Ollagüe, Chile

We woke up with the sun and were both in a foul mood as we knew what lie ahead of us; nothing but rattling metal and mind numbing slow roads for the whole day. We finished the slow trek back to town in silence, and our first task was to try to refill the gas we had wasted the night before. The pump attendant immediately informed us that there was no gas. Crap. Now we had to make a decision. Do we stay and wait for more gas to become available, or do we try to push it (it was going to be very close) and hope that we could make it with what we had in our tank and the reserve on the back of the van? Considering that we were heading into the Atacama, the driest desert in the world, we didn’t really like that option. We plucked a 100 Boliviano bill out of our stash and explained to the attendant that it was ‘muy importante’ that we get gas. The problem was that we had to hit the border today, because on Saturday we had had our passports stamped for exit for this date, based on a recommendation in the guidebook. The border outpost we were heading for was in the middle of nowhere, and it said that it was better to get stamped before leaving Uyuni. So we continued to plead and beg, and finally the man had pity on us and told us to quickly pull up to the pump. He hurriedly filled us up and shooed us away before anyone saw. We happily handed over the 100 (about $15 and we had $5 in gas) and went looking for directions to figure out how to get the hell out of Bolivia!

We went back to the town square and started asking every guide, police officer, and tour operator we could find. We had a hard time understanding the very fast Bolivian Spanish, but from what we could gather, there was no longer the direct road that was in our three year old guide book, and instead there was a new road that went to San Cristobol (the road we were on last night) and then on to the border. We drove to the edge of town and followed the train tracks for a bit, which the guide book showed the old road following all the way to the border, but the road split numerous times and didn’t look very big, so we decided to play it safe and begrudgingly went back down the road we had already been up and down two times. As expected, the going was slow, peaking out at maybe 35 mph on a couple of good stretches. We made it to San Cristobal and to our surprise there was a gas station, so we gassed up again and tried to pump the attendant for more info. He made it sound like sure enough, we just kept going up the road and we would eventually hit the border. There were a few tense hours between San Cristobal and the next town. We were getting into some seriously remote country, with only the occasional guide truck roaring past us, un-phased by the terrible roads. We finally made it to Alota, apparently the destination for all of the guide trucks. We immediately pulled over and asked a guide, still hoping we were on the path to the border. To our relief, he enthusiastically assured us that in two, maybe two and a half hours (three and a half going our speed) we’d run into the border outpost. We kindly thanked him, and with a renewed confidence, we kept moving. Soon the landscape changed to large volcanoes and rock formations similar to something you’d see in Utah. We were once again glad we had come this way and eventually we finally did hit the border outpost.

Ollague was a tiny, dusty town that looked like it was straight out of the old western movies. The wind blew fiercely and whipped dust everywhere. The border formalities were the most laid back we’ve experienced and we were on our way within fifteen minutes; heading into Chile.

For the two of us, Chile represents a major milestone. Even though we still need to make Buenos Aires by Christmas, there is something special about being in the country that shares Patagonia and world class fly fishing with our ultimate destination of Argentina.

We drove for another hour into Chile and finally made camp on the edge of a salt flat, across from a puffing volcano. We enjoyed the silence of the remote valley and toasted a large glass of whiskey while watching the mountains cast shadows on each other as the sun set. We’ve come a long way.