Five km later we at last leave the river. Everyone must come and go by train in the 6 month wet season) and after a little more climbing the Altiplano proper flattens out. To the far right and left horizons mountain peaks are visible but these are sufficiently distant for a sense of isolation similar to the Nullarbor crossing to prevail until the corrugations re-appear to sap my concentration. They seem to occur wherever the road is straight enough to allow heavy vehicles to get up a little speed. To avoid the bone jarring vibration shaking my hands from the bars I ride very close to the right (Or left, there's no other traffic) edge of the road, sliding around in the loose gravel close to falling into the rainwater earthen gutter. This makes my pillion Mary Ann a little nervous but is the only way to maintain speeds reaching 40 km/h. Within 20 km of Uyuni it finally happens, fatigue takes it's toll combined with what appeared to be sand not more than 10 cm deep, but proves to be bottomless. In a dry creek crossing the front wheel turns left washes out and sinks deep in, flicking the bike right and ourselves off, resulting in the gentlest fall possible, down to 10-15 km/h, the bike only falling to an angle of about 45 degrees as it rests against the sand wall of the deep wheel track. No damage, no injury. I get a cramp in my right foot when it is trapped under the cylinder. We roll into Uyuni without further drama, shadows lengthening. The town is flat dusty and away from the immediate centre seems as if has been built on top of a rubbish tip, or perhaps the refuse, unburied and unburned has been blown back into town by the frigid winds.
The only place fit, according to the guidebooks, for human habitation, the hotel Avenida, has room and motorcycle parking so we are set for the next days adventure.
Getting up next morning proves difficult, partially due to the weight of countless blankets, necessary to stave off the desert nights cold. It's only 20 km north to the tiny salt mining town of Colchani on the south eastern edge of the Salar but the road alternates between severe corrugations and sand deep enough to bog the swinehunt. To get out requires both rider and pillion off and alongside pushing while the clutch and throttle are worked, trying to get some drive with the rear wheel. Even the locals are fed up with this and have voted with their steering wheels to create an unofficial network of tracks winding alongside which are if not faster certainly more comfortable to travel on. We join them.
At Colchani a bumpy brown dirt road goes 3 km to the edge of the solar proper. Rows of white cones about 1 m high are harvested from the surface, lying in wait for loading onto trucks or the train. From a distance the scene takes on the appearance of a virginally white Klu Klux Klan meeting as the vast expanse of the Salar shimmers eerily behind. Our destination is the iSla de Pescadoras (the Island of the Fisherman) the only small feature that breaks through the monotony of the salt. It lies roughly due west. We are prepared with a compass it's cell set for the local magnetic conditions.