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Burning Brakes and Waiting Games - Peru, Part 1

We’re David & Charlotte - once ordinary travellers, now full-time overlanders picking routes as we go, changing plans when reality demands it, and writing it all down honestly as we pass through. Expect culture, chaos and beautiful places that don’t feature on glossy lists. This is our roadbook from the real world: what happens when you set off overland with a bit of planning and a lot of curiosity. 

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Blog Link	Country	Points of Interest
Burning Brakes and Waiting Games - Peru, Part 1	Bolivia: Ollagüe border crossing Chile: Atacama/high-altitude border region Peru: Arequipa, Lima, Cusco, Andes, Lake Titicaca, Inca Trail, Machu Picchu Belgium: replacement-parts origin	• border closed • −7°C engine start • 100 km dirt road • steep descent • brakes catch fire • major brake repairs • US visa interviews • Bee Gees radio culture • truckless travel • altitude and local dress • delayed parts • accommodation scam • floating reed islands
https://www.sommertravelling.com/post/bolivia-when-the-road-runs-out-of-freedom	Bolivia  (Santa Cruz, Sucre, Potosí, Uyuni)	mennonite buggies fuel shortages political blockades 13-day captivity water rationing gated village shops jump-starting truck state of emergency rebel escorts black market diesel underground mines 6-hour fuel queue freezing border
https://www.sommertravelling.com/post/brazil-not-for-begginers	Brazil  (Foz do Iguaçu, Paraty, Rio de Janeiro, Copacabana, Ipanema, Chapéu Mangueira/Leme, Pantanal)	border delays speed bumps sweetcorn fields portuguese shift night drive panic damaged mirror sleazy beaches 9-year-old guide favela shooting drug stall queues glock-wearing farmer horseflies & caimans
https://www.sommertravelling.com/post/chile-argentina-the-road-made-itself	Chile & Argentina (Valparaíso, Patagonia, Chile Chico, Mendoza, Chubut Valley, Cafayate, Asunción)	shipping delays lemon muggling wrong ports split rim panic welsh tea roadside shrines steak and empanadasyerba scenic route 40
Thailand Pt2: No Alternative Route – Driving Blind Through Thailand’s Floods	Thailand (Southern)	active flooding, impassable roads waist-deep road crossings submerged vehicles, invisible roads petrol station refuge emergency boats, displaced residents instinct vs judgement, survivor guilt forced flight toward Malaysia
Thailand, Part 1: An Easy Country, Until It Isn’t	Thailand (Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Phuket, Khuek Khak)	temples, selfies, sacred queues monk chants White Temple, gold palaces, spectacle staged villages, souvenir traditions Phuket bars, expat bubbles tsunami ruins, beach memorials
https://www.sommertravelling.com/post/india-part-two	India (Varanasi, Ganges River, Delhi, New Delhi Railway Station, Jaipur)	burning ghats, death at arm’s length Diwali smoke, fireworks, and collapsing air tuk-tuks, street logic, and rented survival rats, flies, and drawing personal limits
India Part 1: Ziro to Kolkata – At the Fading Edges of India	India (Hyderabad, Ziro Valley, Kolkata)	tribal tattoos, vanishing traditions Durga Puja chaos vs quiet hills rickshaws, dignity, and biryani regret
A Christmas Thankyou…	Journey recap + what’s next (Europe → Middle East → SE Asia; next leg: Chile / South America)	Maps of our journey so far Map of next leg
Between Borders and Brothels: A Brief Drift Through Laos and Thailand	Laos (Boten, rainforest, Vang Vieng, Vientiane) Thailand (Bangkok)	SEZ sleaze and karaoke brothels rainforest nights and red-mud roads paperwork derailing “freedom”
Seventy-Two Bends and a Few Too Many Tyres	China / Tibet (Khunjerab Pass, Tibet, Lhasa, Nujiang “72 Bends”)	oxygen masks and prayer flags riot police outside holy temples tyres exploding, visas expiring
China: Border, Control, and the Long Road to Tibet	Pakistan → China → Tibet (Khunjerab Pass; across China; into Tibet)	map interrogation, deportation threats SIM cards as surveillance a 34-hour mechanical race against visas
Escorted Across Pakistan: Guns, Landslides and a Narrow Escape to China	Pakistan (Gilgit, Hunza, Karakoram Highway, Sost, Khunjerab Pass)	armed convoys and sirens mountain roads that kill sneaking under live power cables
Tea with the Taliban: An Overlander’s Passage Through Afghanistan	Afghanistan (border region, Kunduz, Kabul)	Taliban tea and “customer feedback” razor-wire hotels and AK-47 dinners secret schools and banned books
Tajikistan – On the Roof of the World	Tajikistan (Pamir Highway, high-mountain villages, Panj River)	diesel alarms at 4,500 metres villages burning cow dung for heat Afghanistan across the river
From Paperwork to Pastures: A Hard Lesson in the Road Ahead	Kazakhstan → Kyrgyzstan → Mongolia → Turkmenistan → Uzbekistan (Bishkek, Ulaanbaatar, Silk Road cities)	lost at the Kyrgyz border visa chaos and forced separation archers, deserts, and broken air-con
All change – people, places and weather	Türkiye (Pontic Mountains) → Georgia (Batumi, Tbilisi, Gori) → Spain detour → back to Georgia → Armenia (Yerevan) → Russia (Astrakhan) → Kazakhstan (Almaty)	snowbound, Stalin Museum, visa limbo, steppe
Back in Saudi and heading for Iraq...	Oman → Saudi Arabia (Al-Ula, Jeddah, Dakar Rally) → Jordan (Aqaba, Wadi Rum, Petra, Dead Sea) → Iraq (Baghdad, Babylon, Samarra) → Türkiye	Petra, Babylon, military escort, desert camps
Leaving Iran and starting on the Arabian Peninsula	Iran (Bandar Abbas) → UAE (Dubai/Sharjah) → Saudi Arabia (NE) → Bahrain → Qatar → Oman (Muscat, Nizwa, Wadi Bani Awf)	oil wealth, malls vs. bazaars, desert shock
Iran	Türkiye → Iran (Tabriz, Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz)	hospitality, mosques, headscarves, paradox
We are off… To an uninspired start	United Kingdom, Europe	Europe dull after Africa, long transit
We are ready to go!	The Scarborough Arms pub, Sunderland Street, Tickhill, Doncaster (UK)	restart, pub car park, community
400 + days and counting	UK (Doncaster; planning: Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Caspian Sea, Mongolia)	truck repairs, twisted chassis, waiting
We didn’t have 1.25 million dollars in cash strangely?	Kenya (blocked) → Zambia → Namibia (Caprivi Strip) → Angola → DRC → Congo → Cameroon → Nigeria → Benin → Togo → Ghana → Côte d’Ivoire → Guinea-Conakry → Morocco → Spain → UK	16,000 km detour, gangs, corruption, despair
It’s been a while since the last one…	Tanzania (Mbeya) → Kenya (Nairobi) → Uganda (Kampala) → Rwanda → back to Tanzania	Rwanda cleanliness, Nairobi extremes, fatigue
What is it with Elephants and Chilli?	Zambia (Livingstone northwards; rural maize fields)	elephant deterrents, chilli, maize fields
Hello, I’m Fabulous, pleased to meet you	Zimbabwe (Victoria Falls)	Victoria Falls, resilience, currency chaos
Gimme hope Jo’anna, give me hope	Botswana (Francistown, Maun, Okavango Delta, Makgadikgadi salt pans, Chobe, Kasane)	elephants, lions, salt pans, wild camping
Red Red Wine	Namibia → South Africa (Cape Town, wine country)	vineyards, comfort, repairs, “a different Africa”
Send a bolt of lightning. Very very frightening me!!	Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville, jungle tracks)	storms, rivers, isolation, raw nature
Life is full of surprises!	DRC (towards Kinshasa)	corruption, mud, bribes, survival
It’s life Jim, but not as we know it!	Senegal (Dakar, coastal towns) Angola (Luanda, rural roads, waterfalls area)	first West Africa, heat, traffic, culture shock, malaria talk, police kindness, washed-out bridge
It’s been a while…	Senegal (Ziguinchor) → Turkey, Bulgaria, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia → UK	catch-up, road rhythm, settling into Africa, Balkans, war scars, daughter’s wedding
All change!	The Gambia (Banjul) → Guinea-Bissau	border crossing, desert, sense of isolation, yellow fever jabs, visas, constant resets
Cooling down, wind in our hair…	Western Sahara (Atlantic coast) Senegal (east) → The Gambia (Banjul, Atlantic coast)	coastal drive, wind, relief from heat, river country, heat, fantasy cocktails
Hitting the road in Senegal and turning up the heat	Senegal (Dakar, Bassari region, Atlantic coast)	arrival, bureaucracy, intense heat, Bassari initiation, flamingos, village life
Moving on, shipping out	Morocco (Tiznit, Casablanca) → Senegal (Dakar)	shipping the truck, paperwork, waiting game, drone hiding, first separation
Travels through Morocco and Western Sahara	Morocco (Tangier, Tiznit, Agadir, Taroudant) → Western Sahara (Atlantic coast)	long drives, sand, first taste of Africa. Berber wedding, sandstorms, hospitality, visa limbo
Made it to Morocco and 15 minutes of fame	UK (Doncaster, Harwich) → Netherlands (Hook of Holland) → Belgium → Luxembourg → France (Normandy) → Spain → Italy (Genoa) → Morocco (Tangier Med)	arrival, press attention, excitement, media, Channel 5, emotional departure, Covid border dash

Burning Brakes and Waiting Games - Peru, Part 1

“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.” - Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, “El Dorado”. (Project Gutenberg)

Story below...

Some faces tell a thousand stories

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The lorry driver came past us flashing his lights and pointing towards our wheels.

I knew the brakes were getting hot. What I didn’t know was that they were actually on fire.

Luckily there was a lay-by just ahead, and I pulled in. By the time I got out, one set of brakes had properly caught light. I went for our fire extinguisher, but the lorry driver who had warned us had already stopped his truck, jumped out with his own extinguisher and put the flames out.

It all happened very quickly.

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The moon scape hills between Bolivia and Chile.

Once it was over, Charlotte and I just stood there looking at each other.

The brakes had been on fire.

And I mean on fire.

Perhaps I should go back a day.

We had finally reached the Ollagüe border crossing out of Bolivia after a difficult couple of weeks. We had spent thirteen days being held up by road blockades, constantly waiting for somebody else to decide whether we could move. By the time we reached the Chilean border we were more than ready to leave all that behind us.

Naturally, the border was closed.

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These are the hills that did for our brakes.

We arrived late afternoon at around 4,000 metres and had to spend the night there. The bigger worry was whether the truck would start the following morning. Altitude and cold are not a good combination for our truck and, after everything else Bolivia had thrown at us, being stuck at the border because the engine wouldn’t start would have been about right.

The following morning it was minus 7°C, so we waited until mid-morning for things to warm up a little before trying.

The engine turned slowly and we just managed to get her going on what must have been about the last of the battery’s energy.

Normally you turn the key and don’t think much about it. At 4,000 metres, with a cold diesel engine and a weakening battery, if it doesn’t start you simply aren’t going anywhere.

Customs was its normal pain, but eventually we cleared Bolivia and crossed into Chile.

Freedom again.

Or so we thought.

Google Maps then sent us onto an unpaved road. We assumed it was just a bad patch, so we lowered the tyre pressures and carried on. By the time we finally found tarmac again we had driven around 100 kilometres on dirt and were very pleased to see a proper road.

Then came the descent.

We had been travelling at around 4,000 metres, so sooner or later we had to lose all that height. In a big truck that brings its own problems.

Hard braking is not good, so I was using the gears as much as possible to hold us back, but there were sections where the brakes were unavoidable. I knew they were getting hot and had already started looking for somewhere to pull over and let them cool when the lorry driver came past us flashing his lights.

Then we discovered the fire.

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There was a lot of flat areas, but a lot of hills as well.

The driver told us to let everything cool for about an hour and then move on. He also warned us that the area was known for theft because lorries regularly had to stop there with hot brakes, making them easy targets miles from anywhere.

That was comforting.

We stayed anyway. We were shocked and neither of us wanted to move the truck until we were happy everything had cooled properly.

It wasn’t the most peaceful night we have ever spent, but nobody robbed us.

The following morning I crawled around underneath and looked at the brakes. From what I could see, everything appeared okay.

It wasn’t.

We wouldn’t discover the full extent of the damage until later, when the brakes were stripped down in Arequipa. The pads were in pieces, some of the springs and rubber covers had been damaged and one 20-inch brake drum - a lump of metal I can only just pick up when it is in one piece - had broken into 32 pieces.

Quite how we had carried on I’m not sure.

Our favorite Peruvian meal. Ceviche - Raw Fish cooked in Lime juice.

Before getting underway we had a few truck jobs to do, including putting the last 80 litres of diesel we were carrying into the tank.

I held the fuel container while Charlotte held our funnel, although calling it a funnel is being generous. It was a two-litre water bottle we had cut up.

Diesel splashed over her hands. Her nails were already black from working around the truck and now her hands stank of fuel as well.

These were hands that had spent years tending to some of the best-tended heads in the world. Now they were holding half a plastic water bottle while I poured diesel through it.

How life changes.

Our journey through Chile was brief and we carried on towards Peru. Crossing that border gave us an odd sense of relief. There wasn’t any particular reason for it. I think instinctively we just felt we had finally left the latest set of problems behind and were heading north again, towards the eventual end of our journey.

We followed the Peruvian coast for a while because we wanted to stay away from altitude. The coastline was barren and, in places, filthy, and eventually we headed inland to Arequipa.

Arequipa was a pleasant surprise, an attractive old Spanish colonial city and surprisingly busy with Western tourists. We assumed many were heading to or from Machu Picchu.

The restaurants certainly seemed geared towards visitors. Guinea pig and llama appeared regularly as things tourists were apparently supposed to eat.

We had trout.

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There are some beautiful buildings in various towns

Sightseeing, though, wasn’t the main reason we were in Arequipa.

The truck needed serious attention after the brake fire, and we also had American visa interviews booked at the US Embassy in Lima.

The appointments had been made months earlier and the blockades in Bolivia had already messed with our timetable, so rather than risk driving we left the truck with the garage and flew to Lima.

The visa interviews had been weighing on both of us.

We dug out the poshest clothes we owned, which weren’t very posh. I had a haircut and beard trim and we even checked our social media in case there was anything on there which might offend somebody, knowing full well there wasn’t.

Amazing what bureaucracy can do to you.

The interviews went well and our visas were approved, although they couldn’t be prepared before we had to leave Lima. That meant another trip back later to collect the passports.

One job done. Nearly.

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A lot of ladies still wear traditional clothing

One strange thing we noticed in Lima was the Bee Gees. Their music seemed to be everywhere. After hearing them yet again, I Googled it to find out if we were imagining things.

We weren’t.

Back in the late 1970s, Lima’s Radio Inca started a programme called Quince Minutos con los Bee Gees - fifteen minutes devoted entirely to the Bee Gees. It became so popular that fifteen minutes became thirty, and eventually a full hour. For a time the station was playing so much Bee Gees music that they seem to have become part of Lima’s radio history.

Of all the things I expected to discover in Peru, a long-standing Lima love affair with the Bee Gees wasn’t one of them.

Back in Arequipa, the news about the truck wasn’t good.

Once the brakes were stripped down, the damage was far worse than we had imagined and some of the parts simply weren’t available locally. The truck was going nowhere for a while.

So neither were we, at least not in the way we normally travelled.

Rather than spend our days watching mechanics, Charlotte and I flew to Cusco.

It felt strange being without the truck. For all its faults - and there are plenty - it is our home. Our clothes, our food and pretty much everything we use while travelling are in it.

Suddenly we were carrying bags and using buses and taxis again. A bit like our backpacking days.

Cusco is the gateway to the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu, although we decided not to go there. Charlotte had visited about thirty years earlier and I wasn’t particularly interested in joining the masses at what, to me, looked increasingly like another tourist theme park.

I know plenty of people will disagree with me, and that’s fine.

There were other places around the Andes that interested us more. Walking through the old town rather confirmed my mood when, amongst all that Inca and colonial history, we found Paddy’s Irish Pub in a prime position. I did wonder what the Incas would have made of that.

Because we weren’t in the truck, we rented an apartment away from the main tourist area. It was basic, semi-clean and in a normal residential neighbourhood.

Cusco sits at around 3,400 metres and walking uphill quickly reminds you of it. Every now and then one of us would suddenly become short of breath. It only lasted a few seconds, but it could be quite disconcerting. We were also becoming semi-bored. That sounds ridiculous when you are sitting in the Andes in Peru, but it was true.

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This time nobody was preventing us from going anywhere… we were just filling time because the truck had stopped for us, but the result felt strangely familiar.

We were stalled again.

Living away from the tourist centre also made us think about how fortunate Charlotte and I are. We travel the world in a huge truck with water, electricity, a proper bed and all sorts of creature comforts, and then get fed up because that truck is sitting in a garage.

Around us were people living very different lives. I don’t pretend to know what they thought about us, and I certainly don’t know why some of us end up with so much more than others.

Is there an answer? If there is, it’s beyond us.

We caught buses and travelled further into the Andes, spending much of our time just below 4,000 metres. We kind of got used to the altitude, although every so often that sudden breathlessness would return and remind us where we were.

Many of the older women we saw still wore traditional clothing: bowler hats, woollen leggings and raised skirts. It wasn’t being put on for us or for a photograph. It was simply what they wore.

Their faces were deeply weather-beaten from the conditions. Meanwhile, there was still no sign of the truck being ready. We flew back to Lima to collect our passports, now complete with American visas. That was something at least.

Then we went back to waiting so we walked a lot, slept a lot and tried to keep busy. Nobody could give us a reliable completion date. That also meant we couldn’t book accommodation for any sensible length of time, so we kept moving from one place to another.

Some of the brake components had to come from Belgium.

We ordered them using DHL’s five-day express service.

They took thirteen days.

Not very express.

Charlotte was rather partial to a Piscoe sour or two. The Peruvian national drink based on the Piscoe liquor and Egg white. I muddled on with beer.

That delay pushed us into a week containing a two-day bank holiday, which made accommodation scarce as well. Then we fell for a scam.

We found what appeared to be a beautiful apartment at a reasonable price and jumped at it. When we arrived, the apartment simply wasn’t there. You couldn’t make it up.

Morale was getting low. Overlanding normally works because, however bad a place or situation becomes, eventually you move. There is another road, another town, another country. Movement changes things.

Instead, our lives were now being dictated by a garage, unavailable parts, DHL, visa appointments and whichever apartment happened to have a bed free.

After Bolivia, that began to feel depressingly familiar. There was still Peru to explore while we waited, so we headed for Lake Titicaca. I remember the name from my childhood, although I’m still not entirely sure why. Perhaps Titicaca is simply one of those place names a child never forgets.

We took a boat out to visit the floating islands made from reeds. The visit was interesting, although very tourist driven. At one point the rest of our group paid extra to go for a ride in a large two-storey boat shaped like a swan if you can imagine that? Disgusting!

We declined and stayed behind on the island…which turned out to be the most interesting part.

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With the tourists gone, we watched some of the men laying fresh reeds onto the surface of the island to keep it maintained and afloat. It was ordinary work rather than something being demonstrated for visitors, and for a while we saw something that felt completely different from the organised tour. Then the swan boat came back, followed by other tourist boats doing slow laps of the island, presumably to make the fare feel worthwhile. With the tourists returning, makeshift tables appeared and out came the souvenirs.

Business as usual.

I understand people need to make money, and we were tourists ourselves, so we were part of the whole thing whether we liked it or not. Even so, I found the contrast disappointing. The bit that had interested us most was what happened while the organised experience had briefly stopped.

By the time we left Lake Titicaca we were into week three. The truck still wasn’t ready.

We had spent thirteen days trapped in Bolivia waiting for other people to allow us to move. Eventually we escaped, crossed into Chile and thought we had our freedom back.

Now, several weeks later, we were stuck again. Different reason. Same result.

Life goin’ nowhere, somebody help me...

So we needed another plan!

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Full Blog Index (ordered with countries and points of interest)

Catch up with our travels so far…

For the binge readers! Our new improved blogs start here...

From paperwork to Pastures: A hard lesson in the road ahead.

Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan, on through Mongolia and Central Asia — chaotic borders, forced separations, visa dead ends, brutal heat, breakdowns, and the slow grind of overland reality trips the romance from the Silk Road

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Bolivia: When the Road Runs Out of Freedom.

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“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” - Abraham Lincoln

Now we are talking !

After the relative ease of Brazil, Bolivia felt like the start of something more real. Grittier, poorer, more traditional and somehow more alive. We were back in Spanish-speaking South America, albeit with a different accent. The plan was simple enough. Cross the country, get to Sucre, visit the mines at Potosí, see whether the salt flats at Uyuni were safe to drive on, and then get ourselves to Peru.

Bolivia, as it turned out, had other ideas.

As we got deeper into the country, into its bowels really, the traditional dress became more common and the place felt much more authentic. The people also seemed much friendlier than many we had met since arriving in South America. They were amongst the poorest too. Is there a link there? I do not know, but you notice these things when you are passing through at lorry speed rather than tourist speed.

There is not a massive amount to see when arriving from Brazil, so it was back to long slogs across big distances.

At first, though, Bolivia was fun. We were making good progress, parking in off-road hidey holes and feeling like overlanding was back to being what it should be.

The Bolivian women and some men, wore traditional clothes when you got away from the main cities.

Our journey took us through an area where the Mennonites lived. They came from Europe with the offer of cheap farmland and the promise that they could run their own schools. There are about 150,000 Mennonites in Bolivia now, many around the Santa Cruz region, and they are easy to spot. Simple bib and braces, a strange cap that reminded me of Casey Jones from days gone by, horse-drawn buggies, and no interest in modern technology. They are Christians and they made quite a sight. It is one of those odd overlanding moments where you are in South America, but suddenly feel as if you have driven through a side door into another century.

We bypassed Santa Cruz and carried on. That was when we needed diesel and realised all was not right. The first fuel station did not have any. Nor did the next.

A quick check on Google told us there was political unrest, fuel shortages and road blockades across the country. At first that sounds like one of those vague warnings you read online and hope does not apply to you. It did. This was not a few bored men with branches across a road. Bolivia was in the middle of a national fight over fuel, prices, austerity and President Paz himself. Unions, miners, transport workers, rural groups and supporters of Evo Morales were involved, and some wanted President Paz gone altogether. The blockades were being used to choke the roads until the government listened. Unfortunately, the road west of Santa Cruz was the road we needed. We only had one real route to follow, so after a bit of searching and a two-hour wait, we managed to get diesel and set off.

It did not take long to hit the first blockade.

We were just west of Santa Cruz and were held there for around 36 hours. No information, no idea what was happening and limited Spanish. It was terrifying in a way I had not expected. Bad roads are one thing. Borders are irritating, paperwork is tedious, breakdowns are annoying. But being stopped by other people and simply not being allowed to move is different. Your plans are gone. Your choices are gone. You sit there and wait for someone else to decide what happens next.

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Some of the blockades and one of many women drivers, cooking at the roadside.

When we eventually got going, we laughed about it. Strange, we said. What a talking point that would be at dinner. Then, about 30 kilometres further west, we hit the second blockade.

This time we were more relaxed to begin with, which only proves how quickly you can get used to the wrong thing. The problem was water. We had about 80 litres, which sounds like plenty until you realise it is only enough for drinking and cleaning your teeth if you are trying to make it last. It is not enough for cooking, washing dishes, washing ourselves and living properly for an unknown number of days. After day two at the second blockade we had not showered for several days and we were watching every cup we drank.

This was serious. We could always leave the truck and walk through the blockade to try to reach a town, but we did not want to. The truck is our home, but it is also big and shiny and full of valuables. Walking away from it felt like inviting trouble. It was shelter and liability all in one.

Eventually it dawned on us that the other lorry drivers must be getting water from somewhere. By then we were on nodding terms with a few of them and the odd “buenos días” was being exchanged. With a little chat, some pointing and Google Translate, a family in the village gave us water. Pure relief. It lifted our spirits immediately and even made a shower possible, albeit a very brief one.

The village was extremely basic. A few small shops, most with steel gates rather than glass fronts. You pointed at what you wanted and they passed it through the bars. After a while they usually opened the gates for us, as we were considered top customers. The houses were mostly mud with corrugated steel sheets on the roofs. It reminded us of parts of Africa: not because the places are the same, but because the poverty had that same stripped-back feel. Had we gone back to Africa? Not literally, obviously, but the comparison came into my head. Life measured in animals, food, family and weather rather than screens, gadgets and things you do not really need.

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The relief at getting water and the gated shops.

The local children came to look at the truck, so we gave them chocolate and pencils and paper to draw with. One girl told us she had just killed a cow with her dad. Another said her family had four pigs. A boy told us his family had eight cats in Santa Cruz. That was their world. Very little food, no TV, no computers, a few basic toys and a lot of dust.

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For the kids, the blockade made an interesting diversion from their normal lives and having paper and pencils to draw was something they seemed to enjoy.

Many of the truck drivers had small trucks with no beds. I have no idea how they coped for days on end. We at least had a bed, a kitchen, water when we could get it, and somewhere to hide from the sun and the boredom. They were trying to make a living and the rebels were stopping them. From what we could gather, the drivers were very much against the blockades. They just wanted to work.

As the blockade dragged on, we all developed a kind of camaraderie. Charlotte and I would go for walks past the lines of trucks to pass the time. Going outside was not really an issue because drivers were constantly walking around anyway. We walked a lot, read a lot and tried to sleep as much as possible. The days were long and the nights were longer.

One day we caused ourselves another problem. We had left a camera running in the cab and drained the truck batteries. A stupid mistake, but stupid mistakes are easier when you are tired, bored and half stressed for days on end. The lorry drivers rallied round, found jump leads, brought another truck in and got us going. That was the best of the situation: men who had every reason to be angry and fed up still helping two foreigners in their well-provisioned truck.

At one point, out of sheer boredom, some of the drivers went to a local school and used the playground to play football. By this stage everyone knew us and we were definitely part of the team, even if we were not much use to anyone.

Then the government announced a state of emergency.

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Part of the team blocking the road in one location

That changed the mood. Until then, part of you still thinks the roadblock will clear at any moment. Someone will make a deal, someone will get bored, someone will decide enough is enough. But when a government declares a state of emergency, you realise you are not stuck in a local argument. You are sitting in the middle of a national crisis. Roads were blocked across the country, supplies were being cut off, and the government was preparing to use the police and military to clear them. That may sound reassuring from a safe distance. When you are on the road, trapped between groups of angry men and a government trying to reassert control, it does not feel reassuring at all.

We were blocked, released, blocked again and allowed to move only a few kilometres at a time. The frustration was intense. It messes with your head because you keep thinking the next bit will be the end of it, then another group of men with stones, sticks or vehicles proves that it is not.

Charlotte was calm, as always. No emotion and no obvious sign of stress. That is her way. I used to think she was simply less worried than me in these situations. Now I am not so sure.

I ran through all the worst-case scenarios in my head. Would the rebels attack us? Would they decide the truck was valuable collateral? Would they get more desperate the longer the blockade went on? We were a very obvious target: foreign, visible, carrying fuel, money, equipment and probably more comfort than most of them had. That is not paranoia when you are sat at a roadblock with no idea who is in charge.

We were held captive until day ten. Then the breakthrough came.

A lorry driver came to our truck and told us to drive to the front of the queue because we would be allowed to pass. We did as instructed. One of the rebels said he would seek permission and let us know. Several hours later he came back and told us to follow him and his mob along the blocked road.

It was coming on dusk by then, and yes, I was scared.

We were being led by a group of rebels into an area with no people, no witnesses and no phone signal. Charlotte sat there calmly. I am not sure whether, after a life in the beauty industry, she saw the danger in the same way I did, or whether she saw it perfectly well and simply chose not to show it. Either way, she gave nothing away.

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The foot soldiers looked totally indigenous, carried large sticks and had clearly been living rough for a long time. They smelt bad, which is not an insult so much as a fact after days on a road in heat and dust. In that moment, rightly or wrongly, all I could see was a group of men with little education, no social values that made sense to me there, no obvious regard for our lives, no phone signal, no witnesses and no reason that I could understand to care what happened to us. That made it scarier. Fear does not make you generous in your thinking.

As it happened, for people wielding machetes they were quite polite and said they would let us pass, but we still had two more blocks to get through before the first major town.

We passed the rest of the roadblocks with relative ease. Always held for a few hours, always waiting for someone to make a decision, and then eventually being waved on.

In total, we were held for 13 days.

The traditional dress was fascinating.

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I have never been in prison, but I now have a very faint idea of why it must be such a terrible experience. Not the bars, because we had no bars. Not even the discomfort, because we had the truck. It was the loss of control. Your civil rights are denied to you and you feel violated in some way. Overlanding is supposed to be freedom. You carry your own fuel, your own water, your own bed and your own decisions. In Bolivia, for 13 days, we carried all that and still could not move.

Eventually we reached Sucre, the first destination we had wanted to get to, and found a makeshift campsite in someone’s backyard. It was scruffy, but it had electricity, so we did not have to run our generator, and it had water. Perfect. At that stage, perfect did not need to be very perfect.

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The owner was a wise guy and told us he could get diesel on the black market. I could have kissed him. This meant we could push on to our furthest destination, Uyuni. We bought 230 litres, filled the tank and stored the surplus for the future. The containers went on the rear lift that holds the motorbike, covered with a tarpaulin. Diesel was scarce and we did not want to attract some passing opportunist thief. After 13 days of being stuck, the thought of losing fuel was almost too much to bear.

From Sucre it was on to Potosí to visit a silver and zinc mine.

We were taken underground and walked the roadways. The miners still fill rail tubs with ore by hand and push them out of the mine by hand. They work in pairs and get paid around £2.50 each per tub. It is terrible work. Many die from roof collapses and gas. Women are employed at the mines, but they are not allowed to work underground because they are thought to bring bad luck.

Just in mines?

I was a coal miner in my formative years, so this really resonated with me. I understood what was happening down there in a way most tourists probably do not. The miners drill the rock using compressed air drills, pack the holes with dynamite and blow the rock face so they have mineral to collect. Hard, dangerous, physical work.

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We observed these guys and could understand their frustration at the low pay, but was that justification for holding up thousands of lorry drivers and causing mass food shortgaes throughout the country? I have my opinion.

When I told our guide I had been a coal miner, she took us deeper into the mine than she usually took people. She said she respected me for having done that job. I appreciated that. It is not often you go on a tourist trip and find yourself back in something that feels uncomfortably close to your own past.

She was also very political and spent more time berating President Paz than telling us about the mine. At the end, she asked if we wanted to donate anything to help the miners.

I paused before answering.

“The miners are some of the people manning the blockades around Bolivia,” I said. “I spent 13 days being detained at these roadblocks. I think I have given enough.”

That may not be the answer she wanted, but it was the answer I had.

Our final destination in Bolivia was the salt flats at Uyuni. When we arrived, we felt relieved. We were only about 200 kilometres from the Chilean border and nearly free. There was a fuel station and, miraculously, they had fuel. There was also a huge queue. We probably did not need the diesel, but after Bolivia you do not drive past fuel because you think you are all right. Better to be safe.

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We queued for six hours.

Finally we pulled onto the forecourt, only to be told the last truck leaving had taken the last of the diesel.

I wanted to cry.

We drove to the salt flats, but they were wet and did not look safe to drive on, and so we said, no thank you. I know people go there for the photographs and the endless white horizon, but I was in no mood to turn a bad fortnight into a rescue operation.

So we went straight to the border.

It was closed.

Bolivia’s final sting in the tail.

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We had to spend the night at the border at 4,000 metres. The temperature was heading towards freezing and the big issue now was whether the truck would start in the morning at that altitude and in that cold. After fuel shortages, blockades, water worries, black-market diesel, wet salt flats and 13 days of being told when we could and could not move, we were now parked at a closed border, staring at Chile and wondering whether the engine would play its part.

Did we make it?

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