While we had headed up several thousand metres already, we still had a lot more to go. For now, we were on tarmac roads with mountains all around us. It was certainly a remote area of the country; we rarely passed other cars as we steadily climbed. We felt that this was the real start of our journey through the famous Puna de Atacama region. Leaving behind most of civilisation, we’d soon be leaving the surfaced roads, too. Today we’d camp at our first remote spot: Laguna Blanca. Sitting at an...

After getting ourselves back on track in San Juan that day, we decided to head for a nice river spot to tick off the one remaining thing we wanted to do: have a shower. There was a lovely location just north of town, and we’d easily get there with a few hours of daylight to spare. As we left the main road to turn off towards the river, we noticed how waterlogged the verges were. While we’d avoided the rain the previous day, it seemed it had hit hard here. We approached the track to the river....

Before things got too remote, we needed to address our front tyres. When we left Paraguay, the front set hadn’t looked too bad, but now it was another story. It seemed we’d thrown out our tracking on a nasty pothole somewhere in the north, and consequently, our tyres were severely worn on the inside edge. A matter of time before the canvas started showing. Considering we were about to drive some of the most remote roads in the country, this was probably not advisable. My mum had not been...