The next day I awoke better but still very weak. I had been setting my sights on doing the ride from Uyuni to San Pedro de Atacama with Tutu her friend Aurelie and their 4wd group , but felt that now it was a hopeless cause. Few riders do this route because it is not only insanely dangerous but has no petrol stations (actually pretty much no towns or settlements), and if you got stranded alone, like the deserts of Australia, you would most likely end up dead and a column in a newspaper back home.
Thankfully Tutu found a great tour company, who found fuel for me, and agreed to let me ride along with them and would also carry extra fuel for me. I was still too sick to do the ride to the Salar de Uyuni so they also allowed me to ride in the 4wd for this part of the tour, and if I was well enough after that I could follow the 4wd for the rest of the tour.
Thus I climbed into the 4wd and we drove to the Salar...
Its hard to explain how amazing this scene is, a huge, seemingly endless plain of salt flat lake that is dry in summer yet floods in winter. When we arrived it was still partially flooded yet was traversible by the 4wd; I was happy to be in the truck since it was about a foot under water as we drove to a tourist hotel and restaurant near it's center, and if I was on the bike I could have ridden it yet it would have meant an extensive clean afterwards lest I find the bike rusted to pieces shortly after (and I don't want to clean the Dingo at this stage cos I believe the dirt from California through Central and South America is holding her together along with a heap of gaffer tape).
This is one place (along with the whole tour as you will see) that I think everyone should put on their "to do" list before they die... Nature's pure beauty, it forces one to consider the truelly incredible history of the planet that we are so luckily to have been born unto...
Ofcourse we did the typical "perspective" shots that all tourists do, it is a really magical place to be...
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