some salt with that?

I’m just uploading some material to youtube for business related reasons but while I was at it I thought I would upload & share this.. In Bolivia I met a Canadian cyclist, James. We teamed up to cross the harsh landscapes of the southwest.. including a couple of days riding across the Salar de Uyuni at almost 4000m altitude. Quite a surreal place. We’d spent the night on the small rocky outcrop known as “Inca Huasi” and were heading to the Tunupa volcano some 50-60km away if memory serves. This is James filming, me in the red shirt with the same sunhat I’ve worn on just about every bike adventure for the last 10 years.. it could only have a more interesting story to tell if it been swallowed and subsequently “passed” by some example of megafauna… a giraffe perhaps :-)

The original post with photography is here 

Sixty Degrees of Latitude…

First presented in preview form here Sixty Degrees of Latitude is here at last and available to order. 132 pages of interesting photography, printed on a very high quality ‘lustre’ finish paper.  It is not a travelog as such, nor is it exclusively street photography. Rather it is just a look at some of the places in between on my cycle journey through the Andes. Of course I’d be very happy if you all ordered a copy.. and you “should”* if you like interesting photography… or are interested in South America.. or bicycles and travel by bike.. and especially if you enjoyed reading this blog as I pedalled my way along through the Andes ;-)

You can preview the book in full below and order directly here

“A journey by bicycle following the spine of the Andes from a latitude of approximately 5 degrees north in Colombia to 55 degrees south at the tip of Tierra del Fuego. These are some of the places in between.”

Sixty Degrees of Latitude by Mike Hayes | Make Your Own Book

Granted it is not dirt cheap, such is the cost of print on demand, but it is a very high quality book and to put it in context.. for £25 you can go and buy 70 pages of rather dull (in my humble opinion of course ;-) photography in the form of Moby’s new book.. because he is Moby.. or you can have this instead <hint>.

cheero!

via Titicaca… La Paz to Peru

right then, this morning I arrived in Puno, it was 90km from where I spent the night last night in Juli, not that far but I’m exhausted so what follows is my day by day for the last few days as far as Juli… hope you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll catch up with Puno tomorrow ;-)

21 April, La Paz to Huatajata….
Ok so I finally managed to get the energy together to leave La Paz. As I write this litte bit I’m sat, having an afternoon rest, in the quiet little pueblo of Huatajata on the shores of Lake Wiñaymarca – something of an annex to the main Lake Titicaca joined via the Tiquina Straits. I had a sort of expectation that my first sight of the lake would really be quite something but that bug I caught in Oruro really knocked me sideways so although it was cool to see the mirrored sliver of water on the horizon amongst the surrounding hills I was suffering a bit on my bike so it didn’t really sink in. Now I’m here of course it’s brilliant:-) I have a cheap room with a terrific lakeside view and the usual shower arrangement of an electrical element tacked onto the end of a water pipe sticking out of the wall.

Laguna Winaymarca

Despite being gloriously sunny this afternoon it’s chilly… no more than 12 or 14 degs c. Huatajata itself is nothing special, a scruffy collection of brick buildings along the road but the setting is magnificent. I suspect, judging by the number of restaurants, that this is a popular weekend spot for La Paz residents… I ate a terrific slab of pan fried trout at one of these places for lunch – Lake Titicaca trout are among the biggest in the world.. and quite delicious :-)

outskirts of El Alto

So, back to the journey from La Paz, haha, getting out of bed this morning I still felt a bit wobbly (honestly no beer last night, just a solid dinner and an early night) but figured I’d give the climb out of the canyon a go. There are two choices… one is the new motorway with a moderate gradient… supposedly illegal to ride on but the reality is even the local coppers will tell you to use it, and the other is to follow the network of steep streets up to the northwest… Being a weekday morning the main road out was likely to be a smoggy scrum so I chose the steep route just for the hell of it… haha.. Still feeling pretty weak on my bike I made it breathlessly to the point where the gradient hit about 20% before caving in completely…

outskirts of El Alto

So instead I stuffed my bike in the back of a cab for the remainder of the short ride up to El Alto.. it was worth the few $ it cost just for the ride as the road went pretty much straight up the canyon wall… a sustained gradient of up to 30%… At times my driver had to zigzag across the street just to avoid stalling … and this was a relatively new Mitsubishi, though of course the altitude doesn’t help the engines. I was biting my nails waiting for the car to stall at any moment as it laboured slowly upwards. For a few of the steeper sections he stopped and rolled backwards into sidestreets so he could take a run up, and there were a couple of touch and go moments while downcoming traffic meant he couldn’t take the best line… It was also worth the ride to experience the craziness of life behind the wheel in La Paz. Normal traffic rules don’t apply.. the behaviour of the traffic is akin to that of a bunch of undisciplined school kids trying to get onto the bus home… just one big crush with elbows being the equivalent of the front of your vehicle.. Excessive horn use is also a characteristic of La Paz, and Bolivia in general, my driver had a very definite twitch in his left thumb hovering over the horn button…

toll road out of El Alto..

So, I was dropped on the canyon rim in the sprawling chaos that is El Alto with it’s huge mess of buses and cars all jostling for space on the road. It’s not a particularly pleasant place to ride a bike and I needed to keep my wits about me but 10km later I was clear of the place and out on the altiplano once again with the snow capped peak of Huayna Potosi at 6088m poking above the cloud to the east. It was easy riding on a good surface (toll road) with very little traffic and a tail-wind. Once near the lake the ride became very scenic as it wound it’s way around the shore and over the low hills that characterise this area.. when I say low, I mean relative to their surrounds.. the peak of every one must be above 4000m, the lake itself is at 3810m.

rural lakeside 'idyll'....

I suspect it will be trout again for dinner, having had a look around there’s little else on offer..

'nowt but trout...

There is a shop… with a very limited inventory of crackers and sardines, lol, I’ll miss the bounty of La Paz. I’m hoping I have enough fuel left in my bottle to cook some oatmeal and brew a mug of tea for breakfast tomorrow… Which reminds me, having just cleaned the jet on my stove, top tip: you can buy little 100ml bottles of alcohol all over the place – it’s brilliant stuff for cleanly priming a camping stove – reduces the amount of soot that accumulates when powering it with petrol/gasoline.

just in case the trout is 'off'

The place I’m staying is interesting in a ‘soviet block’ kind of way… I guess the building is maybe 20yrs old, but the builders/owners never really bothered to finish it off.. the room is fine in a sagging mattress style but in the hallways the parquet floors are only half done.. or maybe they were completed and fell apart. The stairway and what I suppose might have been a dining area are just concrete with a few bare wires poking out of holes in the wall. The restaurant is pretty much just a shed overlooking the lake – probably cheaper and quicker than finishing off the proper one. In the middle of the bare concrete basement there stands a lonely, dusty refrigerator with a glass door… inside are 4 bottles of local beer, previously 5… hehe;-) I would love to camp on the lakeshore here but it is all either populated or farmed so sadly it’s not an option.

model rafts for sale by the roadside

22nd April, Huatajata to Copacabana..
Proper mountain day today, only 70km but at an average altitude of about 4100m, approx 800m of climbing and a high point between 4200 & 4300m. It was a wonderful ride on a very quiet road that wound it’s way through the mountains around the lakeshore. Fantastic views (shame it was cloudy.. and cold) and a very good surface.

lake views... sadly cloudy :-(

I was on the road at 8.15am for no other reason than I was awake and ready. Every morning at the moment I have mild double vision from tiredness so the first few km each day are a bit weird until the adrenalin kicks in and my eyes and head clear. It was 25km to the pueblo of Tiquina.. named after the stretch of water here – the Tiquina Straits between Lake Titcaca proper and Winaymarca. All the vehicles go on large wooden rafts to cross, it’s about 1km across but the rafts only have tiny motors so it’s a slow process.

across the Tiquina Straits

I arrived just as a raft was leaving the slipway so rode my bike onto an adjacent moored raft, lifted my (fully loaded) bike tenderly onto the gunwale while the guys on the departing raft grabbed hold and lifted it across… I had awful visions of the whole lot falling in the gap between us and sinking without a trace…

even the big stuff goes on...

This road to Copacabana and onto Peru is not a main border crossing so it’s very quiet.. hence the reason I guess there is no bridge. Besides, a bridge would kill the village and it’s collection of cafes each side of the straits, the rafts must provide quite a tidy income stream (I paid 10b for a bike, about £1) so no idea what the bigger vans and trucks pay.

Tiquina waterfront

On the far side of the water I stopped for a break in a cafe run by an enormous lady in a faded gingham dress and green camouflage sun hat. Ordered a mug of bad coffee… I mean I didn’t specifically ask for it to be bad, but it was, and ate a packet of biscuits while admiring the interesting interior decor….

that cafe...

pick a favourite...

From there the riding was just beautiful.. hard work but worth it as the road climbed steadily, eventually leaving the lakeshore and it’s pre-Inca terraces to cross a stark mountain wilderness with just the occasional shepherd to exchange greetings with.

fab views

nice place to ride...

The day finished with a beautiful 10km , 65km/hr descent back down to the lake shore and the town of Copacabana. Days like this are just perfect :-)

the road to Copacabana

some poor soul took a flight here...

... black ice probably... or alcohol

the mountains are dotted with tiny hill farms

road into Copacabana

this bus passed me on the road into Copacabana... wondered if I had been blessed by it's passing..

23rd April, Copacabana…
Copacabana is a popular stop-off on the gringo trail for those leaving/entering Peru and with access to a couple of islands off-shore has developed into a proper little resort town. At first I thought it was hideous with masses of souvenir stalls, indifferent locals and hordes of backpackers but having been here a night now and sitting with a large pot of properly brewed coffee and a slab of banana cake I’ve decided it’s OK. The daytime is fine, all the backpackers are either on a boat to the islands or on a bus somewhere so it’s a pretty chilled place, and the indifference I experienced on arrival has warmed up somewhat as I take the time to engage with the locals.

the light up here by the lake is fantastic

There are a heap of places to stay here, the places I was recommended didn’t have room for me and my bike but a chap came after me while I was looking around on my bike to ask if I needed a room, something in some places I’d probably be wary of, but he was completely genuine with a small and tidy hostal tucked in off one off the main street. I have no view of the lake but for £2.50/night I do have a quiet, comfy place to stay with a bathroom and ‘warm’ shower. The wiring arrangement for the shower is great.. it’s wired from a chunky 250v/30A circuit breaker nailed to the wall, above the light switch, in the corner adjacent to showerhead itself. It gets a spray of water every time but so far I haven’t died so must be OK :-)

Copacabana

The advantage of stopping in a gringo town for a day is that I have access to great coffee and great food and can enjoy a peaceful lake shore (top tip, new expat cafe opened here couple of months ago called El Condor or something… not dirt cheap but fresh ground coffee and proper coffee pots, and excellent cake).

Copacabana

There are fleets of pedalos and fake kon-tiki rafts (regular boats wrapped in reeds) down on the beach but for now my only plan is to do bugger all :-) I’ll get an early night tonight and then cross the border into Peru tomorrow… I’ll not miss anything by retiring early with a good book…. I’m not really that into young gringos sporting topknots and stripey pajama trousers playing bongos in the street as they were last night… I often wonder what the locals, who work hard, often for very little, think… hmm.

pedalos...

rows of pedalos, tour boats and storms over Peru to the northwest

As for the islands, well there are some Inca ruins to look at but have seen a lot of that before.. and right now I’m just happy to be riding my bike in the fabulous scenery around here :-)

Copacabana

Copacabana

Copacabana Cathedral

Copacabana Cathedral

Copacabana

Copacabana

crosses on the mountain northeast of town

Copacabana

Oh, cool, as I write the two Aussie girls I met in Salta just walked in… see ya!

24th April, Peru :-)
Tonight I’m writing in the peaceful little town of Juli, about 80km south of Puno just above the western shores of the lake at about 3900m ASL. It was a fabulous ride to get here as the road wound it’s way around the lakeshore through tiny farming and fishing communities with the lake surface itself ruffled by a fresh breeze and sparkling in the brilliant sunlight. It was only a 70km day.. trying to keep my days short now, less than 100km if possible, so despite some significant dawdling on clifftops and so on I was here by lunchtime. Stopped in a scruffy  little cafe near the plaza, complete with 10yrs of calendars on the wall and an old TV wrapped in clear plastic showing a loud western. Lunch itself was the usual set menu deal… a bowl of soup, in this case complete with chickens feet, and a plate of rice with a very tough bit of llama rib. It’s always something of a lucky dip …!

last minute snacks..

Crossing the border was a doddle, the UK Foreign Office at the moment has posted warnings about robbery, holdups etc at this border but it was very peaceful this morning and I was through in about 15 minutes :-) As in Bolivia, so far everyone on this side of the border seems very friendly. Nice place to ride a bike :-)

yeah, in Peru at last, and the national drink Inka Cola.. tastes like crap and is a lurid yellow colour... mmm

it's harvest time here...

sheaves of wheat by the lakeshore

aside from the irony of inviting folk to a litter strewn strip of shingle this banner was rather interesting...

... the bowler hat as ladies beachwear :-)

terrific views from the road

Juli is a pleasant place for a stopover with a few colonial relics. I have a room in a small pension overlooking the tidy plaza for 15 soles (about £3.50) for the night. There is an electric shower but I couldn’t make it run warm… however I’m used to cold washes by now and really couldn’t be bothered to question it.

Juli.. the view from my gaff

Juli

Peru time is one hour behind Bolivia.. so tonight I have a cunning plan to gain an extra hour of kip, I’m still running on Bolivia time.. so I’ll eat and hit the sack on Bolivia time and get up on Peru time :-) Apparently not a good idea to be on the roads here super early, ’tis the favourite time for highway robberies when the roads are quiet.. not that it’s ever going to be a problem for me, I ain’t going to be on my bike before 8.30 at all now :-)

Juli

Juli

Juli

Juli.. the school

Juli

Juli

Juli

on the road again

… I did get back on my bike on Wednesday for the beautiful  ride up to Lake Titicaca.. the shores of which I am sat on now in Copacabana some 150km from La Paz… the connection here is really quite shite so I am going to make you wait until I get to Puno (Peru) in a couple of days time and do a decent blog update from there. Copacabana is very touristy.. possibly the most touristy place I have seen so far. I also thought I might make a trip to the Isla del Sol from here but having seen hordes of wannabe hippies, a tribe of young Israelis and British 12yr olds stumble off the boat this evening I’m now not so sure… hmm…. stay tuned…
As for my comment about Brits and Israelis.. sorry about that but Í have seen a lot of very bad, disrespectful behaviour during my travels over the years, including this trip,  and almost always it is either young Israelis or Brits that are to blame. Quite sad. It’s a world I feel apart from.. both because of my age and my mode of travel..  but that’s not to say that I haven´t met nice folk backpacking along the way… :-)

In the meantime I think my two lasting memories of La Paz will be this…

….and that incredible view from the canyon rim above La Paz… not my pic by the way (borrowed from the public domain for the purposes of illustration.. . hehe) both times I passed by the sun was directly in my face so I didn’t bother. No matter, I won’t forget it…!

looking up in La Paz (thro a pint glass…)

… the horse medicine is definitely working, all I’m left with now is an annoying fatigue… but still enjoying myself, the danger is the proverbial wind is rapidly leaving my sails as I settle into a comfortably lazy routine here…

Sunday being a case in point… first in Olivers pub at 9.30 for a reassuringly homely breakfast and couple of coffees I could not refuse the free pint offered at 10.30am.. bit early but still. It was very quiet yesterday morning but how time flies with interesting conversation.. and all of a sudden it was time for a lunchtime pint.. and a spot of lunch. I only dragged myself away for siesta at around 1.45pm.. been a long time since I had a Sunday that lazy. Being particularly unimaginative I went back around 6pm.. simply because I knew I could have a good time with people I’m rapidly getting to know… and a beef & ale pie with mash and peas :-)

Conversation last night was fascinating in it’s breadth and depth… from Bolivian politis and the Panama canal to the low incidence of house fires in La Paz and deviant sexual practices… sometimes all at once. Hmmm. Seemed to be a lot of 12yr olds drinking at the back last night.. either backpackers are getting younger or I’m just getting older… I think I’m Ok with the latter because of course it means I’m wiser, cooler, and, ermm, wealthier… relatively… :-) I did the super budget thing years ago and nice to not need to stay in a fleapit and live off crumbs. £10 in La Paz has got me a really nice gaff :-)

Today still low on energy but I had too much to drink last night for the restful night’s kip I really need… my own fault :-| Could be worse, I could be stuck in a stinking hot and smoggy place like, ummm {scratches head} oh I dunno…. Hyderabad perhaps waiting for the volcano in Iceland to stop doing it’s thing, lol!

The city center today is full of military police and coppers in riot gear, I came out of my guesthouse just as a column of ‘em marched past down the road in their green combat gear, full face helmets and transparent shields… “ooh, how exciting I thought” and trotted off after them.. but despite the vast numbers of all it looks like is some ceremonial thing to do with a guy in a white Navy uniform with a bunch of ribbons on his breast…. very disappointing… maybe they just got a new rowing boat or something…. (the Bolivian ‘Navy’ currently has four ‘ships’ forming a lakes & rivers force). Seriously I do sympathise.. since Bolivia lost it’s coastline and hence access to the sea, to Chile in 1879 the economy here isn’t going anywhere fast…

Canadian James left town yesterday morning… hopefully recovered from his epic hangover of Friday night.. wouldn’t want to do that climb with a thick head :-) We went to see the new Furia de Titanes (Clash of the Titans movie on it’s opening night in town… a good flick in a mindless way… brilliant monsters, dewy eyed maidens (and well muscled men in skirts if that is your thing) :-)

Sunday was also market day here, many of the streets behind my place closed for a street market. Some of the stall-holders as friendly as you like but others refused even to acknowledge the presence of a gringo.. preferring to lose a sale even at the end of the day. Consequence of being in a tourist town I suppose, and I can understand some resentment.. amongst the high rises and tourist-driven business there is also crushing poverty, at times heartbreaking to see. A constant reminder of just how bloody lucky I am to have been born where I was, when I was and to have been able to make for myself the life I have no matter what problems I sometimes think I might have…

p.s. seeing as so many people asked me this question or similar.. regarding the Yungas Road, aka “The Worlds Most {allegedly} Dangerous Road”… I looked into cycling down that way as an out and back trip to Coroico but since the Bolivians closed it to traffic a couple of years ago.. and made it into a proper fee-paying tourist attraction… independent cyclists are not allowed down it. So I looked at the pictures and video.. and decided not to bother. I have ridden much similar stuff in the past in various places around the world.. Himalayas especially, and have no desire to strap on a dayglo safety vest and be guided as a group on a rented bike, much happier on my own bike doing my own thing and often on more ‘interesting’ terrain than that :-)

La Paz, horse medicine and chocolate..

I’m going through a ‘bit’ of mental downer at the moment… I left Oruro on my bike a couple of days ago… and got about 500m down the road before giving up.. I was feeling stupidly weak so did a u-turn and slung my bike on a bus to La Paz… so ashamed to say I skipped 200km of riding… having said that though there was no way I could have ridden it and from the bus window it looked flat, boring and a very busy stretch of road, and it’s only 4% of the distance I’ve ridden so far. It’s very much the nature of bike travel… huge highs and massive lows… I met up with James again here in La Paz and he confirmed the only thing I missed was the descent into La Paz… which is truly amazing by the way, it is an incredible sight to see the city sprawled in a  deep canyon.

Talking with J over beer (rehydration you see…) have been wondering if in fact I picked up this bug in Tahua… I was strong all the way through Bolivia from Villazon to Uyuni and across the salt.. but from Tahua my strength and well-being went rapidly downhill…

La Paz...

I’m stopping here in La Paz until I’m strong enough to ride back out of the city. I’m still needing around 16hrs/day in bed… ho hum. I’m happy to be in La Paz rather than Oruro, what a contrast.. the centre of town is thoroughly modern with great cafes and so on while the steep cobbled streets up each side of the canyon hark back to earlier days… it’s a fascinating place. As soon as I am strong enough I’ll get out and about for some street photography. There is also a “100% fake english pub” (their words, lol) here run by a chap from Birmingham… it sounds awful .. a typical backpacker hangout but it’s not… Being too expensive for the whinging stingy  or Israeli crowd and offering a menu limited to english pub grub it seems to attract a better class of traveller, lol, which if course is why I have been there :-) My stomach can still barely cope with food but I threw some lincolnshire bangers and mash with gravy at it last night and although slightly overwhelmed afterwards it was delicious and worth the subsequentrestless night… Genuine mum’s recipe for the sausages… Hoping I feel up for fish and chips tonight :-)  Have also found a cafe with great music, great coffee and chocolate cake too… therapy :-)

mmmm, good for the head

The only thing wrong with the city are it’s drivers.. the streets are utterly clogged with cars, 4x4s and minibuses and they really are piloted, seemingly without exception, by a bunch of tossers, it is very much a case of the pedestrian or cyclist feeling like a deliberate target rather than just “in the way”… even worse than Quito… and Delhi..

I went to see a pharmacist yesterday to see if they could suggest anything to help my stomach along… antibiotics may have been sensible but I decided to just leave the drug choice to her… She gave me some large grey pills of a name I had never heard of so being reasonably cautious I decided I’d look them up on the web to find out for myself exactly what they were… The first page Google took me to listed recommended doses… for horses, sheep and so on… hmmmm. The manufacturers page was a little more useful, seems they are benign, and old fashioned, drug designed to help restore the natural balance of bacteria in the gut, and the recommended  dose for the average human is only slightly more than that for a large dog. Very useful… so we will see.

Gravity-Assisted MTB'ing workshop... a fraction of it

Yesterday I was also able to take advantage of some solid ground work by James on the bike repair front… he needed new bottom bracket cups so went to the Gravity Biking outfit that run trips down the Yungas highway… they directed him to their workshop where they maintain their fleet of Kona downhill bikes…. so yesterday I took my bike along on the way to collect his to see if they could do a proper job with that sheared bolt… They did.. and what a fantastic workshop with fantastic people :-)

a hint at the treasures beyond the door... lol

A downhill bikers wet dream with decent bikes probably numbered in the 100′s including a classic Kona Explosif (mmm), a huge, well equipped workshop and racks and racks and racks of spare parts and equipment… XTR, park tool etc etc. So, if you ever need work done on your bike in La Paz then they really have to be the only choice. Go the Gravity Assisted Mountainbiking Office on the Prado (they are in all the guidebooks) and ask for directions. The workshop itself has no sign but you’ll recognise it by the disc rotors set in the concrete outside the steel door… and the view from out front is fantastic.

the view out front..

As for me.. well, have a dilemma now, feeling weak my body is not recovering, getting sick while run down cycling always takes time to get over, though the horse medicine may help… I was designed to be a sea level creature and I keep forgetting I am 4km up in the sky here. I had a plan to detour on the way to Cuzco to descend to Arequipa, cycle along the edge of the Colca Canyon and then climb all the way back to Cuzco… it’s a lot of extra effort involving a 4700m pass on the way to Arequipa, then a descent to 2000m … then I’d need to climb a steep 2000m back up as well as cope with all the regular climbs and dips along the way. After Lake Titicaca the direct (high) road to Cuzco is awfully tempting, probably only 500km or so from the border with Peru… If I do that it means my journey will have been around 5700km.. so not as far as originally planned but when I was sitting at home back in December looking at just a large map of South America with no firm route plan (the best way) my estimate of around 7K km was not much more than guesstimate…

Being here for a few days does give me time to tune in to what is going on in Bolivia, the funniest piece of news is that just a couple of days ago a company here launched an energy drink looking suspiciously like Coca Cola, tasting suspiciously like Coca Cola but under the wildly different branding of Coca Colla… apparently the name comes from a highland people local the area where the leaves are harvested.. The properly different thing is that it contains Cocoa leaf extract.. the same stuff, though less concentrated, that governments and police forces around the world get so excited about in it’s powder form, and the same stuff that the original Coca Cola had in it.  The press release I saw said that.. ” the main objective  is to promote the industrialization of the coca leaf to show their qualities and erase the stigma of drug trafficking…” (best translation). It also said it was a good thing because this the drink will allow Bolivian bus and truck drivers to drive even longer hours without sleeping … and in my own mind I imagine with less resort to alcohol and amphetamines etc etc, lol.  Heck, folk have been chewing coca leaves up here for centuries so I suppose it’s just the natural next step. Coca Cola Corp have yet to comment… Wonder if I can take a bottle back to the UK with me..

, that’s enough for now… time for more ‘therapy of the chocolate kind’ I think…

stay tuned!

p.s. sea level tour next year… Holland or something, lol.

Oruro… a flavour

I’m still in Oruro today, bit of a tummy bug and fever and so on… all that hard riding over the last couple of weeks must have left my immune system somewhat hammered.. so got run down, little bit sick.. hey ho, occupational hazard so I haven’t been out much today, you know when things ain’t right when all the food stalls stop smelling great and instead turn your stomach… I have tracked down a box of cornflakes for dinner and I’m soo looking forward to them :-)

Despite all that I do have few street snaps from Oruro that might give a little flavour of the place. The funniest thing I keep seeing is little old ladies all bundled up in their traditional dress and bowler hats pulling mobile phones from the folds of their multiple layers of clothing :-)

I don’t think there’s much of interest between here and La Paz, just a busy road so next update when I have something interesting to write about :-)

& one last pic from Challapata I forgot about that I rather like…

on from Uyuni… salty salty :-)

I’ve been away from a connection for a few days so presenting this as a day by day diary flavour of entry… it just means I have to remember what day it is today and count backwards… it’s a long post too.. hope you are sitting comfortably ;-)

Tuesday 6th… leaving Uyuni was something of an emotional experience… for the lady we stayed with… with hugs and kisses and waves as we rolled off down the road I think she must have quite enjoyed having us to stay, she even helped me find the numerous perforations in my tyres from those thorns along the railway line. A really nice memory.

leaving Uyuni

Our destination was the Salar de Uyuni… 25km or so distant along a poor road to Colchani, one of the few places where you can get onto the Salar without bogging down completely in the soft salt around the edges…

surveying the edge of the Salar

Before I write any more I’d better put this post in context for the folk who don’t know… the Salar de Uyuni is the worlds largest salt flat at 12,106 sq km… so quite big really and venturing onto it is somewhat intimidating.. let alone venturing onto it on a bicycle. We were headed to a tiny island called Isla de Inca Huasi (Inca House) way out on the salar… James is a surveyor by trade and travelling with a decent GPS so I just kept old fashioned map & compass in my proverbial back pocket.. but still had a feeling of trepidation as we ventured out onto the featureless salt on a bearing of about 271 degrees (true) aiming for an invisible speck some 80km distant… :-)

not much out there....

It was pretty hard going for much of the day, any expectation we had of racing across smooth salt was soon dispelled as the surface turned out to be still quite soft and wet, and very lumpy so soon after the end of the wet season… At times we were reduced to a mere 11km/hr as our tyres sank into the surface… but not all the time, in places the salt dries into large hexagons with small ridges of 2cm or so between them.. then we were flying… sort of, it’s still almost 3700m up and with deliberately soft tyres 20km/hr was quick.

Zen and the art of the Salar bicycle lunch

James’ navigation was spot on, after about 50km on the salt riding towards an empty horizon a tiny blob appeared on the boundary between salt and sky…. and grew painfully slowly as we cruised across the lumpy surface into a cross headwind… This is all sounding a bit negative isn’t it… hahaha, nothing of the sort – riding across the Salar is one of the most incredible experiences I can remember… just endless blinding white salt and an enormous deep blue sky with just the faint shadows of mountains on the distant shores… so no apology for loads of photos, it was amazing. I have some video too but stay tuned for that, will probably post it in La Paz.

big skies..

how to pee on the salar without splashing your shoes... (pic credit James... hmmmm)

hexagon patterns ... fast(ish) surface

I know it's a lot of pics but heck....

....

yeah!!!

typical surface

just one more bike/salt/sky pic....

The island itself is tiny, can ride right round it in 10 minutes, but beautiful, an  ancient coral outcrop where, after 100km of riding (80km on the salt) and a lot of sugary crap consumed, we spent a peaceful night camped among the cacti with the fabulous southern night sky overhead :-)

evening on Inca Huasi

oh look, another evening on Inca Huasi pic

messing with long exposure and the red setting on my headlamp

this pic is for everyone at home who worries about a bit of winter road salt on their bike....

Wednesday 7th:

Up shortly after dawn the island peace was broken by the arrival of hordes of tour groups in their 4x4s… mostly without exception a motly bunch of young folk wearing weird shit that I’m probably not cool enough to appreciate… and with the exception of just one Dutch girl all of ‘em too trendy to even acknowledge our presence beyond the occasional stare despite packing our tents just a couple of metres away, lol! I caught the Dutch girl trying to take our pictures without us noticing… but I smiled and she says “wow, you are like heroes to me cycling out here…” so clearly hero has a different meaning in Dutch to English… means “twit” or something I suspect….

gotta hang on tight down here in the southern hemisphere....

quick lap of the island before setting off north....

We were packed and on our way by 9.15am by which time I counted 15 landcruisers parked up.. That means there must have been 90 folk mucking about out on the salt all making their novelty photographs and comparing ankle bands, stripey knee socks, teacosy hats and so on…. oh so pleased to be on a bicycle and able to just leave without being told “10 minutes people….” :-)

destination for the day... Volcan Tunupa

Our destination was happily not on the tourist trail.. directly north towards the bulk of the Tunupa volcano, or rather slightly to the west of it where hopefully we’d find the village of Tahua after 50km or so…

the bulk of the volcano grew steadily.. 50km distant

We did.. find the village I mean… which at times seems like a miracle, between us we have four maps of Bolivia and the Salar and every one of them is different… Getting off the salt was difficult, very soft edges to the Salar transitioned to very soft volcanic sand and then very soft pasture with grazing llamas.. but we made it by 1pm and found a suitably scruffy place to stay for a few $ with a hosepipe in the yard… an essential luxury with bicycles and gear completely encrusted in a thick layer of rock-hard salt.

getting off the salt..

Not much to Tahua, a collection of crumbling adobe buildings beautifully situated on the slopes of the volcano with a very friendly but very tiny shop selling the usual essentials like beer and sardines but precious little else :-)

pueblo of Tahua

Also plenty of llamas wandering around the outskirts of town and a tiny church down by the shores of the Salar. Doorstep camping tonight as we cook pasta in the yard outside our room :-)

Iglesia at Tahua on the edge of the Salar

Tahua... far more llamas in evidence than people...

Tahua

shoe drying...

Thursday 8th:

Leaving Tahua started with a minor argument over whether the left or right fork was the correct track to take (maps no use at all in this situation as many of Bolivia’s ‘roads’ are just random jeep tracks)… I chose the right hand fork based on the greater wear from 4x4s and J chose the left fork based on.. something.. anyway, I half expected to meet him 10km up the road smugly sitting on a wall waiting for me having found a shortcut… but I didn’t so when it became clear that I was on the right track after 5km or so I sat on a wall and waited smugly instead… for 15 minutes or so until he showed up having had to backtrack… but laughing :-)

good road out of Tahua...

The track from Tahua to the village of Salinas Garcia Mendoza 35km away was very bad but very beautiful. Technical riding past tiny pueblos around the huge bulk of the volcano, the flanks of which were carpeted bright red with quinoa ripe for harvest.

riding from Tahua

just fab...

the road to Salinas

riding through quinoa crops...

..past tiny churches...

and remote communities

harvested quinoa drying in the sun

hard riding but fabulous

Salinas turned out to be a beautiful little village where we sorted ourselves with a very good and very much needed lunch in a little hosteria on the plaza.

Salinas

Salinas

Onwards from Salinas the scenery changed dramatically .. transitioning from the mountains on the edge of the Salar to a bleak, flat, windswept wilderness populated with wild vicuñas… we managed another 35km before running out of steam and pitching camp on a patch of dust hidden from the road but with a terrific view of an extinct volcanic cone and thunderstorms raging to the north-east.

leaving Salinas

it was a tough road... especially at this altitude with 500m of climbing

bleak....

bleaker...

and even bleaker... carrying 10 litres of water each out here

This evening as we assembled a weird dinner of rice, lentils, tuna, sardines and crackers (pretty much all you can buy out here) we first watched a tornado moving across the landscape probably 40km distant while thinking “oh shit, could be a windy night….” and then as the darkness settled great forks of lightening dancing across the horizon… It was a peaceful night however with just a light frost… phew :-)

dustbowl campsite

Friday 9th:

Today was a bad day for me… riding past a great meteor crater soon after breakfast was cool but after that a deep fatigue really set in… and then the main load-carrying bolt on the drive side dropout that holds my rear rack sheared off… all those bad roads over the last few thousand km finally took their toll. I swore a lot and managed to bodge something with wire and zip ties before continuing my tired trundle across the altiplano…. I also ran my rear tyre as soft as possible to reduce the shock on the rack mounts which slowed me even further.

view from my tent

meteor crater.. well cultivated

James will tell ya I was not good company most of the day… tired, hungry and concerned about whether or not my rack would hold up… oops, just one of those days. Most women I know have loads of  ‘em so figure I’m allowed one just once in a  while… ;-)

more tiny communities....

.. and artfully crumbling churches :-)

The few tiny pueblos we passed through couldn’t help… no-one had a drill to get the sheared bolt out so we just plodded on until finally arriving at a windswept pueblo called Quillacas after only about 65km… it was a cold, windy, stormy evening with sand whipping through the dusty streets  between the crumbling buildings.

the Bolivian altiplano is a place like no other.. hard living up here

the long, windswept road to Quillacas.. James is a dot up the road at this point, lol

The place unexpectedly did have an alojiamento (a mega basic place to stay) however, rather than camp in the dust again it was well worth the £2 for a sagging mattress and bucket of cold water to wash with :-)

Quillacas

The landlady cooked us a fried egg and plate of rice each before I went off in search of someone with a drill who could have a go at that sheared bolt… Found a bloke with a drill, found a baby llama too in his yard, but his drill bits wouldn’t touch the stainless steel bolt…

Quillacas: the 100m of asphalt was deceptive....

..away from the road Quillacas was typically crumbly and dusty with no streets as such, just paths full of deep holes...

a stormy sunset from Quillacas

I spent so much time running around after that it was almost dark and less than 10 degs C by the time I remembered to chuck a bucket of cold water over myself in the yard outside… Oh, almost forgot… little shop in town had a tin of peaches for sale… yay! A special treat indeed :-)

defunct illuminations....

Saturday 10th:

a beautiful morning, the stormy feel of the past couple of days gone to leave still air and clear blue skies. A smooth, hard-packed road out of town too… a new building project not yet open to traffic… cruised along this section in peace while the motor vehicles were confined to the very soft, dusty sand track nearby :-)

the motor road... taken from the "bicycle road" :-)

It was also here that James and I agreed to part ways, at least for the riding bits.. James is stronger than I am and seems able to cycle for days at a time on little more than cracker crumbs.. and I just don’t recover as well from hard days so was slowing down. We had a good run from Abra Pampa but in the end there’s a reason that many cyclists travel alone… differing strengths and so on. We’ll meet again for sure though… that much is certain :-)

burned out bus wreck... a lot of roadside memorials in Bolivia

back with the railway line...

The town of Huari about 30km from Quillacas is where the dirt ended and the asphalt began… hooray, after some 650km of off-road riding since leaving Argentina I pumped my tyres up and cruised happily along the road… until  the centre of Huari… market day and a heaving mass of humanity.

Huari

I was too tired to care so negotiated my way through the crush only to bump into James again stopped up the road sucking nothing worse than an orange :-) I also followed a bus down the road here that was so badly out of alignment it was crabbing along the road at angle of around 15 degrees off straight… hilarious, vehicles have a hard life here and a lot of people die in accidents…

Challapata

Rode as far as the town of Challapata after just 52km for the day, found a pretty crappy place to stay for £2 with a bed supported on old paint cans and a lump of iron … no showers or anything but too tired to care (again). Market day here also.. went out for lunch, came back, went to sleep, woke up and found James’ bike parked by mine, lol.

Challapata

Good company for the evening and a dinner of “something with rice”.. and beer. I also had another go at my rack mount… the rack is steel and pretty tough so deformed it slightly and made a pinch-bolt kind of affair with widgets bought at the market such that the dropout is taking the load with washers each side to hold the whole thing in alignment…

Challapata

Challapata

Challapata

Sunday 11th.

… today :-) I am in Oruro at about 3700m altitude, my first Bolivian city… not a tourist destination – just a  gritty hardworking sort of a place where the rail line runs right down the main drag…took me by surprise to see two great engines pulling ore wagons down the road… I like it here, bustling and colourful. It’s a place where old women in traditional dress with bowler hats and huge bundles on their backs mix it with sharply dressed youths and the occasional suited businessman. The adobe´burbs creep up the mountainsides behind the densely packed downtown core and the whole place is thick with cooking smoke, vehicle fumes and bad music…
Bolivia is hard going for the cyclist and in particular the last 2 weeks have been incredible, so here I have treated myself to a lush hotel room for an extravagant £16/night with movies on cable TV and a hot shower…. Fab, my first shower since Tuesday morning… I’ve shaved and cleaned under my fingernails, hehe, and dumped my filthy riding gear off to be laundered… it’s ace. A great place to eat fried chicken and chips, beer and icecream.. and rest up completely for a couple of days before making my final push for La Paz :-) Tell you what though… I’m really tired, more tired than a couple of good nights kip can fix… so sponsor me now for Shelterbox (that big blue ‘justgiving’  button up there on the right and it’ll be even more worthwhile :-) It is 3 months to the day since I arrived in Puerto Montt at the start of this journey, though it wasn’t until the 15th Jan I started riding. Since then I’ve covered 4850km/3000miles…  didn’t think that was too shabby really, even if I am a twit in Dutch… beats working :-)

p.s someone also left me a nearly new bottle of glitter nail polish in my room here… special night out tonight for me then , lol….

Uyuni etc..

a few words on Uyuni are in order I think…. I wasn’t expecting much having heard many travellers along the way refer to it as ‘a dump’ but having spent 2 days here I’ve decided they were wrong… sure it’s not that pretty to look at it but it’s a great little place, I’ve found the people to be brilliantly friendly (as usual a smile goes a long way), I’ve had great food (Bostonian chap living here makes the best pizza .. ever), a great place to stay and it has a very mellow atmosphere. Perfect for the tired cyclist after the 3 hard days getting here (if you haven’t read that bit yet it’s the post below…). The market is good too.

Uyuni

Uyuni

Uyuni

Uyuni

The outskirts of town are littered with garbage in all directions but amongst the broken glass and plastic bags there are also some very cool items of ‘garbage’ slowly crumbling away in the desert… I can’t show you all the detail pictures, I’d be here all night but these next few will give the general idea:

beautiful old steam locos...

.. gently decaying in the desert

atmospheric in late afternoon

fabulous skies... about 3700m here

a pretty special place...

..

pair of muppets...

right that’s it for Uyuni, tomorrow… 80 km of salt to ride across, and the day after that… another 50km of salt.. and after that… who knows, so last seen heading in a generally westerly direction… adios!

riding the rails… on to Uyuni..

I’m writing the first part of this entry in a little town called Atocha about 105km from Tupiza …. getting here has been amongst the most fantastic bonkers biking I can remember.. well on a sustained basis, the Himalayas had it´s moments but most of that was on defined tracks/roads… This is a photo heavy post too… the tiny photos and poor web colours on here can never come close to doing the journey justice but it will give some idea I suppose and besides, I doubt anyone actually reads my words anyway.. right? ;-)….

tried the road out of Tupiza... it didn not go well.....

So having tried the road we instead hopped onto the railway line… something of a commitment as it doesn´t go anywhere near the road until Atocha.

leaving Tupiza

some nice little singletrack early on..

Easy riding to begin with as the locals use the path alongside it to get around on their bicycles…

riding through remote communities with nothing but an occasional rail link

the bicycle now arriving at platform 1....

but as we moved further away from Tupiza the going got harder with many bridges to negotiate, and some very technical sections of singletrack to negotiate in places… it all got very physical, and uphill so we only made 55km for the whole day at an average of just 9.5km/hr, climbing 500m in the process to about 3500m…

nice riding

oh yes... :-)

so many careful crossings like this.. tyres balanced on the rails...

what to say... stunning riding :-)

loving it, about 3800m here

rest stop...

Despite running Schwalbe’s supposedly legendary Marathon XR tyres I also had 5 punctures this day.. the track was lined with bushes with thorns as tough as iron.. the final puncture of the day happened at 5pm right next to a perfect campsite: a patch of grass alongside and below the railway line and about 30m from the river.

wicked campsite just below the railway line

I happily left James to sort out dinner in return for me fixing his bike the previous day while I fixed my flat and then went for a skinny dip in the icy river… :-)

no idea what I'm doing....

forgot to turn my headlamp off...

In bed by 8.30pm the Tupiza-Uyuni train rumbled by at about 9.30pm, just 10 metres or so away – that was pretty neat. It got cold that night, down to around -5 or -6 degs, I made the mistake of leaving my waterbottles outside the tent….. everything frozen solid with a thick covering of frost next morning :-)

While thawing out in the early morning sun at our camp we figured we’d probably make Atocha around mid-day or early afternoon… Ha ha, no chance… the riding became increasingly extreme as we climbed to 4150m (13600ft).. averaging around 4-5km/hr it was a very physical day, frequently having to leave sections of unrideable trail to negotiate soft river beds and precipitious animal paths… so very difficult but in awesome wild surroundings with only the occasional hill farm or group of llamas along the way.. absolutely fantastic stuff… I’d hoped for some decent adventure in Boliva and here it was being delivered in spades…. and more than few cuts and scrapes, lol.

needs no words... about 3900m here. amazing feat of engineering the railway

yet more delicate bridge crossings

just about 4000m up

it´s an epic landscape

one of many tunnels, one was looong...

By mid afternoon we came across a couple of huts with a family up a hill by the track… a shouted conversation ensued .. we yelled we were going to Atocha, gawd knows what they thought we were doing but burying their surprise we got the message it was far… 10hrs far… ha, maybe walking…?

it all got a bit sketchy at times...

about 4150m here I think

Having covered just 21km and worked our way around yet another impossible section we came across a faint track heading across the altiplano in roughly the right direction (northwest) so left the rail line behind and struck out across the puna…

James seemed pretty keen on the llamas ;-)

water stop 4100 and something metres up..

this was heaven after the difficulties of the railway. I don’t know how to describe just how what it felt like to be up there.. exhilaration combined with intense fatigue… goosebump territory :-) The track eventually took us past a lake with flamingos to the remote pueblo of Tatasi…

Tatasi... pretty remote and windswept

not much here except a few crumbling adobe huts and scrawny looking hens. I knocked on a couple of doors to ask for directions…

anyone home...?

eventually an old lady appeared and set us on the track to Atocha… which was all down hill, very soft and sandy… and spectacular.

descent to Atocha

Terrific fun negotiating the berms and sand traps at high speed as the sun set over the mountains to the west. Arrived in Atocha at about 3700m, amusingly via the river bed, around 6.30pm after just 50km for the day. Absolutely shattered and looking forward to a good feed but completely forgetting about Good Friday until failing miserably to find anything to eat in town… The whole place was shut, even the one place that was open couldn´t be bothered with a couple of tired gringos so instead we set up our camping stoves in the bathroom of the residencial we stopped at in the plaza, and assembled a weird but satisfying dinner using the remains of supplies brought from Tupiza, cheese and a can of sardines found at a little kiosk open by the railway line… mmmm. Hungry cyclist.. eat anything :-)

Atocha

Atocha

Atocha... the plane is real... but why I have no idea :-)

Writing this next bit in Uyuni…. Saturday morning James cooked breakfast same way… on the floor by the toilet… while I went out in search of bread. The chap running the residencial pointed me to the part of town across the rail tracks.. so off I went. I asked at the bread shop…”no hay pan..” came the answer. Tried another place “no hay pan”… reapeated that a few times before giving up and resigning myself to a day of crackers but the chap at the residencial took pity on us and gave us home-made bread from his family and refused any kind of payment. Nice guy :-)

local transport... prefer my bike :-)

The road to Uyuni started steep.. very steep… we had a range of mountains to cross so for the first few hours we were reduced to an average of about 9km/hr as we made our way up and down some very steep little climbs, eventually reaching 4000m altitude once again.

road to Uyuni

little community about 10km from Atocha

There the road turned to hard packed mud and we clocked some decent speed taking turns in the wind and racing across across the altiplano. There was a small pueblo, no idea what it was called, about 48km out of Atocha with a shop… handy from some more bread and pepsi which was just enough to squeeze another 12km out of my legs for a lunch stop at 60km.

nice terrain....

simply fantastic riding and all about 4000m up

big skies... :-)

It was at that village the road turned difficult… very rough, corrugated ripio with some super soft dusty sections, and even a section of sand dunes… There’s not much to write about this except it was bloody hard with a constant headwind.

sand......

riding a choice of brutal gravel corrugations or alongside the road on fine dust so soft wheels sink to 3 or 4 inches....

Arrived in Uyuni at sunset after 105km feeling thoroughly beaten up…. Pizza and beer cured that. Mostly.. nah, it was an epic day, enjoyed it immensely ;-)

on the final stretch to Uyuni

the end of a long day... or rather long 3 days :-)

Still getting goosebumps when I think just how good the past few days have been :-) As for Uyuni.. well it is one of those places that really does deserve to be called desolate and windswept… at about 3700m up and just a remote outpost with litter strewn across the altiplano from about 5km out and a bunch of scruffy concrete buildings… but it seems friendly and I had good food and an awesome sleep last night so on that basis I like it.. as dumps go it´s OK :-) So here in Uyuni it is Easter Sunday but also election day.. the whole town has been pretty much locked down for the past 24hrs… no buses allowed to run to stop people voting and then moving on to another town to vote… the police/army are out and about and most businesses are shuttered. Oh the freedom of a bicycle :-)

We also bumped into kate & Malena again… they were dropped off their 4×4 trip and couldn’t escape to Potosi as planned because of the buses, or lack of… the 4×4 sounded hideous to someone used to the freedom of a bike.. not sure they entirely enjoyed it… We met at a pizza place run by a chap from Boston who has lots of useful local knowledge. The girls are intent on escaping to Oruro (brewery there you see…) while James and I are considering cooking up something a little different, skipping Potosi and Sucre in favour of something a little more adventurous…. before that tho I have some bike maintenance (mostly picking thorns out of my tyres) and 3 days of crustiness to wash out of my cycling gear.. so stay tuned and hast luego ;-)

p.s. as I write I am surrounded by Aussies whinging about the slow speed of this connection… mate you’re in the middle of nowhere in Bolivia… so if it’s that bad bugger off so my connection gets faster :-)

oh, by the way – I’m still fundraising for Shelterbox so if you enjoyed the read and have a few $$ or whatever to spare then I’d be grateful for any sponsorship – that big blue “justgiving” button at the top right of this page :-) Cheers!

rum & vodka… the last of Tupiza

here’s my last diary entry for Tupiza…. a very social evening on Tuesday up on the roof under a full moon in the company of Malena, Kate, James and a couple of Argentinian motorcyclists… also present at the party a cheap bottle of local rum (very tasty) and an even cheaper bottle of vodka (not so tasty).

Malena aspires to a Harley for her next adventure...

Don’t know what happened much after midnight but hangovers much in evidence next morning as the two girls slung their bikes on top of a 4×4 for 4 days bouncing over rough roads up around Uyuni and so on.

funky little cafe in Tupiza

As for me, well a few days bouncing around on rough roads also… just on two wheels. As I write it’s wednesday I think.. found a fantastic breakfast this morning in an funkily decorated old garage just around the corner before going off in search of supplies for the next few days on the road.. the usual stuff: rice, oats, pasta, nuts, dried fruit, crackers, avocado and stuff..

Tupiza

Rather amusingly have been bumping into a pair of russian girls on frequent occasions over the last couple of days…. sadly not on bikes but much better behaved and nicer to talk to than the pack of Israelis that have been in town… watched them dismantle a restaurant last night and then bugger off when they found out pizza wasn’t on the menu, lol… the same the whole world over.

Tupiza

Trying hard to think what else happened in Tupiza, I felt really busy but probably only did useful stuff for an hour or so. Tupiza has been great for a couple of days of r’n'r… a beautiful plaza and very friendly people and despite what those Brazilian dudes said in La Quiaca .,. some beautiful and cheeky girls too, lol ;-)

Tupiza

oh, before I forget.. some boring number stuff I’d completely forgotten about… When I entered Argentina way down south I had to put on the immigration form the number of days I planned to spend in Argentina… up to 90. I had no idea.. I figured it would be a while but not as many as 90… finger in the air I wrote down ’70′.. the immigration guys thought that was funny but I said “hey, Argentina es un pais grande..”. What is interesting(ish) is that, without any planning, the day I left Argentina was exactly 70 days to the day since that day down south…

Tupiza

The other interesting (moderately..) was that when my odometer recently rolled past the 4000km mark the elapsed time on my computer showed exactly 200 hours (well, 200hrs and 6 minutes) riding time which is amazing… precisely 20km/hr across the deserts, mountains and all those winds :-) Can’t imagine it’ll last, Bolivia I suspect is going to turn into a whole other bucket of octopi..

Tupiza

another day, another country, another beer…

..enjoyed some terrific kippage in La Quiaca so felt OK on Monday morning, still weary though and I’ll have a few more lines to my face when I get home, but quite up for the ride to Tupiza… Getting across the border into Bolivia was a doddle, a 5 minute queue before the bridge to Bolivia to exit Argentina and just another 5 minutes in a shed on the other side of the bridge to enter Bolivia… The chap at immigration was super nice, wished me a safe journey and good luck and gave me a 90 day visa… people I met coming south had only been given 30 days… so either he liked cyclists or got laid last night… either way he was in a really good mood. An excellent intro to Bolvia. We also met Kate and Malena here from back down the road in Jujuy… they were in Humahuaca on Sunday morning based on an email I’d received so slightly surprised I said “how did…..?”. “we got the bus” came the cheeky reply…lol, don’t blame them, it was hard riding. So with four cyclists we were a regular posse as we rode approx 1km up the road under the bemused looks of the locals to a cafe for breakfast :-)

La Quiaca

La Quiaca

I’m always fascinated how a pretty much arbitrary line drawn on a map can make so much difference on the ground.. La Quiaca was a quiet, orderly, if a little scruffy, town… Villazon on the Bolivian side however is a colourful, seething, bustling mass of people and black market goods… and even scruffier :-)

climbing out of Villazon

The rest of the day then was a fabulous ride, hard work but grin inducing.. 95km with 770m of climbing and 1200m of descending, we managed it in just over 5hrs of riding and 2hrs of faffing about eating and taking pictures, arriving tired, covered in dust and smiling at about 4.30pm. Pretty pleased with the time we made considering the altitude. The first 45km climbed and dived across the high puna before descending to below 3000m… back in cactus country. Loved the whole day – the terrain was amazing, the people were fantastic – all waves and smiles – even from the truck drivers, and despite the road being 95% dirt it wasn’t particularly bad dirt – mostly compacted mud rather than sand or corrugated gravel. There’s a lot of attempted road improvement in evidence in places, some sections of new all-weather surface to bypass the worst of the wet season muddy sections, but not worth lugging the bikes up the tall embankments onto – these sections had a habit of lasting 500m and then ending in a gaping chasm where they hadn’t got around to building a bridge. Judging by what I saw they might finish this road in 30 years time… Speaking of the wet season, it’s not done just yet – enormous thunderstorms towered around us much of the day and it rained pretty hard again last night. Hoping the road to Uyuni is dry enough to be reasonably passable, don’t fancy a 3 day mudbath.

road to Tupiza

Tupiza itself is set in a wide river valley at about 2950m, below the level of the puna. I’m absolutely worn out today but we plan to stop 2 days to rest before the 215km slog up to Uyuni. The girls also made it all the way in last night which was brilliant, but sadly too late to join us for the best pizza I’ve had in all of South America. Ever. Staying in quite a nice little guesthouse for a fiver/night where the shower sprays water all over a 220v socket on the wall and the girls running the place are trying desperately to get us on a 4×4 for a tour up to Uyuni…. and failing miserably :-) So far liking Tupiza very much… scruffy, laid back and very friendly :-)

stopped for lunch and a doze on the railway tracks ... I blame the parents

Enough of the words.. here are as many pictures as I have the patience to upload, the connections here are shite….

big sky country

road to Tupiza

thundery skies ahead..

different terrain again...

.. and again...

subterranean riding too... ;-)

hollowed out of the rock..

towering cliffs alongside the Rio Tupiza

….gawd this is tedious, just two more pics then, below. Forward plan is 3 days for the 215km rough track up to Uyuni.. have been advised to ride along the rail track instead – better surface, lol. From Uyuni cycle out onto the Salar, then north east to Potosi and Sucre etc… judging by state of internet here not sure when next update will be – probably a short one in Uyuni and then maybe Sucre or a Paz a big picture update… or something. It´s going to be hard riding but really looking forward to it :-) For now though there is a family just down the street with terrific coffee and cakes in the front of their house… so stay tuned and hasta luego!

Tupiza... the view from my gaff

with ref to the title... another beer, not very good this one but there are others to try... :-)