Just as we thought it couldn't get any colder, it did. Fortunately we were becoming accustomed to the icy starts and our routine was getting slicker by the day. The pile of burning rubbish, aided by the leaking Jerry can went some way to warming us for the drive and off we went. Once again we reached the limits of human endurance just as a natural break appeared. An improvised barrier blocked the route in to a small town but the confused/amused locals seemed happy enough to let us through. We suspected the barriers ensured tourists stopped and spent some money, we happily obliged. As the friendly crowds gathered we stuffed our faces with a most unexpected breakfast - egg banjos! Cue 12 happy furballers. After downing a couple of mugs of sweet coffee supplied in the stall owners own china mugs we grabbed some supplies and headed off to our next destination - the mining city of Oruro. This was a surprisingly nice place and there was a real party atmosphere in town. We heeded the warnings of a local shop keeper to never leave the taxis unattended and found a burger restaurant (and several of the other teams) for a half hour lunch break. At least, it was supposed to be half an hour but then Charlie insisted on tinkering with Moira's gearbox again. Bad Idea. Four hours later she was back in one piece and off we rolled. Terry had a map of the city in his guide book and led us off in to the madness of Oruro's busy streets. 10 minutes later Moira ran out of fuel in the middle of a market. 10 minutes after filling her up Terry got us well and truly lost and laps of the town began with another attack on a one way street. A passing driver nearly crashed in to the back of another car after spending a second longer than he should have staring at our procession. We finally got our bearings and, after a fuel stop we headed off down the road. And what a road it was. It seemed to last forever and our destination, Challapata, refused to get any closer. Once again the furballers found themselves waving goodbye to the sun and any hope of staying warm. Moira was struggling as Charlie tried to nurse her on so Gareth and Paddy decided to get a bit clever. Gareth shouted over to Charlie to try draughting in an attempt to pick up the speed before everyone died of exposure. Unfortunately, despite a nod and a wave, it turns out Charlie didn't hear this properly so every time Paddy slowed down to let him catch up, Charlie assumed that Dreagle was having problems and slowed down as well. This led to a reduction in average speed of about 10km/h and a reduction in body temperature of about 10 degrees. Oops. Moira didn't like the slower speed much either and had to be nursed in with the aid of the choke. After staring at the bright lights in the distance for nearly two hours, Challapata finally began to grow in size. Salvation was near. Or not.
As we rolled off the tarmac on to the bumpy dirt roads we started to notice more and more groups of seriously drunk, fighting age males. Then the missiles began to fly. Terry and Charlie were narrowly missed by a couple of bottles whilst Paddy received a rock to the face (which was, fortunately, deflected by his helmet visor). However, never known to run from a fight, the furballers confused the crap out of the angry mob by simply stopping and asking for directions to a hostel. Stiff upper lip and all that. The locals didn't really know what to do with us after that so just pointed us towards the centre of town. It was during this part of the search that we bumped in to Alex. She said she'd found somewhere and she'd come back for us...she didn't. After turning down the first option where we were told that the on-street parking would definitely lead to us waking up minus 6 mototaxis we finally found a suitable roof. The taxis were carted off to a street that looked suspiciously like Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan, and locked safely away in the back yard of the hostel owner's Dad. Any hope of a shower was dashed on the discovery that the whole town only has cold running water for a couple of hours a day - baby wipes again. Sad face. We dumped our kit and headed out to try and find food. As had been the case since we entered Bolivia, the Independence Day celebrations meant that most places were closed so that their owners could spend the week rolling around in the gutter with little idea of who, or where, they were. We finally found an eatery and sat down for, you guessed it, chicken and chips with the odd bit of Llama. As we polished off the main course we were joined by what appeared to be a Father-Son Combo. The older of the two busied himself with emptying all the leftovers in to a plastic bag whilst junior, who was beyond wasted and probably kept the Bolivian equivalent of UHU in business got up close and personal with Ellis. After we finally shooed them away we paid the bill and headed off to our luxury accommodation - at least it wasn't a tent.