So why, I hear you ask, did you put James through that horrific experience of the night bus to Calama / en route to San Pedro de Atacama?

Well…. I was easing him in gently.

San Pedro is the nicer of the two places where one can arrange a 3 day jeep tour taking in the sights of deepest darkest southwest Bolivia, including the amazing Salar de Uyuni (the other place being Uyuni, which is where we are now. Even a rather nice chocolate tart in a relatively civilized bar have in no way changed my opinion that Uyuni is, in simple essence of the fact, a complete hole). The Salar de Uyuni had been one of the top items on James’ wish list when we first started planning the trip, so it was a dead cert for our time in South America. Unfortunately, the 3 day jeep tour, whilst being absolutely, wildly spectacular, I remembered from last time as being one of the most fundamentally basic of all my experiences within the continent (and I wasn’t exactly living the high life last time I went round this neck of the woods either). Whilst the scenery had faded for me over the years, the biting cold, the altitude sickness (4,900 metres at the journey’s highest point), the jowl shaking ride and the existence of the one singular town toilet in one of the little communities we stayed at are seemingly indelibly etched in the old memory banks. Bolivia being a pretty hardened opponent to progress in any fashion, I feared little would have changed.

How wrong I was. BOTH of the communities we visited had more than one toilet. Inside no less. Luxury.

It remains, however, a long and fairly arduous journey, made more so in our case by the fact that our carefully selected tour operator didn’t have enough people and therefore ditched us (without actually telling us so) on another, slightly less carefully selected tour group. Six of us in a jeep built for five. Rice for lunch when others got a gourmet feast. A hostel run by the least friendly, and largest Bolivian lady I have EVER seen though I still don’t know how she managed that living in the middle of the DESERT (when she bent over, owing to the Bolivian custom of wearing knee length gathered skirts and short socks, you could apparently see her bum. I missed this highlight regrettably). Just one bolt rather than the required four holding the steering rack in place…. interesting on a bumpy journey that last one. Obviously no showers and with the bitter, bitter cold (apparently we hit about -25 C), absolutely no desire to take off any clothes either to sleep or for basic hygiene purposes.

In other words, a proper ADVENTURE. It was fantastic!! (I say from the warmth of aforementioned civilized bar, post short session to chip off the welded on clothing of the last few days, shower and re-boot own personality).

The scenery is incredible. Unfortunately, whilst the Laguna Blanca was definitely white, it was due to ice rather than any natural colouring, but all the other sights along the way behaved admirably. The Laguna Verde shone bright green, the Laguna Colorada sat happily red in the sunshine, with a few strategically placed flamingoes to add ornamentation. The hot springs were hot, the geysers satisfyingly hissy and gushy. We stopped at another lake and saw hundreds of James flamingoes (they really are called this, which made James very happy), although this was marred a little by the knowledge that these birds are the late babies, unable to migrate with the rest of the flock and mostly doomed to perish by winters’ end. Still, jolly pretty they were.

The accommodation wasn’t even that bad. First night with dragon lady was pretty basic and eye wateringly cold, but once James and I had put into place our patented hot water bottle technology (an empty plastic bottle filled with water sneakily begged from the kitchen for tea), we achieved sleep beneath our covering of a sleeping bag and 5 thick woolen blankets. The next night we stayed at one of the twenty or thirty Hostales de Sal (Salt Hostels) that have sprung up near the Salar – all of which are built almost entirely of blocks of salt hewn from the Salar and are as a result pretty spectacular. The downside was that, waking last night from a nightmare of being trapped in some awful pitch black rocky place, I found myself… trapped in some awful pitch black rocky place. Not very intrepid I know, but I spent the rest of the night with the head torch on!!

This morning we made it to the Salar (or salt flats) itself, arriving at the Isla de Incahuasi for sunrise. Spectacular, if so cold that my toes may never forgive me. After a hearty breakfast (well, some stale bread rolls – but why ruin a good story?) we continued to drive over the flats, a mesmerizing experience as the salt sparkles in the sunshine. A few hundred compulsory perspective shots later, we were on our way back to civilization. Just not sure why we ended up in Uyuni instead.

Ah, the Galapagos. Amazing wildlife, jaw-dropping geology, fresh air, champagne. It was just like that Lonely Island video…

Well, not really. Yes, we spent our days hopping from island to island. Yes, we saw the most incredible flora and fauna. And yes, we were on a sailing catamaran motoring (and very occasionally sailing) around the Pacific Ocean with a lovely bunch of travelers / holidaymakers for a week. But there was remarkably little booze. It’s not that there wasn’t any on board, it’s just that very few of us actually felt the need (which, after a few habit-forming years of a beer or two every evening after work was surprisingly refreshing).

Other than the occasional broken night’s sleep (see below) the trip was perfect. Lucy and I were blissfully free of the seasickness that occasionally poleaxed some of our companions. We got up in the morning to the sound of the ship’s bell. A hearty breakfast, a pootle around an island, elevenses, a little snorkelling. Then a three course lunch followed by a siesta or a laze on the sundeck. More island pootling, perhaps more snorkeling, then a three course dinner, a briefing from our on board naturalist (not that kind) and bed. It was all highly regimented yet strangely comforting once you were in the flow of it – like being back at public school.

The crew were top notch, the other passengers were good company, and we all happily exchanged trivialities at first before risking anything more of ourselves (yes, I have been reading Paul Theroux, but other than this minor plagiarism I have remained relatively immune to his more misanthropic tendencies). We couldn’t have wished for a better bunch.

On reflection – and I am writing this at altitude in Peru after a six hour bus ride – my favorite part of the Galapagos wasn’t a particular animal or island (although Darwin’s boobies were amazing). The best part of the trip for me was seeing such a range of islands at such different stages of development: a fresh lava island covered in nothing but surrealism… next to an eroded lava island with a few plants and thousands of seabirds… next to an island that has been completely overtaken by vegetation, complete with giant tortoises. It normally takes huge leaps of imagination to picture anything happening on a geological timescale – here you just have to hop on a boat and travel a few miles to see millions of years back and forward in time, with all the changes in animal physiology and behavior to match. Truly fascinating.

Broken night’s sleep? Well, I have had a new business idea. It’s a new type of alarm clock for stressed executives who are having problems waking up in the morning, and it will be the recorded – yet unamplified – sound of a fifty meter steel anchor chain being hauled out of its resting place by a fifty pound kedge anchor just one thin sheet of plywood away from your head. I can guarantee its effectiveness, as I have now mastered the skill of sleeping through “slightly bumpy night navigations” (with one foot braced against the ceiling of our cabin, and with the sound of the waves blotting out Lucy’s occasional yelps as she was thrown out of bed). The anchor chain alarm clock never failed to rouse me, however. A shame that it usually marked the end of the night navigation at around 3am!

• Miles driven: 5,456. Within a whisker of our initial estimate of 2,500 to 3,000 miles…
• States visited: 17. Although yes, we’re including a few drive-by states in that
• Fortifying ice creams consumed to energize the driver (and passenger…passenging is hard work I’ll have you know): about 25. Basically at least one a day if we were in transit
• Pigs slaughtered in the fulfillment of James’ search for the perfect ribs: I’d say about 4 medium size oinkers. (For the curious, the perfect ribs were actually some we had about a year ago in Chef Leon’s little shack up in Vermont….unfortunately now closed down due to cleanliness violations…)
• Hours spent hiking in incredible spectacular scenery in a hopeless attempt to un-wreak the damage caused by above-mentioned ribs: 25. Half a pig??
• National parks visited: 5. Yeah, we achieved value for money on our annual America the Beautiful pass!
• Maximum speed: James says 90mph, which was when I was driving (hadn’t quite got the hang of motorway speed control on the first day out of NYC). I however think this is a vicious lie, I’m pretty sure he went faster than this overtaking that Ferrari that time…
• Occasions we took a minor and slightly unintended detour: about 30. Occasions we swore at the satnav: also about 30
• Beasties slain in our relentless race across the land: 7,002. 7,000 winged insect type beasties which met their ends on the windscreen, 1 chipmunk (James) and one kangaroo rat (Lucy. James says this is endangered but I’m pretty sure that’s not true….)
• Meals in chain restaurants: one McDonalds salad in the Air and Space Museum in Washington (we had no choice on this one); one Arby’s and one Denny’s – these are both a little like eating at a Little Chef, i.e., you wrinkle your nose at them until you happen to be looking for dinner in deepest darkest nowhere at 10pm, at which point one becomes rather appreciative of their all round culinary excellence. And the fact that they’re open. And the MILKSHAKES!
• Nights camping: 4. This is way less than we’d hoped, but the campsites in national parks get booked up about a month in advance in summer which kind of threw a spanner in our camping plans. Which brings us onto….
• Nights in plush hotels: 6. Oops. Of which Miami effortlessly wins the award for most bling by virtue of the crystal chandelier in our shower
• Top temperature: 110 degrees (Fahrenheit – crossing the Mojave desert). Fortunately, we were in our lovely air conditioned car, so neither of us actually died
• Inches of rain: about 10, evenly shared between two rather spectacular rainstorms, one whilst camping in the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the other whilst I had the wheel, coming out of New Orleans
• Pounds of excess luggage shed at various points: about 40, including the cooler, the coffee machine and the “so light they almost don’t count” marshmallows
• Times we missed the office? Zero.