A few kilometres south of the border, there is a new Salar that attracts our attention, the Salar of Coipasa. A big white empty space on the map attracts us like a magnet. However, on our map there is no road to the Salar! But anyway, we no longer trust our map. The local villagers know much more about the existence of roads, although we have learnt to give no credit to their surrealistic notion of distance and altitude.

We thus set off into the Bolivian pampa, on small dirt roads that wind between the hills populated only by vicuñas and alpacas.

Unfortunately dirt track soon gives way to our new enemy, the "sand-that-makes-our-wheels-sink"! Horrible, it first makes us push hard on the pedals, and then... simply push. It's very frustrating: 200m pedalling in zigzags, then 200m breathless pushing on foot, and then we start over again... Even if the track is flat, we progress very slowly!
So we are glad to come to the only village in the region, Coipasa, (like the Salar). The wind, come join it's friend the sand, is so violent that we hesitate to try to pitch our tent in the middle of this flat expanse. Our hesitations are resolved by the young nurse in the "Centro de Salud (health centre) in the village. She has seen us arrive, and offers us a warm hospitality in her hospital! She must not get many visits in this part of the world, and she seemed delighted to meet up with a colleague. So, we spend the night in the beds of patients, warm and sheltered from the wind.
The next day, the wind has disappeared and the sky is blue: an ideal time to cycle across the Salar! We say a big thank you to Lourdes, the nurse, to whom we make a present of our surplus of bandages and dressings. We head towards the white big lake that lies ahead, just outside the village.
The banks of the Salar at Surire, were covered with water, which stopped us from pedalling on the lake... that precisely looked more like a lake than a Salar.

But here, we can cycle on the salt! The impression is fabulous. 50 km of white, flat salt desert stretches out in front of us. We fly along at 20km/h with the squeal of the salt beneath our tires.

The world is reduced to a blue sky and a white Salar. Distance no longer exists, because in the absence of landmarks the scenery remains unchanged, despite our rapid progression. It is like being in one of those video games where the field scrolls along, but the horizon never changes. We could loose our sense of reality here! But not enough to prevent us from taking hundreds of pictures, on a blue and white background. We film ourselves pedalling, we cover ourselves with sun cream under our cheichs, we stop every 200m to take another photo (identical to the previous ten!), We check our speedometer to be sure that we progress, in short, we are happy, and exalted by the stunning vastness and monotony of this unique scenery in the world. We are in the white universe of "The Matrix!" or simply plunged into a dream: the Salar, cycling...

We have a picnic in the flattest region of the world, salted with... the salt beneath our feet! Then we resumed pedalling in the white monotony.

But, not so monotonous as that! Finally, in the afternoon, we come to a flooded area of Salar: we are pedalling in 5 cm of water. And then... One of the most beautiful visions of our journey... The sky is reflected fully in the water that does not have a ripple, and in this mirror, we are cycling in the clouds... The ground has disappeared, and the sky beneath our wheels makes us dizzy. It's indescribable, and it’s magnificent. The evening sun colours the clouds in yellow and orange, and the whole universe goes ablaze. We pedal in circles, made drunk by all this space in front of, over, and under our wheels... one of the most beautiful moments of our trip!
Well, all happiness has to come to an end, and the price to pay for ours is two kilometres of pushing in mud and in sand to get back to a decent track. But it was worth it!

During the following days, we progress in a landscape of sand and thorn bushes or between "quinoa" cultures, towards the next "magnet" for bicycles, the Uyuni Salt Flat. We spend two hours in a village rinsing our bikes to remove the encrusted salt using water from a well, under the stupefied gaze of the remaining villagers who still resist rural exodus. For them, we are akin to aliens! But aliens who are entitled to a quinoa soup offered by a little mamita!

Along sandy tracks and stony hills, we eventually come to Salinas de Garcia Mendoza, the last major town before the Uyuni Salt Flat. Were surprised to find a tiny tourist office, totally unexpected in this remote region of Bolivia! However, the tourist office is held by the gardener, and his information turns out to be quite unreliable. We decide to have him hung high and short when we discover that the road "todo plano" he recommended is actually an impossible cocktail of sand and mud (Another new enemy! Our bikes still sink into a mud that sticks like glue!), and horrible gritty hillsides where we have to push the bikes until we are totally breathless. To the hell with Bolivian tourist guides!
But our bitter complaints come to an end when we finally reach the objective of the journey: THE SALAR!
There's no road or track to follow. So we set off, more or less in the direction indicated by the mamita’s husband, towards an island in the centre of the Salar, the island of Inca Huasi. For the moment, the island is 40 km from the shore, and is too low to be visible. Of course, it is neither on our map, nor on our satellite navigator. So we pedal on, waiting for the secret island to show its nose.

But... But... We are on the Uyuni Salt Flat!! Preoccupied by the problem of setting out in the right direction, we have scarcely realised that we are on THE SALAR, the Salar whose photos have fed our dreams of travel. One photo in particular, that of Claude and Francoise Hervé, our "heroes", on their bikes on the Salar with their young daughter, Manon. A photo that made us dream, a picture of those distant lands where one never goes... Well, now we are here, on the Uyuni Salt Flat! This is a real dream come true for Olivier... And we can hardly believe that we are living this moment.

In front of us are hundreds of kilometres of salt where our cyclist heroes have already ridden. But there is nothing left of their footsteps, erased in a matter of hours or days by rain and wind. And we fell as we are crossing a virgin territory, an impression reinforced by the purity of white on which we drive. It’s true; we have already exhausted our enthusiasm on the Salar of Coipasa, which keeps a special place in our memories. But the two are not identical. The Uyuni Salt Flat is striking by its magnitude: the volcanoes that surround it are lost on the horizon, or even disappear leaving a white line that runs off to infinity. And the surface is also different: Here, the surface is covered by mysterious polygonal figures delimited by little ridges of salt! They also stretch out to infinity, and offer an almost surreal landscape when the setting sun skims across, highlighting them with light and shadow. It’s so beautiful!

Soon we realized that we will not reach the island before dark. We therefore decided to pitch tent where we are, and enjoy the sunset on the Salar... And what colours! Our tent is alone in the world, green in the midst of all this white...

White? But no! The sunset has repainted the salt in shades of pink and orange, violet even near the hexagonal crests of salt. It's wonderful! It is a surreal scene that gives us the impression of being in a traveller’s dream. Of course, we take photo after photo, and we are totally absorbed by this unique landscape. It’s not easy to pitch tent, the tent pegs will never penetrate this salt, as solid as concrete! But Olivier is never short of ideas: not possible to plant tent pegs? No large stones to replace the pegs? But we have two bikes, and now our tent firmly tied to Phileas and Heidi, almost as solid and resistant to the wind as good tent pegs Thank bikes!

Brr, once the sun has disappeared, the temperature drops fast here. We quickly return under the tent to cook our evening meal while the night falls. So far it’s an ordinary story.

But, the clouds that so perfectly adorned the sky at sunset, did not set with the sun... On the contrary, they have inflated to become stormy cumulus, and in the distance we can hear rolling thunder: there is a big storm in the distance! Provided that... Oh no!... The wind is blowing in the wrong direction, and gradually bringing the storm towards us! We anxiously watch the lightning draw closer: on this huge flat surface, our tent and our bikes are like magnets! The storm is now really dangerously close: We will have to do something. Olivier lays the bikes flat, but the metal tent frame remains a high point. We become seriously worried, as the lightning strikes all around us. It is not acceptable to just sit here waiting for the lightning to strike. We pick up our sleeping bags, and run fifty yards from the tent in the stormy gusts of wind. There, we lay out flat on the salt, wrapped in our sleeping bags, trying to be very small. We are frightened. We send a prayer to heaven: not tonight, save us, save the tent! We are in the middle of the storm. The wind becomes violent, and the rain pours down on us, rain and then hail. Within minutes, we find ourselves lying in a 3cm puddle of icy salt water, and the water seeps through to the inside of our bags, and. We daren’t move... Provided that lightning... Then after 10 minutes, the rain suddenly ceases, and the wind calms down a bit. We are saved! The storm has blown over! We wait a little longer, lying in our salt pond, counting the interval between lightning and thunder. The storm moves slowly away. Phew... We can breathe again...

We run back to the tent, still wrapped in our wet sleeping bags. Oh gosh... Our tent looks funny! It is slumped on one side: it did not withstand the wind! A quick inspection reveals that one of the poles has broken, tearing the canvas over 20cm. Damnation!

We manage to repair the pole by sliding the two broken ends into a metal tube of slightly higher diameter. As for the tear, we will see what we can do tomorrow! What else is damaged? The tent is full of 3cm of saltwater... We bail it out as best we can, hoping that the Salar will quickly absorb the water covering the surface. The sleeping bags are not completely soaked, but nevertheless very damp: we cannot really sleep in them in that state... Fortunately, the wind is still very strong: we take advantage of it to do a "drying" program. We spend a good half-hour standing upright in the night, holding the wet bags at arm's length in the wind, and they dry! They do not have the fresh smell of clothes from a heated tumble-dryer, but the wind is efficient. It also more or less dries our wet pants, which enables us to return to the tent, no longer dripping wet. Well, the final result could have been worse. We thank heaven that the only problem is salt water...
The next day, sun shines as if nothing had happened, and the Salar is dry under the blue sky. So we sew our tent, and brush the salt off the tent as best we can. But the canvas, and all our clothes are as stiff as cardboard: they all need a good rinse, but that can wait until we reach Uyuni!

For the moment, we speed towards to the "island" of Inca Huasi, which appears gradually on the horizon: With the distance and the refraction of light on the ground, it looks like a flying saucer floating in the morning sky: We cycle in a very futuristic scenery! At our speed of 20 km/h speed, the saucer gradually becomes a giant mushroom, and then a real island.

However it is a strange "island with no water around it"! On it, we replenish our reserves of freshwater, but we do not stay: with its charming forest of giant cacti, this place is THE picnic stop for all the tourists in four-wheel drives that cross the Salar... Let’s flee! towards the town of Uyuni.

But the town still far away, and nightfall imposes a second bivouac on the Salar. A little anxious, we scrutinize the sky on the lookout for potential storm clouds, but tonight will be quiet... Except for the wind!
After these salty adventures, we really need a stop in a "city-with-shower-for-bikes-and-us." Uyuni comes just at the right time! Our bicycles are entitled to a whole morning’s brushing (bags included), and we offer ourselves the luxury of a hotel for hikers. Then we can finally invade the local Internet cafe for long hours of responses to e-mails and updating the website. It has been a long time (since Putre, Chile!) that we were able to give any news of ourselves...

Once these basic duties fulfilled, we can focus on our next mission: go to the South Lipez for Christmas. It will not be easy, considering that today is already... December 23rd!

So, we decide to take the night bus out of town, to save us two days of uninteresting pedalling through bushy plains. However, once more, the bus is a problem: it is not possible to know if the bus will go to our destination, it will depend on the weather and the state of the road. We are told to ask the driver! Yes, but we need to know before we buy the tickets! Moreover, our bikes make the ticket-man gasp: "Oh-oh no, it is not possible, they are far too big!". We must use all our charm to convince him that they will indeed go into the locker, once all the bags have been removed (we dismantle the bags to show him). In short, we spend long hours bartering, but finally we obtain our tickets,... and after a cold night of endless jolts, we are finally at the foot of volcanoes. The Sud Lipez is waiting for us!

Christmas in Sud Lipez begins well: a bright blue sky, clean fresh air that refreshes us, and a track, not too bad, that climbs gently upwards: what more could we ask for? Well nothing, but unfortunately, we will have more and even too much wind! Well, we know about the wind, and we have learned to live with it. But this is the wind of South Lipez. We have been warned. But even forewarned, it is a fierce howling wind of gusts and gales, which destabilizes our 70 kilos of bikes and luggage with an unbelievable force. A wind that raises huge swirls of dust and sand and throws them into our face. We are going have to grit our teeth...

On the advice of a road-maintainer at Alota, we leave the main trail in the afternoon and turn 90 degrees onto a track carved by the wheels of 4-wheel drives. A big mistake! Initially we are relieved to have a side-wind in place of a headwind.

But we are soon disillusioned: the sand and stones slow us down to 3 m/h, and the wind still whistles and rings in our ears with a sound that drives us crazy. We think of our families that must be in the middle of their Christmas Eve celebrations, taking account of the time zones. But for us here, it is not really "foie gras & champagne!

The trail turns, and the wind is once again a headwind. It is no longer possible to keep our balance on the bikes. We pedal, we fall, we push... We pedal, we fall, we push, and the afternoon comes to an end. After yet another small fall, Amanda cracks. She did not really expect to have a Christmas Eve like that! Tired after a sleepless night and fighting against the brutal wind, and above all, thousands of miles away from “home” and those she loves, it's too much. She collapses in tears, sitting forlorn on the sand. But fortunately, not all of her loved ones are at the other end of the world. "The one she loves" has just found a little site to set up camp. Nothing grandiose nor very comfortable, but a large rock that shelters the tent from the wind. And seeing his beauty laid out, he lifts her up, and at the same time raises her morale. The efforts are finished for today; it’s time to prepare the Christmas Eve pasta, and to hang the garlands in the tent! And after all, the two of us together, are already a family, right?

We quickly install ourselves in our small but comfortable shelter and prepare a small banquet under the garlands. Father Jean-Louis’ mini nativity crib sits on our socks in a corner of the tent. Each of us has secretly bought some chocolate for the other, and Olivier has even found some dehydrated desserts: strawberry jelly and whipped cream!

We also have our personal “champagne”: big bowls of sweet hot chocolate... Even better than bubbles! This feast boosts our morale tremendously, and we enjoy our celebration at the end of the world: Merry Christmas everybody!

Unfortunately, this first day in the Sud Lipez was only the beginning: we will continue to struggle against the wind and bad tracks during the following days. Sometimes, even pushing the bikes becomes a major effort!

And we are not at the end of our difficulties ... One morning, we meet a 4-wheel drive whom we ask for a little water, scarce in this region. The driver asked us where we are going: "What? You want to get back to the main trail? On this track you will have to climb over the hills in front and the track is steep! I advise you to make a detour to the east, by Lake Khara: it is longer, but the road is less steep and the lake is really beautiful, with hundreds of flamingos... The track? No worse than this one, quite easy on a bike!"

So, we take his advice and set off for Lake Khara! But as we progress, we discover that the driver has no idea what "easy on a bike” means. We find ourselves in the middle of vast sand dunes, on a track that is a series of deep furrows left by 4-wheel drives in half a metre of soft sand. Absolute hell for cyclists! We push our bikes for several hours, even downhill, without exceeding the 3 mph and we eventually get to the lake as night falls: a cold night, in fact, the thermometer drops to -15°C !

Fortunately, the sun is back again, early the following morning, and it slowly melts the iced water in our bottles. In the sunshine Lake Khara is really beautiful with white expanses of salt and colonies of flamingos aggregated together against the cold.

Now, we need to go around the lake to return to the main trail, some ten miles behind the mountains in the distance. But, but where is our track? The deep marks of the 4-wheel drives continue, but to the south, while we need to go west! Well, both the map and the Satnav say that we are heading in the right direction: So, we will continue in the direction indicated by our Satnav, and we are bound to cross the trail eventually. But we forget that bloody sand, which makes us to have to push our heavy bikes at no more than 2 mph, or even 1, because now the track goes up!

By mid-morning, we start to worry: there is still no sign of the main trail! The track becomes steeper, and it becomes impossible to push our laden bikes single-handed. So we resort to both of us pushing just one bike, one after the other, 100 m by 100 m. After several exhausting hours, we have covered barely 2 miles. And our worry becomes anxiety: there is no track and there will probably no track before reaching the main trail, some 6 miles beyond the mountains. But at our present speed, and despite our efforts, it will take us at least two more days to get there. And we have only one day’s water in reserve! In this isolated region, far from any road, the probability of meeting a 4-wheel drive is zero. Needless to say, there is no signal on the mobile phone! In short, the situation is not good...

But we refuse to panic. Anyway, we have no choice, we will push or heave our bikes, step by step, and economise our water. If only we did not have this violent headwind screaming in our ears. Fortunately the sun, at least, is present! In order not to despair, we encourage each other, we push a bike for a 100 meters, and then we come back, hand in hand, getting our breath back; our altitude is over 4300 m! Then the slope increases, and we have to remove the bags. It then takes us four round trips for each step forward... Needless to say, we progress at the speed of paralytic snails! The guide who advised us to take this route is a public danger! "No problemo con las bicicletas" ASSASSIN!

It takes us two days of exhausting efforts to arrive finally at the top of these mountains of sand: 4820 m, we are higher than the Mont Blanc! We have beaten our record... and we are pushing our bikes! Despite the fatigue and our moral anguish (we have only 4 litres of water left), we make a commemorative video and take some photos.

We know that the landscape is absolutely fabulous, but we cannot appreciate it. The photos will do for us!

The following descent is easier, but we must still continue pushing the bikes, the wind and soft sand make it impossible to pedal. At nightfall, we finally reach the trail we were hoping for. Extenuated, we set up camp in the wind and freezing temperatures (-17°C tonight!). We have just half a litre of water left...

The next morning, when Olivier is thinking very seriously about filtering the urine he has kept in a bottle, our salvation appears: the dust of a 4-wheel drive on the horizon!
Amanda runs in the direction of its track, 600 yards away, waving her arms. And whew, the car stops, and puts 4 litres of water into her arms. Meanwhile, another car passes near the tent: another 2 litres for Olivier! We are saved; we will not die from thirst!

And our morale climbs high as we cycle towards the next of the marvels to be seen, the "arbol de piedra" (the stone tree), jolting on the terrible corrugated iron trail (but after these two days, corrugated sheet is the least of our concerns).

The "arbol de piedra" is a rock that is known throughout the region for its resemblance to a tree, and its isolated location in the middle of the desert. Indeed, it forms a slightly unreal décor in which to photograph our bikes.

But we are not at the end of our problems: while we are discussing with the friendly occupants of 4-wheel drive, which also stopped to take pictures, someone steals our camera, left on a rock! Unbelievable: a robbery here in the desert! But we must face the facts: another car stopped right next to the rock and then left again, quickly... A thief! But what can we do with our bikes? Furious and totally depressed by the loss, we push our bikes, powerless, at 2 mph in the sand, in the "pursuit" of the thieves... (The latter, of course, deny everything when the friendly 4w-d next meet up with them).

Needless to say, we were not in a cheerful mood when a 4-wheel drive stopped just in front of us. We sigh: we have no desire to respond to the same old questions and to say that we enjoying ourselves on our bikes, when it's far from being the truth... But we are wrong: they are not curious spectators, they are angels, good old guardian angels who come to our rescue when nothing goes right.

"Well then, young Frenchies! Hi there! Your bikes are brilliant, how are you going? " Michel, a joyful French quinquagenarian, has already descended from his car and is walking towards us. Just hearing his accent from Southwest France, we already feel better. And we feel even better when, joined by Chantal, his companion, he proposes to take us in his car to the next "marvel" of Southern Lipez, the "Laguna Colorada". Exactly what we were dreaming of! We spend the evening warm and sheltered from the wind, and in excellent company. It is exactly what we needed to rebuild our morale.

The next day, in their company, we visit some incredible geysers at almost 5000 m altitude. They are even more impressive than those of Iceland, we are in a landscape that seem totally unreal. However, despite the comfort and speed of the 4-wheel drive, we are frustrated not to be on our bikes in the middle of this scenery. We decide to return to our bikes, even if it is certain that we will again have to push them after the next bend. But, thank you so much, Michel and Chantal, for this comfortable interlude that came just at the right time!

And, of course, we are once again confronted with the cocktail of fierce sandy wind, and having tp get off and push every 500 m (why on earth did we abandon the 4-wheel drive?). But our efforts are rewarded with an unbelievable landscape. We traverse a sandy area called "Las Piedras Dali". And indeed, it is as if we are "inside" a painting of Salvador Dali, a fabulous surrealistic "Daliesque" painting. Golden and ochre sand dunes, spattered with grey stones, with strange forms, sprung from nowhere and multicoloured mountains in the background. There are no melted watches, just two bizarre bicycles that add a note of eccentricity to this masterpiece.

On the last day of the year, we come to the last "marvel" of our journey: the famous "Laguna Verde", with turquoise green waters... Decidedly, between these multicoloured lakes and the mountains of graded yellow ochre, the South Lipez has mastered the art of incredible colours... But, on New Year's Eve, for a change, we will not be alone!

We come to the mountain refuge of Laguna Verde, where we offer ourselves a meal cooked by the matron: rice, alpaca, and an infusion of "mate". It is not exactly the duckling and "foie gras" of French celebrations, but we are more than contented! Above all, we spend our evening with the three young "backpackers", including a French man, Denis, with whom we talk all evening. He also is touring the world with his girlfriend, but "backpacking" (www.voirplusloin.fr). However, he admits that the bikes are tempting ... To resume, a warm and happy New Year’s Eve, which we finish with our "champagne": a hot chocolate between two lovers.
A Very Happy New Year 2008 to everyone!

For us, the New Year 2008 will begin with a new country. The Laguna Verde was the last leg of our adventures in Southern Lipez, and the border between Bolivia and Chile is only a few kilometres away. But Chile will only be a short step. Our itinerary, in a couple of days, will take us a few miles further west into Argentina. Our eighth country! So what will Argentina have in reserve for us? Will we find the warmth and comfort that we really need after these difficult days at high altitude? What will we find when we leave the Andes that we have traversed in all directions during nearly three months? And will the famous Argentine beef live up to its reputation?
To be continued... in the next episode!