There's No Place Like Home

"How fast was our internet?" I ask M, trying to get my head round internet speeds, "you know, at home...well...when we had a home." The phrase stops me in my tracks for a moment. It sounds incongruously tragic. All I meant, was that we don't have a specific flat to go back to. Is it sad, I wonder, or should it be sadder, to find yourself without a home?

The line of thought is taken over in a whirl of activity, when the border control hoops and whistles seem, surprisingly easily, to have been jumped through. We are embarking on our long awaited journey across the Bolivian Salt Flats.

We are driven to the border by an earnest man who speaks only Spanish, (though he is easy enough to understand). To our surprise, once we get to the final border, and are standing between Chile and Bolivia, gazing up at the impressive, snow drizzled mountains, he suddenly, and with much excitement, lays out breakfast. There are bread rolls, and sweet breads, marmalade, cheese and ham for the meat eaters, and avocado, mashed and salted with care, and all of it presented with a flourish. I like that he is excited to present us with this spread, it matches my excitement at being presented with it, which we weren't expecting. I am a little saddened however, when another lady, travelling separately but also, somehow, looked after by our driver, dismisses his excited gestures towards the bread with, "no, no, no". I suspect it got lost in translation, and she simply meant, " no thank you, that's OK, goodness what a generous spread " but his face visibly falls and as he turns away from her it twists, unhappily, and with a cross edge.

"Muchos, MUCHOS gracias" I say emphatically, "es muy rica! Perfecto! Bellisimo!"

He smiles indulgently and pats me on the arm. I think he thinks I am a bit simple. I doubt my terrible Spanish helps.

Either way, we have to leave him after breakfast, and are handed lovingly over to our Bolivian driver and guide who will be our companions for the rest of the trip. Kenny is our driver, Diana is our English speaking guide (though I try to speak as much bad Spanish as possible anyway). Both are pseudonyms but their real names sound suspiciously western anyway. We are clearly in the company of spies.

We are lovingly loaded into the Jeep and driven for barely twenty minutes before we stop. We are looking out over the white lagoon. True to its name this is largely covered in what seems to be a thick layer of white ice. With the morning sun glinting off it, it is quite dazzling in some parts and in others, where the ice thins out, it creates curves and patterns reminiscent of the sort of lines and swirls you see in fossils, where the layers of time have become visible. Add to that the curls of steam rising from the outer edges, as the water is warmer than the air around it, and it is a rather other worldly vision.

We ain't seen nothing yet.

Our next stop is the 'green lagoon'. It's beautiful, it reflects the sky, and in the still air it too shows the ice patterns on its surface. One thing though, it isn't green.

"It is because there is no wind," says Diana, "usually when the wind blows you can see the colour more."

I ask her whether she becomes innured to the landscapes she takes travellers to see, doing this job and this route so often. She tells me no. The weather can change drastically in moments, let alone from day to day or week to week, she says. The landscape changes depending on the light, the temperature, the ambience, the colour of the sky. It is possible, she tells me, to look at the same geographical point time after time, and never quite see the same view.

We round a corner and find ourselves looking over what is aptly named, the Dali Desert. On a yellow, brown background, stand a collection of tall rocks, which, at the right time of day, will cast long shadows onto the undulating landscape. It looks exactly like a Dali painting, minus the toes or melted clocks. Dali, we are told, had never been here, it was pure coincidence. But then, I wonder, having seen so much of nature's aptitude for thrilling and vastly different pictures, whether human kind has ever actually invented something new.

Moving on, we spot a small creature in the distance, and ask Diana excitedly, what it is.

"A desert fox!" She replies.

We tread very carefully, trying to edge closer to the fox, which is skulking around behind some rocks, to try to get a better view. It is not until later, when we have quite a few photographs of the vague outline of it, that we start up the jeep again, and it runs to greet us!

"People have been feeding him," says Diana, sadly, "probably for the tourists. He will loose his hunting skills and starve in the low season if it continues."

A familiar story, reminding me of the macaques in South East Asia and the introduction of possums in New Zealand. When will humans take responsibility for their interference in the lives of animals?

The fox is smaller than English foxes. He looks at us trustingly, with gentle brown eyes and a face which makes him look young, like a cub. Diana tells us he isn't though, he is a fully grown desert fox.

"No tengo comida" I say, because of course he only speaks Spanish. He looks disappointed. I ache to give him something but am loath to further this human cycle, from which we never seem to learn.

We continue on, through countryside peppered with graceful vicuñas and grazing llamas, complete with the bright fabric earrings characteristic of Bolivian llama farming.

On the mountain tops there are streaks of red, yellow and green where there had, in the past, been sulphur mines. That industry is now mostly defunct in Bolivia but the colours formed by the sulphur residue continues to light up many of the mountain tops.

We stop at a hot spring, which I am pleased to report, is actually hot this time, though the changing rooms feature open doors and windows and see through curtains. I embrace my inner exhibitionist, shrug, and get naked in full view of the collection of men outside. They are averting their eyes, conscious perhaps of their own changing rooms, which are similarly equipped. I soak in the pool and try not to look.

As we travel, and after the hot pools, as we eat lunch, Diana talks to me about Bolivia, its people and its culture.

I learn that Bolivia, like South East Asia, is still a largely male dominated society. Women, once married, are expected to stay at hone, bring up children and keep house. A woman in the kind of job Diana has, in which she is travelling for days at a time, will therefore find it hard to meet a man who understands,

"At first," she says sadly, "the boy says it's OK. But then after a few years he wants a wife like others have and he doesn't want her to be out working."

As for what the wife is cooking, diet varies depending on region and what grows best. In some places in the valleys, the diet is primarily vegetable based, though it is rare to be vegetarian and most dishes include llama meat or something similar. In other, higher regions, quinoa is a staple, in still others, meat and potatoes. Certainly rice is usually accompanied with potatoes, every meal we eat includes both. They are not considered to be something you have one or the other of, but as a staple pairing.

Breakfast is a very small meal, if eaten at all, but it is more usual to have something, an empanada, for example, at around ten.

Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, with several courses, and dinner is smaller, depending generally on the hunger of the individual, or how manual their work is.

"Bolivians," says Diana, "like to eat. But we have a lot of love handles. We are embarrassed to go to piscinas because of our love handles, but we still eat. You will not find a thin Bolivian."

At this Kenny makes a hurt face and rubs his, admittedly quite thin, stomach.

"OK," continues Diana, unabashed, "but you are the only one."

I learn from Diana, who likes to dance, that there are many folk dances in Bolivia, which also vary across region and that it is still a common way to spend an evening.

Things are changing though, as children become more exposed to western influence over TV and internet. Christmas generally sees children being given small candies and sweetmeats rather than presents in sacks or stockings, but children are beginning to ask for more from their parents, who in turn may struggle to afford this.

Diana accepts this change as an inevitability, but is concerned for her culture, believing that such attitudes might lead to laziness and loss of skills.

"There are too many holidays in Bolivia," she says, "everyone is always having a drink."

It seems that some employees get as little as two days of annual leave so I assume she must mean public holidays. Most people in Bolivia are self employed and choose not to work for bigger corporations (or the bigger corporations don't really operate here).

Moving on, we come to some more geysers (later we will learn that we are in fact at times during this trip, more than 5,000 metres high, and all that worry about having altitude sickness at 4,600 for the San Pedro geysers was rather wasted effort) These geysers however, manage to leave both New Zealand and San Pedro in the dust.

The mud literally boils and spits. By the time we leave we are covered from head to toe in small white sulphurous mud droplets. To add to the experience, it is howling with wind, so that it is occasionally difficult to breathe. Watching the steam pump furiously, rather than the lazy, elegant columns of steam at the San Pedro geysers, listening to the boiling mud and the howling wind, viewing it all through violent snatches of hair, caught and wrenched around by the wind, I am once again, as is becoming rather de rigour for this trip - amazed.

By far, though, the highest point of today, is the red lagoon. We catch sight of it in the distance and it is already quite something to see, a deep red body of water, made all the more beautiful by the fact that the colour is not consistent, but pools sometimes in deeper, sometimes in lighter colours.

But we are looking at it from a long way off, and I am a little distracted by a pressing urge to use the toilet. As you might imagine, toilets are not plentiful out in the muddle of mountainous, desert landscapes and a rock is the most privacy you can expect. I don't really mind that, but currently we are in the jeep on the move and I am having to concentrate very hard on my bladder, especially as we go over bumps.

As a result, when we eventually arrive at the red lagoon my first thought is to run to the small hut there happens to be provided for such tourist emergencies as this, barely noticing where I am and, without putting too fine a point on it, barely making it.

The relief that ensues and my excitement about seeing a small mouse who noses his way out of a small hole, looks startled by my presence and darts back inside, has already made me rather happy as I exit the hut. I am not at all prepared for the scene that greets me as I look down the mountainside. It stops me in my tracks.

The lagoon nestles peacably in the valley between the mountains, glowing red and pink by turns. At its outer edges it turns a light green, mingling with the chemicals in the volcanic earth. Llamas graze around its banks, each with a bright red or purple earring made of bright twisted wool. A baby llama feeds from its mother. In the lagoon itself there are flocks and flocks of bright, warbling - flamingoes.

The sight is incredible. It is deserted apart from us and in the silence, except for the calls of the flamingos, it really looks the way you might imagine the Garden of Eden to have looked, when everything was perfect, and animals, nature, flora, fauna and even humans, lived in absolute harmony and beautiful colour. Whether you believe in the story as fact, as a parable, or not at all, its the easiest way I can find to describe just how idyllic it looks.

And I was already quite excited about the mouse.

I stand there, looking down, at the top of the path that will lead me down to it - and once again find myself bursting into tears in sheer wonder. I have a tendency to respond to intense happiness or amazement in this way, and have done so several times on this journey, more times by far than I have shed tears of unhappiness. This time is particularly sobby and messy, because the scene is just something you never imagine seeing, never imagine yourself reacting to. M appears out of nowhere, understands immediately and gives me a hug.

It's very difficult to describe it further. I finally pull myself together and we walk down to the shore. The flamingos call to each other a little more as we approach but largely ignore us. They stand in the shallows, pecking a little, flexing their wings so that we see a sudden flash of black feathers, startling amid all the pink and red hues. When they fly they are streaks of pink framed with black. It is indescribably beautiful. The llamas, seeming to understand that we mean them no harm, graze and feed their young, their bright earrings catching the light and adding to this kaleidescope of colour. I take hundreds of pictures. I could stay here all day.

Eventually what moves us on is not our guide, who is very relaxed and impressively attuned to which experiences most captivate us, but the fact that some other tourists arrive. Their voices, and faster walking speed move the llamas, a little unsettled, on in a group and the flamingos begin to move further out into the middle of the lagoon. I still have wet eyes and, as I look at the tourist group, posing making hand signals or calling out to each other I am shamefully disapproving. I can't understand how they are so unfased, why they are not, like me, moved to tears or at least silenced in awe. I try to pull together my sense of tolerance. Travelling is all about learning to understand and empathise with different cultures. These tourists represent a different culture. It doesn't necessarily require them to be another nationality.

Leaving the red lagoon I feel emotionally spent. I simply cannot have imagined a place like that existing. We stop, en route to our hotel, to see a selection of rocks, one in particular distinctly in the shape of a tree. Except of course, in this other worldly environment, they are not rocks, but petrified coral.

I climb up some coral to peep through a hole for a photo. In itself, and particularly after the red lagoon, this is not especially noteworthy, except in so far as it marks the third or fourth occasion on which I have climbed something or done something I might, at the beginning of this trip, have been terrified of. And done it without a second thought. Have I grown braver? Really? If so, it has been an oddly subtle process. I thought I would do something big and dramatic, like canyoning in New Zealand, to shake my fear of heights, and prove I had done so. Instead it has been a serious of small challenges, none of them at the time recognised as such. Hiking up and over a mountain, walking up steps to the top of temples, scrambling up salt rocks, climbing up coral. They are just things I needed to do to experience other things. I never thought of them as victories. But somewhere along the line I have stopped making a fuss of them.

Admittedly, marking this occasion is making a fuss. But allow me my triumph. It's only a little one.

Our hotel is warm and cozy, and, despite being in the middle of the desert, posher than our usual choice of hotels. We eat a delicious dinner and fall into bed well before the electricity supply stops for the night at 10.

Images fill my mind as I feel myself slipping into sleep, red rocks, flamingos, coral, salt, bubbling mud, graceful vicuñas. And before now, blue seas, tropical fish, yellow moon rises, black faced monkeys, hidden waterfalls, ancient faces in rock faces, ancient religions in stone. Gleaming glaciers, wet seal pups, cactuses, emerald lakes, huge condors and tiny dragons.

Is it sad to think that we no longer have a home?

No. We have one already that is far more amazing than any set of four walls.

Our home is this planet. We are lucky to live here. And it's really, absolutely, more than sufficient.