at least 1 hour.
Then Juan took the car and drove for 5 hours (after having walked for another 5h) to take us to our next hotel in the middle of the Uyuni salt desert.
It was 9pm, everybody was tired and I was excited to have lived the best day of this trip.
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