Salar de Uyuni and beyond

After tracking down Butch and Sundance we went on to checkout the Salar de Uyuni  - a salt flats so large you can see the curvature of the earth.  And, you can create interesting illusions in photos that defy the senses - Yup, and people come from all over the globe to take part in this childish fun.  Then we headed for Chile again.  We stopped south of Antofagasta at the "Hand of the Desert" for obligatory photos.  After getting out of the mountains and back down to sea level, my bike ran much better. But, we had some problems with wheel bearings on both Patrick’s and Brian’s  bikes - probably due to all the water and very fine sand in Bolivia. We also started camping when we left Tupiza because there were no places to stay along our route.  And, after we crossed the border into Chile it was much more expensive than the countries we had been traveling through so we continued to camp out.  We had gone 9 days without showering when we eventually made it to Santiago where we checked in to a hostel - we also needed to fully service the bikes again with some needing more work than others but all needing something.