Two hours' drive southwest of Uyuni en route to Laguna Verde, you leave the main road. From now on we're in low range four-wheel drive. Frozen streams, rock formations that look like ruined red sandstone castles or abandoned medieval Tuscan villages along a distant escarpment; sulphurous mud-pools bubbling - activity influenced by the morning sun, claims Rodrigo.
We stop for breakfast at Mallku, at a small hotel, with stoves fashioned from oil-drums burning gnarled roots - from where? We haven't seen a tree for three hours.
Hotel is rather a grand word for it. It's a cave with a shack built at the entrance, a few rooms with foot-thick duvets, and an empty sun-lounge. Both sun and lounge are not the right words, since by empty I don't mean of people (although they're absent too); there's nothing at all in this part of the hotel, just windows.
The only guests, Swiss I think, but speaking good Spanish, are enjoying their rolls (toasted on the oil drum) and hot Milo (powdered chocolate substitute). They're wearing thick sweaters, overcoats, woollen hats, scarves and gloves. Eating breakfast.
At well over 4000m above sea level, we pass a lake whose name I have noted down as Laguna ...? (you try making intelligible notes at 20mph on a road that seems to be a mixture of sand and talcum powder). The shores are piled high with heaps of snow, or salt. It turns out to be borax. I also make a note to look up borax - what is it used for?
http://www.ballymoney.gov.uk/Household_cleaning_factsheet.pdf
Beyond is Laguna Colorada - colorado/colorada means red in Spanish. Rodrigo tells me there are pink algae in the lake (which the flamingoes feed on, and this makes them pink too...but I'm not convinced). Certainly the lake looks pinkish, but it's greatly accentuated by the reflection from colour of the hills behind. It seems more likely that wind erosion is the culprit. The lake's very shallow, judging by the flocks of flamingoes hundred of metres from the shore. They may be standing in pink sediments.
The point where we turn around (although the track carries on into Chile) is Laguna Verde and the volcanoes of Licáncabur and Juriques. It's just after lunchtime; by the time we've had our packed lunch most of the lake has changed from a dull jade green to brilliant turquoise; you can watch it happening, spreading west across the surface like ice melting. Rodrigo says it's to do with the wind, and it usually happens earlier in the day.
We're the only ones here, but an hour later on the return leg, it's evident that there are a dozen or so other 4WD groups - mostly backpackers having fun in hot springs. I guess they'd preferred this to waiting for the lake to do its party piece.
Rodrigo's very sniffy about these other Uyuni-based tour operators. They're cheap, since most of the visitors are young backpackers; they don't maintain their vehicles properly, they cut corners, they're cowboys.
We pass several, one crawling along belching black exhaust fumes. You can imagine the expression on Rodrigo's face. Two hours' further on, we have no choice but to stop. Rodrigo reluctantly lends one of his two spare wheels to a 4WD full of Australian, Canadian and French. One of them pleads with us for a lift, since we're likely to arrive in Uyuni two hours ahead of them, and he's got a bus to catch. We agree, but then he starts arguing with his Bolivian driver. Even though he's now getting a free lift in a reliable car, he wants his money back.
After about 5 minutes of wrangling, and no agreement, we leave him with his group. Was I that unreasonable when I was 25?
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