Landcruiser Heaven, 5 days in the Bolivian deserts...

[joshoisasleep]

Day 0-1: Preparation and a false start...

This story starts in Uyuni, Bolivia... the high altitude Landcruiser capital of the world (that I've been to). First off, Bolivia has got to be the country with the highest ratio of landcruisers to other vehicles I've ever been to... driving down the street every second car seems to be an awesome 70... troopies, pickups... the odd 60 and a fair share of stoic old 40's to boot.

Uyuni is amazing... there are very few cars that aren't either a beefed up 80 or 60. The reason for this is that Uyuni is the gateway to the Bolivian salt flats and Southwest desert region. This is why most people go there, to take multi-day 4x4 tours across the stunning salt flats and deserts. Apparently, the Landcruiser is literally the only vehicle that can handle such trips, as almost every single one of the trucks used to haul tourists out there is an 80 or a 60. The conditions are incredibly demanding... each truck must carry around 200L of additional fuel, a 20lb propane tank, 2 spare tires, a driver, a cook, SIX tourists plus all their backpacks, and any and all additional supplies to support the group for 3-5 days away from any kind of civilization... all of this at temperatures as low as -15 degrees celsius, and altitudes ranging from 13,000 to 17,000 feet.

Before leaving on our own DIY salt flats adventure, we spent a few days in town to prepare ourselves with supplies, fuel, and a few minor repairs as well as picking up a passenger of our own. On the way to fill up on fuel heading out of town we discovered that there was NO fuel left in the town... no gas, no diesel, no propane. The lineups at the gas stations were huge long queues of landcruisers!

Pictures below:
1. Snowy parked behind a tour operator's rig
2. A sidewalk panel actually made out of an FJ60 door. My girlfriend noticed this and declared Uyuni "the landcruiserest town there is" (I've trained her well).
3. Line ups for fuel...

 

[joshoisasleep]

Day 1: Into the Salar...

So the fuel finally arrived and at about 5pm off we drove into the salar. The only map we had was on the back of a brochure for one of the tour companies, but with 190L of fuel, a 20lb propane tank, loads of food, a stove and a backup stove, 20L of water (plus bottled for drinking), and my trusty GPS we felt pretty confident.

The locals we asked how to get to the salar (salt flats) looked absolutely incredulous at the concept that someone who didn't even know where exactly it was was going to try and drive into the salt flats... and at night no less! They directed us to a road which led onto the open salt flats and continued on as several sets of tracks in vaguely the right direction, which was good enough for us!

After about an hour of driving along the endless salar, the light began to dim and we decided to camp before it got too dark. The only trouble was deciding when to stop, since the scenery never changed! It was really cold out there... a clear night on an incredibly dry open desert at 12,500 feet in the middle of winter (Southern hemisphere). My down jacket was a lifesaver.

 

[joshoisasleep]

Day 2: Everything is white...

Woke up early the next morning to a beautiful white 360 degree panorama. Everything was white, flat, and stunningly silent. I tried walking to an object that looked not too far away... I discovered after about half an hour that on the Salar you have absolutely no sense of distance... it's bizarre!

We started driving and I realized pretty quickly that the "road" we'd been on was slightly in the wrong direction to get to the island in the middle of the salar that we'd been aiming for. Since everything was flat, I decided to just compare my brochure map with the GPS heading and point the car in vaguely the right direction, watching for islands. We had been advised against going off the beaten track on the salar, but I was careful and we were ok... surprisingly enough we also found the island, with a landcruiser parking lot around back!

Pictures:
1. Our camp site... Anya and I sleep in the truck, the tent is our guest bedroom (in this case occupied by our American friend Geoff).
2. Tour operators' landcruisers parked around the back of the island. I did see one Nissan Patrol as well.
3. The cactusy view from the island.

 

[calphi27]

Awesome trip. I want to drive there someday.

 

[joshoisasleep]

Day 2: And out again...

We had lunch, took some funny pictures, and then headed off across the salar. After an hour or two it ended, and we were once again on desert dirt roads. We got a little lost, but fortunately ran into a tour group in an 80 whose guide I had chatted with at the island, and they gave us directions and let us follow them for a bit.

We decided to head towards a volcano near the Chilean border which seemed like a neat point of interest... it took us all the rest of the day until almost dusk, and we almost accidentally crossed the border at one point but eventually we did find it! We camped in a ditch by the side of the trail near the volcano, and called it a night.

Pictures:
1. Snowy hanging out with some other cruisers, and their good buddy the Nissan Patrol.
2. I can't believe there were giraffes and pandas! (You can take very silly photos on the salt flats)
3. The volcano... looming above us smokily, and smelling of sulfur.

 

[joshoisasleep]

Day 3: Disaster strikes!

The first disaster happened the next morning. Our American friend Geoff, wanting to get an earlier start than our lazy selves decided to cook breakfast. Simple? No! Our Coleman stove being designed to run with the tiny Coleman propane tanks was not not compatible with a 20lb propane tank, so I'd had to make my own hose... fatally cutting out the fixed regulator on the connector. The result was a minor gas explosion, and the destruction of both the stove and Geoff's shirt and eyebrows (he didn't quite get what I meant when I said only turn it on "a TINY bit"). Anya and I jumped out of bed and the three of us at first bolted away from the truck, Geoff and I immediately changing our minds and climbing up to the roof to turn off the propane valve.

Fortunately we all survived including the truck, and after refueling with two of our five 20L jerry cans we headed off to our next point of interest. Unfortunately, we'd by now lost even our pathetic brochure map. We found a little town along what we thought was the way that actually had a gas station... we were stoked because we'd been told that there would be NO fuel out here whatsoever. This turned out to be partially true when it turned out thet the gas station only had 25L of diesel at all... oh well every little bit helps.

After the town there were two roads marked on the GPS that we could potentially have taken South. With a 50/50 chance, we chose the wrong one and ended up spending the rest of the day totally lost, following one disappearing "road" after another. After many vague trails and almost a dozen increasingly serious river crossings, it began to get dark and we camped at the bottom of a low cliff... still not knowing the way.

Pictures:
1. Some happy Alpacas...
2. A foreboding sign of things to come.
3. Us being lost in the desert... hoping this is the road

 

[joshoisasleep]

Day 4: Still lost...

The next day we awoke to find that a leak had developed in the rear drivers side tire and it was flat. I got these old BFG AT's on the BJ60 that I purchased as an engine donor, and up until now they had been totally puncture free all the way from Canada in some incredibly harsh conditions. The trails out in this desert were nothing but unforgiving sharp, dry rock of so many different forms, so after all they've been through I really felt that tires owed me nothing. I pulled out my air compressor and pumped it up, making the mistake of saying something along the lines of "it's really good to have all the gear you need". I really should have repaired the hole.

We continued on our lost, hopeful attempts at finding the now dubbed "road of glory". At one point we were sure we were on it, but then we came to a river crossing that we just couldn't make. After eyeing it up for several minutes I took a run at it, but suddenly backed out halfway through. I got out of the truck and walked it... the water was &@%#ing freezing, and I discovered that although most of the crossing was good, the last few feet to the shore got deep, like over my head. Good thing I backed out! There's no help when you're stuck in a river out there...

So we tried to find a route around. With the mountains this was a long way around, but we made good progress. Unfortunately the leaky tire was leakier than I'd thought (should have patched it!!), and by afternoon I decided to change it out for our spare. This turned out to be a fairly long process... figuring out how to actually use my hi-lift jack was the first step, and the next was actually putting some pressure into the only partially inflated spare. I learned a valuable lesson here, which is buy a good a good air compressor. Before the tire reached 30psi the compressor melted down and caught fire, leaving us with no way to put air into our tires... bad news. Having no choice, we continued on with the mostly inflated spare.

Pictures:
1. A river too deep...
2. Finding a way around... still lost
3. So uh... how does this thingy work?

 

[joshoisasleep]

Day 4: Blammo!

Before long after changing the tire we saw an 80 drive past in the opposite direction about 200m parallel to the tracks we were following. We blazed trail over there and discovered a nice (awful but well defined) solid road! This was it! We drove along it a little ways and discovered a village where the people told us that we were on the right track and gave us accurate directions to get to where we were going. They did not however, have an air compressor.

Unfortunately the spare that we'd brought with us was NOT a tough as nails BFG AT, and with inadequate pressure it exploded on the sharp rocks five minutes away from the town. At this point I had been in the bush for a few days, and was suffering from something along the lines of overlander's "summit fever". As a result, my decision making was at an all-time low even for myself, and I decided that the intelligent thing to do would be to attempt to drive the 70km or so to our destination on a popped tire. Clearly my passengers had better judgment than myself, because after about 10 minutes of incredibly bumpy 5km/h driving they pointed out that it would take us over 12 hours to get there and mutinied (I laid back with the handle throttle out as "cruiser control" during this period).

With more intelligent people now making the decisions, we headed slowly back toward the town. Of course, driving on the tire totally destroyed it and it ended up wrapping itself around the axle and around the handbrake cable... clearly my landcruiser was telling me enough was enough. I attempted to hack the tire off the axle with a hack saw and a knife, while the ever-sensible Geoff walked back to the town and eventually turned up with a friendly local to help us out.

 

[roscoFJ73]

Cool trip and thank god for the locals.
Ever considered getting split rims? With some practice you can repair flats in 1/2 hour or less.

 

[joshoisasleep]

Oops the power in the Chilean town I'm in is dodgy, and it died before I could finish the story...

 

[joshoisasleep]

Day 4-5: Uh... getting by with a little help from our friends?

So our new local friend Marcos lent us his spare to get back the village, and next door to his little house we found a lady who would cook us dinner for a few dollars. We patched the BFG AT and some guys appeared with a bike pump and managed to get about 27psi into it. Not really enough, but I figured this tire could probably handle it after all it had survived. It was 9:30pm by the time we left, and now incredibly behind schedule and beginning to run low on fuel supplies (a mostly full tank, a jerry can and a bit left) we headed for the border with good directions. We reached it by 11:30 with the tire holding out, and after being hassled by the very sleepy looking border guard for sneaking through the previous unmanned military checkpoint (the border was closed), we found the remote border hostel a few Km's North.

The hostel turned out to be a no-go as everyone was asleep. The weather was absolutely freezing at 11:30 at night at 14,500 feet, and Geoff managed to wake up the people in the only other adjacent building (a "park service" building of some sort), and they let us sleep on their floor.


We got up at 7:00am the next morning and the cruiser started first turn of the key in a temperature cold enough that the fuel was slightly gelled (in the jerry cans), and at an altitude above where I normally have to give it a couple tries. I attribute this to the fact that I copied the 15 or so tour operators parked outside the hostel who had all wrapped their tarps around the engines of their cruisers. I'll be doing this from now on when it's cold.

Now we had a bit of a predicament... we could not exit the country without going to customs, and we did not have enough fuel to drive to a town with fuel in Bolivia. The reason this was a big deal was because the customs building was some two hours North of the border at almost 17,000 feet, in yet another very remote place in the mountains. Three of our tires now had a slow leak, our fuel supplies were low, the turbo exhaust loop was cracked, and we had to drive to the customs building. Our one saving grace came when I chatted to the tour drivers while they warmed up their trucks... I discovered that they had all converted their A/C pumps into air compressors for pumping up tires! They pumped us up, I crossed my fingers about the fuel, and we plowed on North.

On the way uphill I noticed black smoke coming out of the exhaust. I knew the turbo was running at lower efficiency due to the crack in the exhaust loop, but it still didn't seem right. I opened up the air filter and discovered that the Hyundai filter element (during the turbo install we ended up with a Hyundai filter) had become wet during the water crossings and had been subsequently destroyed by the turbo, leaving it totally misshapen and with a gaping hole. Not having a replacement (stupid!) I turned it around and did my best to fix the hole and shape with electrical tape. This seemed to stop the black smoke at least until we reached the customs building, but the realization that I'd been driving for at least a day on incredibly dusty roads with a gaping hole in my air filter was not a nice one.

Pictures:
1. Passing the beautiful Laguna Verde on the way up to customs
2. Gaining altitude again
3. Fellow cruiser pilots pumped us up and gave us directions

 

[joshoisasleep]

So we made it to the customs building and coasted most of the way back down to the border again, and from there once we were in Chile it was all downhill down to about 8,000 feet or so! Whew!

Photos:
1. Coasting downhill... (I think)
2. At the border
3. No, you cannot really fix a mangled air filter with electrical tape

 

[joshoisasleep]

The town we pulled into in Chile is a tourist town, and since Chile is a much more developed country than Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, there is no longer the plethora of auto parts shops on every corner. The only oil change shop in town didn't have an air filter that fit, so we attempted to make one by cutting a slightly larger one and siliconing it back together... this decision may have been fatal. While at his shop I noticed that at some point in the adventure one of my shocks had also been torn free and snapped violently in half... no wonder it felt so bumpy! It's possible this also could be attributed to the spare tire getting it's revenge for being treated so poorly.

The day after the air filter adaptation I went to start the truck again for the first time since, to drive it to get the tires repaired properly. It did not start, and I am now diagnosing this problem. On the positive side, my girlfriend-cruiser-budget in terms of money and tolerated time spent tinkering just went up! Wish me luck! Here's the thread if you have any advice ...


Trip casualties (in rough order):
1. Camp stove
2. Geoff's shirt (and eyebrows)
3. Air compressor
4. Spare tire
5. Shock absorber
6. Air filter
honorable mention: truck's ability to start

Pictures:
1. Destroyed shock
2. Exhaust loop gone bad... I don't really count this as a trip casualty because it was the crappy welder who installed the bung trying to "fix" perfectly good high temperature welds who did it in...
3. Our attempted air filter adaptation

 

[cruiser_guy]

For the air filter I'd be tempted to take an old "T" shirt, soak it in engine oil and stretch it over the air intake (leave the make shift filter in place as well). Fasten it securely (snapping the lid back over the air box is probably enough) and check it once and hour or so. The engine oil will catch most dirt. Replace it with the correct filter ASAP and buy a spare as well.

 

[dmc]

quite possibly my favorite part of my entire trip. From Huari to San Pedro de Atacama was pure bliss. every bump, every rut, every peak, every laguna and of course the amazing salar. great pics and write up. i managed to make it through there without as much as a hiccup. i'm glad you guys survived the abuse.

 

[joshoisasleep]

For the air filter I'd be tempted to take an old "T" shirt, soak it in engine oil and stretch it over the air intake (leave the make shift filter in place as well). Fasten it securely (snapping the lid back over the air box is probably enough) and check it once and hour or so. The engine oil will catch most dirt. Replace it with the correct filter ASAP and buy a spare as well.

Huh I really should have thought of that. My attempted fix may have doomed my engine...

quite possibly my favorite part of my entire trip. From Huari to San Pedro de Atacama was pure bliss. every bump, every rut, every peak, every laguna and of course the amazing salar. great pics and write up. i managed to make it through there without as much as a hiccup. i'm glad you guys survived the abuse.

Yeah even though we're sitting here with a dead truck at the moment, it was still very much worth it. At least I can still proudly say that nothing "landcruiser" failed... the air filter was Hyundai and the exhaust loop was obviously not stock. The bolt that held the shock on also had been messed with by an idiot in Quito who put the extra springs in, I'm sure he stripped it or something.

Would love to hear more about your trip through that area DMC!

 

[dmc]

Huh I really should have thought of that. My attempted fix may have doomed my engine...




Yeah even though we're sitting here with a dead truck at the moment, it was still very much worth it. At least I can still proudly say that nothing "landcruiser" failed... the air filter was Hyundai and the exhaust loop was obviously not stock. The bolt that held the shock on also had been messed with by an idiot in Quito who put the extra springs in, I'm sure he stripped it or something.

Would love to hear more about your trip through that area DMC!

i have to sit and wait patiently. i did a little write up for Toyota Trails about Uyuni that I think todd said will be in the Nov issue.

i can tell you this. i went to the salar twice with different friends who both came to la paz about 2 weeks apart. i am a bit paranoid about the salt so i didn't dare camp out there and let it eat away at my truck. i had to roll into uyuni and get it washed as soon as i could. i was also there during the flooding in bolivia and saw water as deep as two feet on the east side of the salar. pretty nerve wracking for sure.

the best part of the trip for me was reading about getting our papers stamped in Uyuni 30miles after leaving there and then going back. forgetting to top off the tank once in uyuni again and barely rolling into san pedro on fumes having used up all the gas in my scepters right around laguna roja. no brainer right. gas had been $2/gallon all through bolivia. i'm sure it's worse now but gas in San Pedro was $5.48/gallon when i was there. 35 gallons was once expesive fill up. i spent almost a week in the mtns around san pedro and drove to 17,900 just east of town near the observatory. your pics were not good on my psyche. coming home has been rough. i might have to go hit up the desert this weekend.

here are my pics from bolivia and chile however...


chile

bolivia

have fun in chile my friend.

 

[1tontoy]

JB Weld for the exhaust....used it to plug a radiator before. prolly not available. but a good recovery item to have.

cruiser_guy's t-shirt trick is great idea.

Not to beat a dead horse, but....This experience is also an argument for keeping things OEM factory.

 

[joshoisasleep]

JB Weld for the exhaust....used it to plug a radiator before. prolly not available. but a good recovery item to have.

The exhaust loop you mean? It's gone beyond repair... I'm going to try and find a 13bt manifold or maybe get something made, because it's really dumb. As for the exhaust itself... it actually just kind tore off, I just need to rehang it... even if it had a hole in it with the turbo it doesn't really matter... it's only like 4 feet long and muffler-less anyway.

Not to beat a dead horse, but....This experience is also an argument for keeping things OEM factory.

I'm all about that... I say it again and again... if everything was stock I'd be having no problems. Unfortunately the truck wouldn't really even drive at 16,000 feet without the turbo addition (at least, going by my experience at 10,000)... and as for the air filter well I actually found it really convenient because unlike the landcruiser ones that need high pressure air to clean them, it was squishy so I was able to just take it out and bang it against the bumper to get the dust out after a particularly dusty day. Too bad it couldn't take the heat... from now on I'm carrying more spares...

 

[warpdriv]

This post is cool!!! Thank you for sharing!!!