The cartographers that drew the map that we had might as well have drawn a big, blank circle in the south central part of the country and written “Here there be llamas.” The map would then have contained some sort of useful information.

Instead, when we left the gringo trail, we found ourselves on a llama path. Literally (at least until we found a road). From the llama path, it was at least 50k before we saw a sign. I swear I will never, ever take road signs for granted again.

After quite a few conversations and directions, we did eventually find ourselves back on the map. That was the first day. It went…well, lost, from there.

We woke up one morning thinking we were someplace, only to discover that we should have taken a right instead of a left at that unmarked intersection (choice between two ripio roads, no landmarks…we did the best we could), and were headed to the west of Lago Poopo, not to the east (with, you know, towns and maybe even pavement). The next two and a half days consisted of a lot of asking of directions, and having really friendly people look at our map and shake their heads. The road we were on was not on any of the three maps we eventually aquired. However, we did have an incredible adventure along the way. I promise to write all about the many, many incredible people and things we encountered (wild ostriches, flamingos, the governer of the department of Oruro, insane lightning storms, etc.) when we have more time.