At the end of the line, the Europeans are getting off and heading to Chile, whilst my substitute grandmother and I are heading back on the better part of a day´s drive back to Uyuni. As we´re switching cars, substitute nana goes quite mad. She insists that she won´t go anywhere in the new car unless the window is fractionally open for airflow. For a reason that includes words beyond my vocabulary, the Bolivian driver doesn´t want the window open. I try to interpret and explain to her that there´s no other option to return to Uyuni from this desert border outpost, but she won´t have it. The Bolivian driver and I take off, leaving her in the dust. She´s not my grandmother.
The terrain on the drive back varies dramatically. As we´re passing tall volcanoes, it´s the same sight as the pictures that came back from the Mars Rover in ´93. Later, green bushes start to appear on the martian terrain. Later still, the red rocks disappear, replaced by wide flats of yellow desert and distant mountains. I miss my Baja like this place misses the rain.
In the late evening, between the bus and road surface from Uyuni upto La Paz, four hours of fierce and relentless shaking and shuddering is so intense that I´m holding my groin just to keep everything in place.
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