Stuck in the Salt Flats — The Long Drive South

Having met Pepe and his crew only a few days earlier, I wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity to convoy into the Uyuni Salt Flats with another car and a ragged group of backpackers. I’d only shared one meal with them to discuss the plans but that was enough for me to know this was a good group and one that would make for a fun few days isolated by ourselves exploring the nothingness of the Salar de Uyuni (it’s Spanish name).

Pepe had recruited the group in the same way they recruited me – just a snowball of assorted people from hostels that liked the idea of going into the flats but not as part of a guided group. What started as a few passengers had quickly ballooned to eight in his car (excluding me). So when I joined it lessened the squish of fitting that many people in his Toyota, along with supplies of water, food and alcohol for three days.

So once I’d joined this merry little group of travellers, we had a total of nine people including Pepe (US), Dan (Australia), Rhys (Australia), Collin & G (US), Chocomesh (nickname meaning chocolate milk – never got her actual name, Germany) and Eva & Amber (France). We were all on our own journeys of varying length and purpose but for a few days, we came together for the debacle that would be our time in the Bolivian salt flats.

The assembly point in the town of Uyuni, a short drive from the salt flats themselves

I’d given them a few days to prepare for the journey. The salt flats are notoriously cold and windy at night so beyond the usual supplies, many in the group scrambled to find the appropriate warm clothes, sleeping bags and tents.

For my part, this was just another day in my journey and I carried everything I needed already. So I just set the GPS from Sucre, picked up some firewood which would be impossible to source on the flats and headed to the meeting point in the town of Uyuni.

With everyone gathered, cars filled up with fuel, we headed out into the flat nothingness of the salt flats.

GoPro snap of the drive out in convoy following along behind Pepe’s van

Early afternoon stop to take in the expanse of the flats and have a beer

Camp spot for the first night. The theory was to use the island for wind protection but the wind wasn’t compliant and came barrelling in on the unprotected side

The first day didn’t include a lot of exploring but rather quickly settling on a place to set up camp. We figured we have several days to discover what was to be discovered and everyone was keen to settle in, have some drinks and enjoy the makeshift party were creating.

Despite the recency of the group coming together, camp set up was like a well-oiled machine from day one. Every intuitively seemed to understand their strengths and what they brought to the camp setup process. A faction cooked, some prepared tents and chairs, others on the important task of digging a fire pit to shield our campfire from the howling wind. Before we knew it everything was prepared, drinks in hand, food on the way and we watched the sun set over the flats as the temperature plummeted and the wind began to rage.

Divide and conquer: we all played to strengths and showed great teamwork when it came to campsite duties

Preparing for a campfire before the cold and wind had set in

The sun going down as we prepare for our first evening under the brilliant stars and night sky

The night did prove somewhat challenging. Those in the tent were freezing and many people sought shelter in the warmth of Pepe’s car. Others awkwardly slept upright in drivers and passenger seats of mine. Not that I didn’t offer to share but I enjoyed the splendid luxury of my rooftop tent and slept soundly with the feeling like I was doing exactly what I had set out to do – wild camping with new friends in some strange pocket of South America.

Such a unique landscape. Certainly distinct from everywhere else in Bolivia or anywhere I’d been all year for that matter

Digging a hole for the fire was essential due to the wind. And at this particular location, very hard work to dig into

Recklessly dousing the campfire with cups of gasoline

The next day was ours to fully explore what Uyuni had to offer. The morning had us drive out to a clear open space and attach a slack line between the cars. For my part, I would fly to drone and capture some aerial shots of the nine of us enjoying some solitude in open expanse.

You can drive for an hour or more in a straight line and still not get to where you’re going. It really is quite large

And like pretty much everyone that had come before us, there was an obligation to take cliché photographs playing with the lack of geographic features and perspective. No doubt this kept us busy for a least an hour before we got restless.

At least we showed a little bit of creativity in our Uyuni photography

And of course, this was a prime opportunity for a photoshoot of my pride enjoy, Jolene the 2002 Land Rover Discovery 2.

Trouble begins

Pepe had been warned about driving close to the islands and that apparently it is dangerous due to the soft and muddy soil below the salt. He hadn’t shared this information with me; I had leaned on the rest of the group to do such research. But we were all complacent – the time of year (end of September) meant that there was no water on the surface and the driving we’d done over the past day felt solid and straightforward. There was a collective failure to consider there was any real danger in our adventure.

It wasn’t completely out of my mind that there could be soft patches, I took the precaution of driving a safe distance behind Pepe at all times, know that if he came across soft ground then he could radio back that info or I would see him sink in and I would keep my distance and simply winch him out. It seemed like a sensible precaution.

When it did eventually happen that Pepe came across soft ground and started to sink down, I stuck to the plan and kept my distance. I actually chuckled and revelled in the fact that he was stuck and that I would get a chance to save the day with my winch. Without thinking much more of it, I threw the car in reverse to get some distance from the softer ground. What I wasn’t expecting was that I was on it too and the moment that I put it in reverse, my wheels dug in.

Immediately after trying to reverse the first time, the back left wheel dug in

After the second attempt at driving out, front left dug in as well

Getting some weight off the car and access to our gear while we figure out next steps

At this stage, things were far from a disaster. We had plenty of tricks left to play and so we would methodically work through them. Firstly, I changed into low gear and put on the centre diff lock. That did nothing, the turning wheels just dug in further and I sank lower into the mud.

With the heavy weight of my car and the four wheels spinning me deeper down, we changed tactic and focused on Pepe’s car. Trying to winch him back towards me put him deeper into the mud too.

Our next trick to play was the max tracks which we put under the wheels of my car but again, the weight was too much to overcome and the tracks shot down into the soft mud.

After that, we began digging and placing rocks under my wheels and creating a surface to get some traction. The plan was to create a road for me to drive out on and simultaneously use the winch attached to a land anchor – the biggest boulder we could find aptly named ‘Rocky’. So began a process that took a couple of hours. We wanted to give this attempt the best chance of success and do as much as we could before gunning the engine for our attempt out.

Everything we did just seemed to make it worse

After a bit of digging to get some rocks under the wheels, we weren’t doing much good

In retrospect, this seems so futile but at this point we had some hope this might help. Rocky was buried reasonably deep to give us the best chance of getting out

Rocky pulled out and the car never moved at all. We were substantially worse than when we first sunk in

With daylight drawing to a close, we called it a day. We would consider options, including a rescue call, that evening and pick it up in the morning. Better to set up camp, get some food and drink into us and start fresh in the morning.

Spirits were still very good that evening. In fact, I was highly enjoying the challenge and was heard to say, “I can’t think how this day could have gone any better”. I was genuinely enjoying the unexpected turn of events.

So, with plenty of water, food and alcohol to keep us there for many days if we needed, we had another pleasant evening on the salt flats, save for the freezing wind and cold of the night. There would be no fire that evening – it had proved the night before that it was too difficult to keep lit and in the strong winds did near nothing to keep us warm so we were better off huddling for warmth in the back of Pepe’s car and in the small amounts of wind shelter the cars provided. Otherwise, the rum did a good job of keeping me warm.

That evening, using my Garmin satellite device, I got out a message to my sister in Canada and via her to the Land Rover group. They came back with an option to have us rescued that would cost us US$200 per car. Still complacent about the predicament we were in, we foolishly tried to bargain over the cost and the option disappeared.

Quitting time, end of day one. Finally an excuse to use my awning - I think this is the literally the first and only time it’s come out. It’s off the list of equipment for the next rig I build

I’m quite happy about the challenge at this point. About the time I exclaimed how good the day is going. The rum helped

Sleeping was made more challenging by the angle of the car. That’s about a 30 degree bend in the middle of my queen size mattress

The next day we would give a more concerted effort to arrange a rescue and this time take any offer for help available. Running the conversation via the Garmin through to my sister in Canada, then to my friend Santiago in Ecuador; we tried to find anyone in the area who could give us a winch out. The morning involved a lot of waiting for a response and as the time passed, it seemed increasingly that we’d overestimated the simplicity of finding someone to help us out. They tried to connect with the local police department, members of the Land Rover group who happened to be in the area and the tour companies operating in Uyuni. By lunch time, we still had no solutions.

Until about lunchtime, I had been quite adamant that we ran the communications to organise a rescue vehicle through a single line of communication (via my sister and San who had worked together on such problems before) so that only one solution was found and there would be full visibility between them about who was able to assist and so that multiple cars weren’t dispatched. However, after a full morning of waiting, some members of the group began to grow concerned and were keen to open up a wider search.

While water, food and alcohol supplies remained sufficient for a couple of days, I acknowledged that my attempts over the past 18-hours had yielded a solution and I handed the Garmin over to others to reach out to friends and relatives to try to locate help. So by early afternoon, we had more messages out – a brother at an engineering office in California, a mother on a road trip in Wyoming, my contact Augusto in Peru and a few others that never responded. And thus the scope of our search was widened, the level of urgency escalated and we went back to waiting.

With messages out, some parallel strategies put into place. There was a road between the islands that we could reach in a 20-minute walk. While no cars had been seen going passed since we got there, it was worth a shot to set up a rotating group to sit out on this ‘road’ (really just a firm section of salt with some tire tracks that appeared our GPS maps). A sign was made with a request for assistance (to my mind the wording was a little more alarmist than necessary).

Our makeshift sun shelter as we wait for responses from our messages

Collin and G setting off for the ‘road’ to try to stop a passing car

Waiting for responses back and with a team manning the sign, we would spend the afternoon trying to get Pepe’s Toyota out. We used the hi-lift to jack the van up, dug underneath, placed rocks and firewood. This was hours of labour across many contributors but we had time and were motivated. But when we eventually felt like we’d created a viable amount of support under the vehicle and tried to drive out, two wheels would spin and the ones with traction would sit idle and the van never moved more than a few inches.

Eventually the team on the road flagged down a passing car. Speaking only Spanish to Pepe who’s grasp of the language was sufficient to request the help we were after, the car refused and sped off while Pepe was in the middle of pleading his case. It was a low point to have a viable way out and then see them drive off. We’d later learn that this is a route often used by those without papers moving illegally through the country so we had to assume these people faced more risk than we did at that moment and that they had their reasons.

Still waiting on one of our strategies to pay dividends, we agreed that the following morning a small team would walk 20km to one of the islands we’d passed the day before. We knew that there would be tourists there and that invariably 4WDs that we could request assistance from. The team would set out with water and food in the dark in the morning the next day before the harsh sun rose.

Day two of our efforts to free the Toyota

Pepe having his turn with the sign. He was successful in finding and stopping someone - briefly. They paused only long enough to decide they weren’t the ones that were going to help us

Wishful thinking. Looking back, it may have worked if the Toyota had diff locks. We made a good go of constructing a solid path but just couldn’t get power to the right wheels

We had word later in the afternoon from two of our satellite messages that there were people able to help. We waited patiently having exhausted our options and unable to extract the cars without a car on solid ground to act as the anchor to winch us out. Eventually within an hour of dark and more than 30 hours after we’d first dug in, a car appeared on the distance and as it’s silhouette on the horizon became bigger and bigger, it became clear that it was headed our way.

Three Bolivians got out of the car, inspected the scene and we more or less got straight to work. It was a local tour company that had come through via Collin’s brother in California – he’d successfully managed to arrange for them to come help us.

Awkwardly within an hour, another showed up. It was my friends from the Land Rover group. The line I had out via my sister to the Land Rover group had located a Bolivian group member with friends in the area who had dispatched a car as well. While it was the situation I had been trying to avoid by having multiple leads on cars, there had been enough of the group sufficiently worried about our predicament to warrant the risk of this scenario. With the crew that had arrived first indicating that there was no point in two sets of helpers, I paid them the cost of their fuel and their time and sent them on their way.

With the help of the three able-bodied Bolivians who had clearly dealt with this scenario before, we set about extracting the vehicle. It wasn’t far off from sunset when the work began and it was clear from the outset that much of the work to dig out the vehicles would be done in the dark, not just difficult from the perspective of undertaking the work without light but also as the warmth of the day quickly evaporates into the freezing temperatures of the evening and the nightly wind that we had come to know so well set in.

The strategy was simple - we would start with my car and once freed, my car and the rescue vehicle would together winch out Pepe’s van. The process involved jacking up the car, digging out the mud, placing rocks underneath and then repeating at the other end of the vehicle.

While simple in concept, the implementation was gruelling work. The jacks would sink into the mud with the slightest load requiring us to create supports with logs, planks and rocks. In addition, each time the car was jacked up and lowered onto the inserted rocks, it would just push the rocks down further. I estimated that there was approximately one metre of soft and near-freezing mud between the level of the salt flat and the harder bed of soil underneath the mud which we would effectively need to fill with rocks.

In the dark and with the cold wind penetrating our clothes and into our bones, most of the group huddled for warmth in the van, watching out the back at the painstakingly slow progress. The rest of us would fetch rocks, dig, offer help where it was welcomed and otherwise nervously loiter hoping to see visible progress as the team of Bolivian’s dug and jacked.

There were a few backwards steps. At one point the hi-lift collapsed out to the side and the car fell back into the mud, smashing my taillight in an ungraceful attempt to lower the car. The Bolivians not familiar with the hi-lift jack but learning to use it as they went.

Ultimately, we got to a point where they had a solid jacking point at front and back and would alternate between the two. Each time, a few stones could be placed under a wheel and the car let down to push it into place.

I had considered that we would give up multiple times. At one point, I gave our efforts a 30% chance of being successful as I quietly assessed the situation in my head. I certainly wondered at multiple times what would happen if they left us there for the night again and whether they would be willing to come back to finish the job tomorrow. But they stayed on determined and together we kept at the problem, repetitively and incrementally building a sturdy base under the vehicle.

Eventually we collectively agreed that were ready to attempt to winch the car out. The Land Cruiser, our anchor, would be reasonably far out and relying on my winch cable and snatch strap as an extension tied to their car to increase the distance between us and keep them on solid ground. I warmed up the engine, took the tension in the winch cable and started to drive out. We moved! And without too much tire spinning or drama - we had over-engineered the road and made sure that it was going to work first time. And now on top of the salt with one of the guys running ahead of my vehicle with the winch rope in hand, I didn’t stop driving until I was abreast of the Land Cruiser and well and truly clear of the bog.

Having pulled us out and driving my car to safety, it was Pepe’s turn. To extract his van, we wouldn’t go through the same arduous process of digging and placing rocks. His car wasn’t buried like mine was and we had the benefit of the weight of the two free cars strapped together with a kinetic rope. So connecting my winch to his front axle, we began to pull him out.

Initially I didn’t think it would work – I was envisaging that we would burn out my winch motor or, perhaps more likely, Joey’s front axle would end up being pulled out while the rest of his car sat stuck in the mud. But while much harder than I had initially thought, it was over quickly and his car pulled free.

Jack, dig, fetch rocks, place rocks, drop, repeat

Three jacks at work: Floor jack at the front, bottle jack into the wheels, hi-lift jack once we’d managed to create some space to work

It was at least three hours of this before we even felt like we were making a difference

You can see from the limp brush wire on the car’s left side how much we bent the ARB bumper in the process

So glad I had a heavy duty rear bumper made in Ecuador. Were it not for this, we’d be jacking onto the soft plastic factory bumper - which would have been destroyed by this assault

Finally making progress in the pitch black of night

Successfully out and with both cars on top of the salt for the first time in about 36-hours, Pepe and I realised that leaving that night wasn’t going to be possible. The extraction process was a messy and arduous one and our equipment – shovels, jacks, max tracks, ropes, cooking gear, pretty much everything – was scattered around the site in the dark.

There was obvious disappointment from the group that we would spend another night immediately next to the spot the salt had claimed us but it was the right move. Only Collin and G were taken back to Uyuni that night with the Bolivians, the rest of us would be there one more night.

We ate cold pasta that was had just finished cooking about the time the rescuers had first arrived and everyone politely ignored until we were free. We celebrated with some wine and whiskey but the exertion of the day saw everyone in bed a short time later.

The day after: Somewhere in that tire track is one of my Tred Pros. I fished around for it but the mud is virtually freezing. I had to give up looking for it after my arm lost feeling search for it in the cold mud

Badly in need of a shower (both car and owner)

When we got into town, everyone was intent on checking into the hostel and a hot shower. For me, the important shower was not mine but for the car. Three days in salt, two days literally inside it, was more than enough and I would take the car directly to the car wash for a three-hour bathing to do what I could to clean the chassis from the toxic muck.

Slowly gathering and taking stock of our equipment that had become strewn around the site

Even after the three-hour car wash, all I wanted to do was drive back in here and ask them to do it again just to be sure the salt was gone

Our Sincerest Gratitude

I want to sincerely thank everyone involved in getting us out. While at no point were we in any grave danger (and hopefully everyone in contact with us over this saga was informed as such), it certainly would have been less than ideal for the group to stay any longer than we did. Thank you to:

Santiago (my dear friend from Ecuador), sister Kelly and her colleague Walter: Coordinating with the Land Rover group, they were initially tasked with finding a group to get us out. While their team was not the first there, they were successful in finding and sending a car to rescue us

Land Rover de las Americas: This is not my first time thanking them for rescuing me although perhaps, fingers crossed, it shall be the last. The group has recovered me from multiple mechanical issues that have had me stranded in remote areas (once in each of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru), this rescue in Bolivia and when I later rolled my car in Argentina. Special mention to Augusto who always seems to play a hand in the coordination and has joked that they guys will be putting together an album of my rescues

Lucho Ruiz: The member of the group who’s friends came to get us (but came late and were turned away). Regardless of whether they were the ones to get us out, I’m still infinitely grateful for the help

Collin’s brother: The engineer in California, who found the Bolivian tour company that came to get us and expertly liaised with them over the period prior to their arrival

Pepe’s mom: Who hilariously added very little to the rescue but amused us with her endearing and constant requests to activate the SOS feature of the Garmin and telling us that insurance will cover the cost of the helicopters they send

Anyone else who received a request on the Garmin to help us or was involved but not mentioned

And last but not least the guys from Salty Desert Aventours who were the ones who got us out in the end. You guys are legends – from all nine of us, thank you sincerely!