No Will Smith – just a real threat of extinction
By Joel Katz

Chacaltaya’s days are numbered. Nestled away in the Bolivian Andes, the glacier has existed for 18,000 years, but over the last two decades most of it has melted away.

Edson Ramirez is the country’s leading glaciologist. Sitting in his office at the University of San Andres in La Paz, he gestures to the narrow streets below. Many from his hometown and nearby El Alto depend on tropical ice fields like Chacaltaya for their water, he explains.

His youthful face dulls momentarily. It’s rising temperatures, he says – that’s why it’s disappearing.

About 300km south is Salar-de-Uyuni – the world’s biggest salt-flat. Sitting inside a giant prehistoric crater, this moonscape setting is a tough place to survive. But the Uru Chipaya tribe have been here for generations, outlasting the Incan empire and the Spanish conquest.

Now they face extinction.

Chief Felix Quispe says that the river that sustained his people for so long, the Lauca, has been reduced to a trickle.

“Over here used to be all water,” he says, pointing across a dusty plain. “There were ducks, crabs and reeds growing in the water. I remember that. What are we going to do? We are water people.”

Landlocked and poor, the largely indigenous nation is a snapshot of the effects of climate change on developing regions everywhere. With the largest rich-poor divide in South America, a harsh environment, and an economy based on market-sensitive exports like tin, natural gas and soybeans; the Andean nation is like the canary in the coalmine.

Both socioeconomically and ecologically, right now the country’s reeling from the impacts of climate change – and the canary’s twittering us a warning we can’t ignore.

Unpredictable weather and lower rainfall destroy crops, and clear-cutting triggers landslides and massive flooding. Meanwhile forest fires scorch lowland areas, as mosquito-borne diseases spread to areas where they never existed before.

With reduced harvests, trips to the market are less profitable. Struggling to make ends meet, parents get their kids to help out on the farm, instead of sending them to school. With no formal education, their futures are bleak – for the most part they end up trapped in a poverty cycle that just goes round and round.

A recent Oxfam report on the impacts of climate change in Bolivia says that more and more people are becoming destitute. With few resources and a weak economy, can developing regions like this cope with these unprecedented climactic shifts?

The answer is no.

Climate change and other urgent areas like education, human rights and food are as tightly inter-woven as the threads of a snug Alpaca-wool poncho.

There’s no picking apart these issues.

So if aid agencies like ActionAid focus on climate change they will actually be tackling other clearly pressing development issues too. And if world leaders, NGOs and other key players don’t take action now, an already dire situation will become catastrophic.

It’s not just Bolivia. This is going down big time worldwide, from Togo to Tuvalu.

A few months back Tropical Storm Ketsana ripped across the Philippines archipelago, killing more than 277 and displacing about 2 million others. News video shows rivers engulfing downtown Manila; locals desperately clutching to rafts of refuse as they sweep past buildings and floating cars. Emergency services were stretched to breaking point in the aftermath of the heaviest downpour in 40 years.

Over the last few years tropical storms like Hurricane Katrina, Andrew and Ike ripped through the Caribbean and southern US killing many and costing more than $100 billion damage. Cyclone Nargis lashed Burma last year, killing at least 146,000 people, and razing much of the land, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless and without access to clean water or basic facilities.

Southeast Asia has been battered by these kinds of weather systems this year, and so too has their fragile economies. Wildfires ravage parts of Australia and the US. Droughts parch Africa and many other places. Rising sea levels are submerging small islands and delta-regions. Tundra is disappearing across the far North.

Sounds like a blockbuster disaster movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal or Will Smith– but this is for real.

It’s impossible to accurately forecast the cost of climate change if it continues unabated, but former World Bank chief economist, Sir Nicholas Stern, reckons that it could cut up to 20% of the world’s wealth by the end of the century. This dwarfs the massive losses suffered from the recent financial crisis, but like the meltdown it will hit the poorest the hardest.

If global temperatures rise by 2 degrees, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPCC) predicts that worldwide an extra 400 million could be exposed to malaria, 600 million could be affected by malnutrition, and 1.8 billion could be living without enough water. Hundreds of millions will lose their homes and land to sea-level rise, and damage from tropical storms and hurricanes will increase as they get fiercer and more frequent.

Countless more will be dragged into poverty – sidelined from the mainstream economy.

With Copenhagen fast approaching, most negotiators agree that climate financing must be at the centre of any fair and comprehensive climate treaty, but they squabble over who will pay. Climate financing means that wealthier nations will help foot the bill so poorer regions can adapt to climate change and switch over to cleaner technology.

At a recent forum in the Maldives, nations that are most threatened by global warming issued a declaration of their concerns and demands.

The words are powerful – especially considering some of the signatory-states might not exist by the end of this century. It argues that advanced economies have a moral duty to bankroll the bulk of climate financing, as they’ve been pumping out greenhouse gases since steam trains started rattling around the English countryside, in the early 1800s.

Like governments, aid agencies also must zero in on global warming as a priority, even though there are so many other critical issues to deal with. Besides, these two fronts of the development world overlap on so many different levels. Investing in a clean future means more jobs, less pollution, and a more sustainable global economy – one that isn’t based on exploiting the resources and cheap labour force of poor regions to feed the insatiable appetite of the rich.

Back in La Paz, Ramirez pulls on his baseball cap and shakes his head. He says that if it keeps getting hotter he’ll have no job and the city’s residents will have no water.

And that’s the least of our problems…

The following was written late last night whilst stranded in a bus station but I wasn´t able to publish it till now….

I am writing from Jujuy bus station biding my time waiting for a bus since the earlier one was cancelled. At present I am feeling rather smug as I sucessfully negotiated several phone calls in Spanish to try and make sure when I arrive at my destination at 1am there will be a bed for me. Shame to break my habit of just rolling up and finding something when I arrive but, given that it will be pretty late, a couple of hours pre-planning seemed prudent. As it happened the first 5 places were full so it´s quite a relief to have a bed sorted….I hope. If not. I´ll be sleeping in the bus station.

This latest drama is the last in a long line of traumas sent to test me today. 3 buses, a long wait at Argentinian immagration, a control point where everyone had to get themselves and all their luggage off the bus to be searched, chaos trying to find a bus to get me this far and then the connecting bus cancelled. It´s been a long day! All part of the advenutre though right?! Luckily, when I get into the swing of travelling, I never really expect to be in control so these things don´t really phase me. A contrast to the stress-head I can be at home!

Despite the added hastle this detour into Bolivia has caused me, it was nonetheless totally worth it. Even with several 4.30am starts on the Salar de Uyuni tour and a lot of travelling, the tour was amazing. The landscapes are otherworldly and quite spectacular. Lagoons, semi-active volcanoes, geysers, thermal springs, the biggest salt planes in the world and lots of wildlife including flamingos, condors and lots of things I have forgotten the Spanish for and never knew the English for. Google ´Salar de Uyuni´and ´Laguna Colorado´and I´m sure you´ll find lots of photos. We stayed in some incredibly remote places without electricity and even in a hostel made entirely from salt!

For the entire 4 days we were above 4000m and peaked at over 5000m. Every exertion made me a bit breathless but otherwise I was ok. Unfortunately one of the other girls wasn´t so lucky and the effects of altitude became quite apparant.

So Now I am back in Salta where I mwas 2 weeks ago. This afternoon I embark on a 23 hour bus journey which I am not looking forward to with much glee. Will be nice to arrive in Iguazu though.

Some photos of the Salar de Uyuni Tour….

Once the possibility to visit another country (and add another stamp to my passport!) had presented itself, I just couldn´t resist the urge of carrying on the further distance to Bolivia itself so yesterday I made the trip over the border to Tupiza in South West Bolivia. The difference once you cross the border is immediate. Up to the border, it was a comfortable, newish bus running vaguely to schedule but in Bolivia, the bus which took us the last leg looked like it was about to fall to pieces. There weren´t proper roads and the terrain was quite difficult so I´m surprised we made it at all! It´s great to be here though and it´s fantastic to experience somewhere different.

Tomorrow is the election here so everything is pretty much shutting down for the day. Then on Monday I´m heading off on a four day tour of the lagoons and salt flats in the area with three Austrian girls I met on the bus. It´s meant to be quite incredible scenery so I´m looking forward to that. The highest point of the trip will be about 5000m above sea level which could feel a bit tough. Already here at 3000m I´m feeling a bit more breathless than normal I think. I have a stash of coca leaves to ease the effects though!

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The Witches’ Market – Thomas Carroll encounters strange luck charms in La Paz’s famous market.

Sweet Like Sucre - Esther Press  meets some young entrepreneurs, has a bargain lunch, and takes a ride on a “Dino-Truck” in the southern Bolivian town of Sucre.

Diggin’ Deep . . The Potosí Mines – EPress buys some gifts for the Cerro Rico miners and blows up some dynamite in Potosí.

The Bolivian Salt Falts: Mother Nature’s Watercolor Playground – Uncornered Market has a photo essay on the surreal Salar de Uyuni.

Bolivia by Boat – Tom Dibblee meditates his way down a river in the Bolivian Amazon.

I’ve Been Up the Mountain and I Had a Choice – The trek up Huayna Potosí bends, but not breaks, Michael Bonnet.

Rainforest Could Be Traded on World Market – BBC reports on the collaboration of private energy firms and environmental groups in conservancy projects.

Here’s the link to my photos from Bolivia so far, including the Salar de Uyuni.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=130934&id=524640807&l=4bfac1e869

I did want to see the Salar so, as I don’t have a 4×4 to hand, or much idea about driving through desert I had to compromise on my values and take an organised tour. I couldn’t stomach the thought of 3 days cooped up in a Jeep driving around for hours so opted for a one day tour, which was kindly offered by the people from the hotel we’d stayed at. It turned out the group wasn’t so bad, a couple of Bolivians from La Paz working in the area joined me, Sergio and two Israeli guys, and the highlight of the day for me was probably understanding most of what the guide had to say, even though it was totally in Spanish.

First stop on the tour was the train cemetery just outside Uyuni which is nothing more than a number of wrecked trains that have somehow ended up here to rest in peace, or pieces. One of them is apparently the train that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid held up before they were hunted down and shot dead in the area, but none of the guides seemed to know exactly which one it was. After spending a while climbing in and on old train engines we moved on to a village which houses a lot of the people who work the salt flats, but doubles up as a tourist trap of the highest order with the locals setting out stalls selling “traditional Andean crafts” as well as anything and everything you could possibly think of making out of salt, including in a “museum” the world’s biggest Llama.

The scenery (or lack of) was truly spectacular and you basically drive across stretches of salt where you can see nothing in the distance except white earth all the way to the horizon. There were a couple of hot springs “the eyes of the Salar” to pass on the way before we reached a small hostal in the middle of nowhere where we were to have lunch. The setting of this small settlement was particularly superb as it was located below a volcano (sadly inactive), with Llama’s and Donkeys grazing at the foot of the hill, and a nearby lake which was frequented by the odd Flamingo. Obligatory pictures taken and surprisingly good lunch eaten we were back on the “road”again, where we headed to a “cactus island” in the middle of the salar. I’m quite ashamed to admit that I can’t actually remember it’s real name, but basically it’s a rocky island covered in thousands and thousands of the things, it actually looked and felt more interesting than it sounds!!

After pottering around the island for an hour or so, and waiting for people taking the obligatory pictures making objects look amazingly larger than what they are, we headed to a salt hotel (believe it or not a hotel built entirely from salt) to see more giant llamas and salt based furniture. Before heading back to our hotel in Uyuni at the respectable hour of 630. I had actually enjoyed the tour (not only the scenery) but I was glad I wasn’t going to be holed in a jeep for four days with a group of people I had no say in putting together.

Uyuni is not exactly over-endowed with options in the evening and, after continuing a fruitless hunt for decent internet access I’d started the day before in Tupiza, I gave up went for a meal (which I ordered in one restaurant, but received from another) and decided to have an early night in preparation for the second Bolivian bus journey of my life!!

El salar de Uyuni está situado en Bolivia (+info en la wikipedia)

(Click para agrandar)

Este salar mola, porque cuando llueve un poco se vuelve un espejo que es la leche. Las imágenes son alucinantes.

August 11, 2009

As we approached Uyuni, I could see light peaking through the curtain. I pushed it back so I could wipe the water off the window. But the water didn’t move. It wasn’t water, it was ice. It had literally been a freezing cold night.  Needless to say, no one on the bus had slept much. We stepped off the cold bus into an even colder town. The sun was barely up and hadn’t had a chance to warm it yet.

There was someone from the tour company waiting for me. She shouted my name and held up a sign until I approached her. She welcomed me with a huge smile and continued to repeat my name. She walked me to the tour office. With each step, I increasingly couldn’t feel my feet on the ground. They joined my fingers in complete numbness along the ten minute walk.

The inside of the tour office was just as chilly. The woman turned on a floor heat lamp while we worked through the formalities. I’d signed up for a three day, two night tour. I was apprehensive about it. It was only going to get colder, and I had no idea who would be in my group. She left and said I could continue to hang out and defrost. When I finally felt my fingers and toes tingle and begin to regain feeling, I headed across the street to eat breakfast.

In the restaurant, I found my English former roommates and their three friends. There was a fire in center and three heat lamps made from barbecue gas tanks spread throughout the room. Over breakfast, we had a jovial conversation about the perils of traveling in Bolivia. It truly is a challenging destination. While laughing hysterically, we discussed how the amount of laughing we’d done often prevented us from breaking down and crying. I wished I’d been able to find their tour company office in La Paz, it would have been fun to go with them on the tour.

After breakfast, I still had quite a bit of time, so I went to look for a Western Union. I found one, but my attempt to claim my money there was unsuccessful. I figured that Sucre would be more modern and better place for transactions. I felt that I had enough money to last until I got there. I stopped by a store to buy wool mittens to layer over my gloves before heading back to the tour office. I was ready for my Salar de Uyuni tour.

Jeeps filled up and left and I was still sitting in an empty tour office waiting for a group. Finally, the woman who’d gotten me from the bus showed me to my group– five French people. They seemed like a nice group of people and like they wanted to be inclusive, but I still felt like the odd person out.

As we reached the outskirts of Uyuni, a group of teenage boys stared at us menacingly and showed us their middle fingers. It felt like an omen. We drove on through an open field of desert vegetation that was covered with trash. Our first stop was a train cemetery that was overrun with tourists. We agreed as a group that we did not want to stop there. We’d been among the last groups to leave Uyuni and it would be nice to get a head start to the next stops.

The next one was what I like to call a shopping stop. We were dumped in a spot with vendors selling a bunch of random items made out of salt. At this stop, I ran into a German guy I’d had a brief conversation with in Uyuni. He was doing a one day tour and I fully envied him at that point. His tour mate, a feminine English guy decked out in llama gringo gear, started to talk to me as though we’d already met. He seemed like someone who’d been traveling for awhile. I immediately like him.

Back on the jeep, we headed to the next stop, mounds of salt. It was here that I realized our guide’s main goal was to drive us around. The Amazon tour guide was just right. The Tiahuanaco guide was way too hot with his excessive amounts of information. This guide was way too cold. He never cracked a smile and drove without saying a thing until we arrived at a stop. “We stop here. You guys take pictures. 20 minutes.”

Inside the Salt Hotel

We drove across stark white land through electric blue sky, it was a whole lot of blindingly beautiful nothing. Our next stop was a salt hotel. I bumped into the English guy and German guy again there. “Do you want to stay in a place like this?” the English guy quizzed me. No, I did not. But my tour included staying in a salt hotel that night. We got back in the van to head off to our next stop. Because you are so close to it, when the sun comes up, it can get warm. Now defrosted, my exhausted body could relax enough for me to fall asleep.

Incahuasi Island

I woke up to the most incredible sight I’ve ever seen, an island of green cacti in the distance surrounded by a sea of white salt. It was Incahuasi Island and it was magnificent. Somehow upon waking up, I also knew with absolute certainty that I was done with the tour. I asked around to see if any of the day tour groups had extra space in their jeeps. The English guy told me his group had an open seat. He talked to the driver who said it was fine as long as everyone in the group was okay with it. They were.

I was cutting short the segment of my trip that was the impetus for the entire trip. The salt flat had been amazing, but I was ready to leave for several reasons. It was the impersonal feel of the tour and being carted around and dumped in various spots to take a picture or buy things. It was the thought of sleeping ina  hut in below zero temperatures. It was my wanting to get my money situation sorted out. I knew it was best to go. There was something that had been missing from my trip since I’d left the Amazon– joy. I’d been doing the things I thought was supposed to be doing in Bolivia without considering how I was feeling in the moment. I wanted the joy to return to my trip for the last week and a half of it.

I had lunch with my French group. If you don’t request vegetarian, all the tours automatically serve you the same lunch: llama, quinoa, and some combination of vegetables and fruit. Afterward,I did some more exploring around the island after lunch and then helped the English guy take perspective pictures.

He’d had his camera stolen a while back so all he had was a disposable camera. Perspective shots are harder than you think and even more challenging with a disposable camera. I couldn’t waste a shot. He had a stack of books and wanted to look like he was sitting on top of them. I asked him to move forward and backwards. I moved forward and backwards, and went high and low. Finally I figured out that I could get the shot by laying on the ground on my stomach.

The group I hitchhiked back to Uyuni with

After this, I got my backpack from the top of my original group and moved it to my new jeep. I hoped my group members didn’t take it personally. They had  looks in their eyes that made me think they thought I was doing the wrong thing. Maybe they thought I’d be missing out on some great sites. I was sure I would, but I also knew more than anything that I wanted to go. Travel has become less about sites and more about experiences for me. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to visit the salt flat again under better circumstances. If not, I still saw it and opening my eyes to see an amazing island of cacti will be an unforgettable image in my memory.

The English guy was heading on a train to Argentina that night, but I had to wait to catch a bus until the next day. It was possible to take one that night, but night buses are not recommended in Bolivia when there is an option to take the same trip during the day. Thefts are more common when traveling overnight. We went in search of a reasonably priced hostel room for me and I eventually settled on one that was affiliated with Hostelling International. I bought a bus ticket through the hostel. They told me I couldn’t go all the way to Sucre the next day, I’d have to stop in Potosi for a night.

I got settled in my room and then went to meet up with the English guy. We went to an internet cafe that was expensive compared to everywhere else in Bolivia and so impossibly slow that it wasn’t worth it. We left and looked for a place to have dinner. One recommended restaurant was completely full. We found a restaurant tucked into a little hallway off the main square that was completely empty. Who knew how the food would be, but we had the place to ourselves.

The restaurant seemed to be a part of the house of the family who operated it. A cute little girl was setting fire to napkins with a barbecue gas tank heater. She smiled at us as she dropped the burning napkins on the ground. My educator instinct kicked in and I shook my head to signal that she should stop. She kept doing it while looking directly at me with an even bigger, more mischievous smile. My English friend and I shared stories over an incredibly long dinner until it was time for him to catch his train.

A few of the restaurant's "specialty of the house"

As we left, the little pyromaniac girl chased after us so she could give me a hug. That, combined with meeting an awesome person to spend the day with, warmed my heart. On our way out, we noticed a possible reason for us having the restaurant to ourselves. There was an awfully translated sign advertising the dishes the restaurant offered. It read, “we offer him the specialty of the house… PLATES NATIONAL MEAT OF HE/SHE CALLS OR HEAD.” Dishes listed on the sign included: chop male, mounted loin, cream, and pasture. This gave us a good laugh. I was sad that I didn’t have more time to spend with my new English friend, but constant parting was something I had to get used to on that trip. We said goodbye and I went back to my hostel.

There was a sink right outside my room and I turned it on to brush my teeth. Water trickled out for a couple seconds and stopped. None of the other sinks had water so I used bottled water. I used the toilet and unsurprisingly, it didn’t flush. I noticed a bucket of water in the corner and poured it in the bowl to flush it. I went to the front desk to request an extra blanket. It was super cold by then so I knew I’d need it. I went back to my room and got dressed for bed. No joke, this is what I wore that night:

• tights
• leggings
• yoga pants
• two pairs of cotton socks
• one regular pair of wool socks, one knee length pair pulled over my pants
• a camisole
• a long-sleeved t-shirt
• a turtleneck
• a fleece pullover
• a wool hoodie with the hood pulled up
• a wool scarf
• wool gloves
• wool mittens

I felt like Ralphie’s younger brother in A Christmas Story. But I was just doing what I needed to do to get a good night’s rest. It worked, and I drifted off to sleep dreaming of future days when I wouldn’t have to bundle up to the point where I could barely move before went to bed.

Salar de Uyuni fica na Bolívia

É a maior planície salgada do mundo

Em dezembro ou em janeiro…

Não importa, eu vou!

02.November:
Arrived Uyuni at about 7am feeling dead tired after a 12 hour bumpy ride through the desert. There was actually no road, the driver just aimed for the place that had the deepest existing tracks. Maybe no wonder the ride was bumpy like hop-a-long-cassidy! However, the landscape outside was amazing! The desert was illuminated by the moonlight (it was full moon) giving you the sense of driving on the surface of the moon!

After arriving, we met our English friends once again. We got on a four wheel drive with Imran & Sadiq (2 awesome guys I bumped into the day before) , Donald (from Netherland) and Marc (from France). Our first stop was el cemetaire de tren (a train graveyard) and we got heaps of wicked photos together with our English friends.

train robbery in motion

the chase after a train robbery

Indiana Jones

We then drove off and stopped at the very start of Salar de Uyuni. It was white and massive with tiny heaps of salt in small areas here and there. When the sun hit the white ground you were easily blinded, somewhat like on snowy mountains in the strong sunlight. I had to get my shades out before getting snow blinded!

the salt desert

café tables outside the closed down salt hotel

The next stop was a a closed down salt hostel with a little cold pool in front of it. Unfortunately we couldn’t go into the hotel, but we could peak through a couple of the windows that wasn’t barricaded.

inside the salt hostel

It was lunch time and were now at Isla Incahuasi. We climbed the little hill/mountain on the island which was made solely of corals, as the whole place had been under water in ancient times. Then it was time for a massive photoshoot in Salar de Uyuni. The spectacular landscape allowed for all kinds of optical illusions. This place was like no place I had ever been before! Even though I had seen some pictures from the salt desert earlier, it was quite a different actually being there yourself and just taking it in!

from the coral rocks at Isla Incahuasi

having Kris for dinner

handplant on plate

hungry Mary

We then cruised off to watch the sunset. The driver thought we had spent a bit too much time at the last spot, so he pressed the gas pedal to the bottom and we whooshed passed other cars and arrived well in time for the sunset at a perfect location with some mountains in the background. This place was just incredible! It was completely unreal to watch the sun set in this scenery, which was simply beyond words. It was pure magic and we all enjoyed it to the fullest. Just check out the photos below:

watching the sunset

sunset at Salar de Uyuni

After taking in the stunning colorshow of the sun, we rolled off racing with another four wheel drive towards the camp for the night. After driving for a while we came to a salt ho(s)tel at the end of the desert. The floor was covered in salt and the walls, beds and night tables were all made from salt(!) Kris, Mary and I shared a room with five beds while the rest of the guys in the group shared a 7-bed room. The whole complex was powered by a generator so each room and the hallway had a light. Although, the generator was switched off at about 10pm. There were also toilets and showers. After a tasty dinner, we went to bed at 10pm feeling pretty tired since we’ve had no sleep in 35 hours!

What a long and spectacular day! Can’t wait for what the next two days in this unreal environment have in store for us!

Five chicas.  A jeep.  A guide/driver.  A cook.  Several promises from Tupiza Tours: a jeep in good working condition, three squares a day plus snacks and sufficient bottled or boiled water.  Simple accommodations.  Information in Spanish on the sites we were to visit along the tour.

Four days touring Bolivia’s Southwest–active volcanoes, lakes of colors painters fantasize about, picturesque mountains bordering Chile, piedras that represent trees, vast landscapes–empty except for our group of seven (we saw other tour groups only at resting stops for meals generally), pink flamingoes, llamas and vacunas running free, a visit to natural thermal baths, the final day spent on the world’s largest salt flat.

It all sounded OK to me.  It had been impossible to escape the chatter about the Salar de Uyuni tour when I was traveling in Bolivia and Peru, and when I found myself in Northern Argentina and began hearing about the must-do tour again, I made my way further north, hooked up with Becca, a solo female traveler from England, in a hostel in Cafayate, Argentina and decided to hop on the tourist train again and return to Bolivia.

And so Becca and I arrived in Tupiza, Bolivia after a full day of travel and brutal border crossing and barely minutes later were offering a deposit to begin a three-night, four-day Salar de Uyuni tour the following morning with a company that had come to us highly recommended but which I cannot recommend (more on that later).

We joined two French women and a girl from Italy and learned that–surprise–the common language was Spanish and not English.  Becca’s language skills exceeded mine, though I was pleased to accept the compliment from the Tupiza hostel worker, who remembered me from the last time I was there with Hugo and told me that in two and a half months, my Spanish was “mucho mejor.”

Yet, the language wasn’t a barrier, and though I couldn’t understand everything that our guide, David, said,  I didn’t need to for my eyes to appreciate all that they were taking in.

Our group got on fine–most of the time.  Rising at 4:15 AM the first day, we five packed our bags, rolled up our sleeping bags (though we had been placed in a concrete-walled habitacion, there was no heat in the entire pueblo, and nights in Bolivia are insufferably cold), and met for a breakfast of cafe, pan, y dulce de leche several minutes later before heading out in the jeep for a twelve-hour day.

Much of the second full day, like the first, was spent inside of the jeep.  David would stop the car every time we reached a site of interest and tell us we had fifteen minutes to walk around and take photos.  As this was the typically standard tour, I didn’t complain about the long hours in the jeep, though the French girls were less than thrilled and drove me, more than once, to reach for my Ipod.

The sites were truly fascinating, and I don’t consider and have never considered myself a nature-loving person.  I like the outdoors and I appreciate awesome scenery, spectacular landscapes, and unfamiliar, natural places, but I don’t often feel moved by these types of things.  Thus, I didn’t mind the brief stops–there was so much to see, and the only possible way to see it all was by taking one of these tours–and I looked forward to our almuerzos each day, a pleasant break in the long days.  Julia, our cook and David’s fiance, whipped up some pretty impressive meals, often by the side of the road, out of the back of the jeep: milanesa, ensaladas de papas y tomatoes, pastas, meatballs.

When she sensed a growing crankiness among the group in the jeep–I don’t know, could it have been the daily, consistent jeep’s breaking down that unnerved us all?–she offered lollipops, Oreo’s, and jamon-flavored crackers.

Neither David nor Julia communicated with us much about the status of the jeep, but by the end of the third day, it was clear that we needed a replacement.  While their lack of communication bothered me, I reminded myself, with Becca’s help, that this was Bolivia, South America.  I had to change my expectations.

After she served us dinner in the salt hotel (everything made of salt save for the toilet), Julia left us to eat and drink the wine we’d purchased in the pueblo.  This tour differed far greatly from my trekking tour to Machu Pichu, for there was no talk of our group’s being a “family”, and David and Julia never ate dinner with us or took tea and biscuits with us when we arrived in the pueblo where we were to spend the night.

The last night, none of us minded, for we were deep in discussion about what to do about the problematic, dysfunctional jeep (when it said right there on our contract that the company would send a new one if necessary, and it was clearly necessary at this point) and whether or not we thought we should pay the full tour cost, which was to be settled once we arrived in Uyuni on the following day (so much responsibility for 22 year-old David).

Although none of us wanted to pay the total balance–how many hours had the crappy jeep cost us, we wondered?–when David told us, not in an angry or aggressive manner, that he and Julia would be docked an entire day’s pay if we didn’t pay what we owed, we reconsidered.  (In the same conversation, he also said that there would be no new jeep.)  I have neither the time nor the energy to express how abominable I find the company’s practices, if David’s words were true; in fact, I don’t know if I have the inclination or energy to write to Tupiza Tours (something I’d surely do if back in the States and dissatisfied with a customer service practice), for I don’t want to get the young couple fired, but mostly my disclination to take any action is simply because after our final day on the salt flat, negative feelings ceased to exist.

We rose at 4 AM the last day, allowing enough time to reach the salt flat for sunrise.  Armed with 3/4 of a bottle of vino tinto leftover from the previous night, we waltzed around the salty ground, passing the bottle back and forth as we watched the sun take its place.  David and Julia stayed in the car, keeping themselves from the bitter cold of that early morning, and I wondered if they ever got used to watching people’s outrageous expressions as they found themselves in the middle of twelve kilometers of whiteness that resembled snow but was– to be sure, for I tasted it– salt.

We were given hours on the salt flat (no complaints from any of us, most definitely not the French girls), taking breakfast on the flat and countless photos.  When the wine was gone, we started in on the mate, and I skipped around like a happy little kid.

“Siento volada,” I said to Sara, the Italian girl, and she smiled and nodded in agreement.

I felt high.  So high that later, once we’d returned to reality and were no longer free to run the blank space of the flat, I felt rather low, melancholy and a bit empty.  In all of my life, I’d never felt anything like how I felt when I was on the Salar.    Maybe that’s a lame statement and not full of anything valuable, but I don’t know what else to say.

It was that fucking amazing.

“Que increible!” is all that most of us could muster when we’d come in contact with what we’d been anticipating for three days or far more, given that it seems many people travel to Bolivia solely for the purpose of visiting the Salar de Uyuni.

I’d listened and nodded when other travelers told me about their experiences on the flat.  Sure, I thought, a lake’s a lake is a lake.  But somehow, when you’re the only person staring into that lake, when your jeep of seven is the only jeep as far as you can see way out in the middle of the salt flat at 6 in the morning, and the whiteness is so sharp that it’s dangerous to be without sunglasses, it’s not just a lake, and it’s not just the world’s largest salt flat.

Whatever it was that produced those incredibly rich and emotional feelings within me also had me handing over my remaining Bolivianos to David and Julia.  We were expected to tip the guide and cook based on our satisfaction and had agreed as a group a fair amount (for we were happy with all but the jeep), but in the end, I thought to hell with group decisions and offered David and Julia, who were to be married at the end of the year, a sum my dad would have approved of.

We arrived in Uyuni after one of our worst bus rides yet and thankfully we knew it would be our last in the country.  Of all the countries we’ve visited, bus travel in Bolivia has been the most unpleasant.  The majority of the roads in Bolivia, including those connecting major cities, are unpaved, rocky and dusty as was the case with the road connecting Potosí and Uyuni.  After being bounced aroundfor almost eight hours in a stuffy, smelly and overcrowded bus with no bathrooms, clouds of dust pouring in through the open windows and a very drunk man repeatedly passing out on Carlos’ shoulder we finally made it.  We decided we would visit the Salar de Uyuni and Bolivia’s southwest region en route to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile on one of the popular three day/ two night jeep tours.  With various tour agencies in Uyuni offering similar tours to the Salares we had originally planned to spend our first day in town comparing agencies and prices.  We were barely off the bus when we were surrounded by people offering tours and hostal deals and one woman in particular caught our attention.  She was looking to fill two remaining spots on a tour that was leaving the following morning and offered us free accommodation that first night in Uyuni and free transfer to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile if we signed on, it sounded good so we did. 

The Salar de Uyuni is the world’s largest salt flat.  At an altitude of 3653m and covering 12,000 sq km, it was once part of a prehistoric salt lake, Lago Minchín, which covered most of southwest Bolivia.  Today, a tour of the Salar and its surrounds is a surreal experience with visits to salt plains, hot springs, geysers, colored lagoons and volcanoes.  The ‘climatically challenged’ landscape is incredible and isolated with just a few small towns scattered across the region.  Heading south of the Salar through the far southwest of Bolivia toward the Chilean border the landscape is nearly treeless with gentle hills, volcanoes and lagoons that are home to three types of flamingos.  Located within the national reserve, Laguna Colorada is a bright, adobe-red lake fringed with white minerals and backed by mountains.  Also within the limits of the reserve is a 4950m high geyser basin.  Tucked into Bolivia’s southwest corner just across the border from Chile is Laguna Verde, a stunning aquamarine lake.  Looming over the lake at 5930m is Volcán Licancabur.

Fortunately, our tour turned out to be amazing and the sights we visited are surely some of the most impressive natural wonders I’ve ever seen.  Our guide, Lucio, was professional and took us everywhere we were promised we would go, the vehicle was in good condition, our food and accommodations were acceptable and everything was included in the price of the tour.  But what made our tour really special was the people traveling with us.  Aside from the two of us our group of six included Ivonna and Humbert from Poland and Angela and Johnny from Colombia.  We were all around the same age, spoke English and got along immediately.  Quite a relief since throughout the duration of the tour we were together constantly, even sharing the same dorm room while we slept.   After the tour ended we traveled together across the border to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile and when it finally came time to part ways it was like saying farewell to old friends.

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

Getting up at the ungodly hour of 5am in -20 degree weather was quite difficult, even if i had every bit of clothing i bought away with me on, i would still be freezing and possibly turning blue. Once up though i had my self some coffee and did my Flashdance run around and off we went.

It was still dark when we headed off, i thought today might have been a long day, but apparently it was going to be done by 9am.. well for those who weren’t heading back to Uyuni it was going to be a short day i guess. The first stop we made was at the Solar de Manana geyser basin, it is basically some sulphur pools and some man made geysers (according to our driver they are man made), it was bloody cold, so we got some token shots in the sulphur steam and jumped back in the van, the sun was still rising at this point so it was quite beautiful.. just cold!.

Sulphur Pits

Man Made Blow Holes

Maybe our driver was just smart, maybe lazy and hated cooking breakfast in the cold winds, but we seemed to be the only group not eating breakfast at the Termas de Polques hot springs. I thought the springs were going to be one of the highlights over the course of the 3 days, but how disappointed i would be.. it was nothing like the Fuentes Georginas that i visited in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Still, it may have been -15 degrees outside but i striped right down to my boardies (which was one of the items i wore to bed the night before) and went in for a paddle. It was worth it, i was the only one from our jeep brave enough to do it, and the view of the sun coming up over the desert was fantastic, i wish i could of stayed longer!

The Hot Springs!

Happy Chappy!

After getting my 3 layers of clothes back on we hopped back in the jeep and made our way to Laguna Verde, a short drive past the hot springs and we were greeted with the view of a turquoise Laguna with the stunning backdrop of volcan Lincacabur. It was quite a spectacular sight, just the water coloured green by the minerals, Arsenic, Lead, Copper was enough for me, never mind the towering volcano behind it.

Laguna Verde Panorama

Little did i know that Laguna Verde would be the last stop of the tour, as we reached the Bolivia/ Chile border posts it felt a bit sad as our group of 7 was splitting up and heading different directions, me and a couple others to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, and the rest back to Uyuni.

Overall the trip was fantastic, the driver didnt say much but was knowledgable in every way, and his kitchen skills were not too bad either. But what made the 3 days so fantastic was the group of 7 people who made up our jeep, so me and 3 others knew each other before we even reached Uyuni but that didnt matter, because by the last day we all got to know each other very well, and it worked. OK i may have offended the Canadian couple with my potty mouth, and i dont think the Korean backpacker enjoyed being called Annyong, but oh well, i think they got over it.

Onwards and Upwards!

La Paz es caótica pero amigable, sobre todo por su gente, siempre tranquila y educada. La ciudad se encuentra en el fondo de una inmensa hondonada intentando así arañar un poco de oxigeno al altiplano boliviano, aun así esta a 3600 metros de altitud y esto se deja notar al subir sus empinadas calles. Toda la falda de esa gran hondonada esta repleta de grandes barriadas muy humildes que como en todas las grandes ciudades latinoamericanas se asoman al centro económico donde corre la plata. Estuve tres días en La paz: uno para escribir, otro para pasearla y el tercero para visitar los restos de la ciudad de Tiwanaku (1500 ac-1200 dc), la que fuera el centro de una importante cultura considerada por su antigüedad la madre de las civilizaciones americanas.

Tiwanaku

Y tras La Paz me fui a Sucre, la capital histórica de Bolivia. Sucre esta llena de arquitectura colonial blanca y descafeinada, y mi llegada coincidió con las marchas en honor a la virgen que son en el fondo un carnaval encubierto. En Sucre estuve casi de paso, no me hizo tilín, allí me aloje en una cómoda habitación con duchita caliente y TV con cable, y ej que durante este nuevo ciclo del viaje he decidido mimarme un poquito más tanto en alojamientos como en transportes, así que de aquí hasta el final levantare un poco el pie de acelerador de las pelas, que me lo he ganado después de tanta austeridad monacal-mochilera.

Después de Sucre marche a Potosí, ciudad a más de 4000 metros de altitud y al pie del “Cerro Rico”, lugar mítico en el imaginario colectivo español, la gran mina de plata de la América colonial, y es que ya se sabe, ¡vale un Potosí!. Galeano en “Las venas abiertas de América Latina” cuenta que Potosí fue la “vena yugular del Virreinato, manantial de la plata de América, Potosí contaba con 120000 habitantes según el censo de 1573… La misma población que Londres y más habitantes que Sevilla, Madrid, Roma o Paris… A comienzos del siglo XVII, ya la ciudad contaba con treinta y seis iglesias espléndidamente ornamentadas, otras tantas casas de juego y catorce escuelas de baile. Los salones, los teatros y los tablados para las fiestas lucían riquísimos tapices, cortinajes, blasones y obras de orfebrería; de los balcones de las casas colgaban damascos coloridos y lamas de oro y plata. Las sedas y los tejidos venían de Granada, Flandes y Calabria; los sombreros de París y Londres; los diamantes de Ceylán; las piedras preciosas de la India; las perlas de Panamá; las medias de Nápoles; los cristales de Venecia; las alfombras de Persia; los perfumes de Arabia y la porcelana de China. Las damas brillaban de pedrería, diamantes y rubíes y perlas, y los caballeros ostentaban finísimos paños bordados de Holanda. A la lidia de toros seguían los juegos de sortija y nunca faltaban los duelos al estilo medieval, lances del amor y del orgullo, con cascos de hierro empedrados de esmeraldas y de vistosos plumajes, sillas y estribos de filigranas de oro, espadas de Toledo y potros chilenos enjaezados a todo lujo”.

El Cerro Rico, abajo la ciudad de Potosí.

Potosí alimento de plata el mercantilismo europeo, el germen del capitalismo actual, hasta que el siglo XVIII marco el final de “la economía de la plata que tuvo su centro en Potosí; sin embargo, en la época de la independencia, todavía la población del territorio que hoy comprende Bolivia era superior a la que habitaba lo que hoy es la Argentina. Siglo y medio después, la población boliviana es casi seis veces menor que la población argentina… Potosí tiene ahora tres veces menos habitantes que hace cuatro siglos”.

“Aquella sociedad potosina, enferma de ostentación y despilfarro sólo dejo a Bolivia la vaga memoria de sus esplendores, las ruinas de sus iglesias y palacios, y ocho millones de cadáveres de indios”.

“En nuestros días, Potosí es una pobre ciudad de la pobre Bolivia: “La ciudad que más ha dado al mundo y la que menos tiene”… Esta ciudad condenada a la nostalgia, atormentada por la miseria y el frío, es todavía una herida abierta del sistema colonial en América: una acusación. El mundo tendría que empezar por pedirle disculpas”.

Para el viajero observador, y buen husmeador, Potosí aun guarda muchos tesoros en sus calles y fachadas, se advierte el fantasma de ese pasado glorioso y pujante. Calles llenas de historia bajo la mirada del Cerro Rico destripado y agujereado. A mi me gusto mucho Potosí por si misma y por lo que fue, es todo un museo viviente de la historia latinoamericana que merece ser visitado. A parte, en Potosí viví una de las experiencias más especiales de todo mi viaje, fue la visita que realice a las entrañas del Cerro Rico, a las míticas minas de plata de Potosí.

Con Oscar en la entrada de la mina La Candelaria.

La visita a Cerro Rico la realice con una agencia y guiado por Oscar, minero de Cerro Rico, era el único turista aquel día así que la visite solo junto a Oscar. Para la visita me proporcionaron ropa, calzado y un casco de minero, con su luz y todo, y me hicieron firmar un papel en el que se quitaban de toda responsabilidad en caso de accidente, hay que decir que la visita a las minas de Potosí entraña bastante riesgo debido a que visitas minas que aun siguen en explotación por lo que puede haber accidentes por derrumbes o explosiones, y la verdad es que cierto, y bastante acojonante si lo piensas dos veces y estas dentro de la mina.

El día de la visita fue un domingo, así que no había nadie trabajando en la mina, cosa que quita vistosidad pero ganas en seguridad, la mina que visitamos fue La Candelaria. La visita comenzó en el mercado que se encuentra en pleno barrio minero y que por ser domingo estaba lleno de mineros tomando, la mayoría borrachísimos, Oscar me advirtió que debía desayunar fuerte para la visita y me enseño una típica tienda donde los mineros compran sus cosas para el trabajo, incluido los explosivos, de hecho Oscar me ofreció que si quería podía comprar algunos cartuchos de explosivos que podríamos hacer explotar, yo decline educadamente la invitación, también me mostró el alcohol que toman los mineros diariamente, alcohol puro, también me ofreció y también decline, él se reía, lo que si hice fue comprarme una bolsa de hojas de coca, quería probarlas y aprender a mascarlas, los mineros consumen gran cantidad de hojas de coca al cabo del día, es un estimulante que les ayuda en el trabajo, como nuestro café, mascarlas les ayuda a sobrellevar el duro esfuerzo y les quita el hambre, solo realizan un desayuno fuerte previo al trabajo y hasta el final de la jornada no vuelven a comer, además acentúa el efecto del alcohol que toman, la triste realidad es que la gran mayoría de mineros trabajan narcotizados completamente, y enciman cuando libran le siguen dando al tema, el alcoholismo es la  triste consecuencia fruto de las durisimas condiciones laborales que soportan estos trabajadores, este drama también se traslada a sus familias, el maltrato esta a la orden del día, así como el trabajo infantil, hay muchos niños  de 14 o 15 años arañando la poca plata que queda en las entrañas del Cerro Rico. La explotación de la mina se hace a través de una coperativa de la que participan todos los mineros, pero por lo que me han contado de coperativa solo tiene el nombre.

Entrada a la mina La Candelaria

La visita duro unas cuantas horas, descendimos por estrechos túneles a distintos niveles de la mina, yo al final perdí la noción de si subíamos o bajábamos, y os tengo que reconocer que pase un poco de miedo, no es una experiencia recomendable para claustrofóbicos. Oscar me iba comentando todo lo relacionado con el trabajo en la mina y enseñándome las zonas de explotación así como los distintos minerales que nos encontrábamos, entre ellos amianto, altamente cancerigeno, y también había gran cantidad de aguas acidas por todos lados. Encontramos algunas vetas de plata y Oscar me regalo un par de pedacitos de ella. El ambiente era sofocante a ratos y frío a otros, te costaba mucho respirar, y habia mucho polvo, yo además por mi altura tenia que caminar todo el tiempo encogido, los túneles son estrechos y muy bajos, así que acabe agotado por la falta de oxigeno y por la sobrecarga muscular de caminar varias horas encogido. Pensad además que si a 4000 metros de altura el oxigeno falta imaginaros si además te metes en una mina. Las condiciones de seguridad son lamentables en la mina, hay gruesos cables de alta tensión colgando por todos los lados mientras el suelo esta encharcado en muchos tramos, además hay todo un caos de precarios travesaños de madera para sostener los túneles, de hecho hay muchos accidentes y muertos en la mina, yo le pregunte a Oscar y este me dijo que hasta la fecha había habido 40 muerto ese año, -¡40!- exclame yo, -sí, no son muchos, somos 5000 mineros en Potosí- me respondió riéndose un poco de mi reacción.

Algo curioso que me contó Oscar es que según las creencias de los mineros en la mina no entran ni dios, ni la virgen ni los santos. No están allá ni rigen dentro, no tienen poder en la mina, esto rompería con la omnipresencia y omnipotencia del supuesto creador. Para los mineros en la mina solo están la Pachamama (diosa prehispánica de la tierra) y el Tío de la Montaña (una encarnación del diablo). La Pachamama te protege y el Tío de la Montaña te da el mineral, si él quiere, o te quita la vida, si él quiere. Y según dicen, el acto de extraer mineral de la montaña es la fornicación metafórica entre la Pachamama y el Tío de la Montaña. Tienen un montón de distintos rituales dedicados a estas deidades, entre ellas sacrificar una llama con cuya sangre embadurnan la entrada a las minas y tirar el primer trago de alcohol puro a la tierra, como ofrenda a la Pachamama.

El Tío de la Montaña representado en el interior de la mina La Candelaria

Y después de la inolvidable experiencia en las entrañas de Potosí me marche en una cafetera con ruedas, y por caminos de tierra entre parajes lunares, hasta la pequeña ciudad de Uyuni, ciudad que se encuentra en un rinconcito de Bolivia y en mitad de ninguna parte. Nada más llegar a Uyuni me fui rapido a ver su famoso cementerio de trenes, una vía de tren que acaba en mitad del desierto y en el que abandonaron un sinfín de locomotoras y vagones de otras épocas, es un lugar muy evocador. Yo fui a verlo al atardecer, andando y solo, y a la vuelta lo pase mal, se me hizo medio de noche, el cementerio esta en las afueras, así que volví en la penumbra y rodeado de bastantes perros callejeros que rondan por los arrabales, yo tengo miedo a los perros así que fue un momento bastante tenso para mi, decidí caminar dirección a la ciudad y mirar al suelo todo el tiempo, y no pensar en nada más, llegue atacao, pero no me atacaron por más que me ladraban…

El cementerio de trenes de Uyuni

Desde Uyuni cogí un tour de tres días hasta San Pedro de Atacama (Chile). Con un todo terreno recorrimos el Salar de Uyuni, el salar más grande del mundo, y también las lagunas altiplánicas bolivianas que hay entre el salar y San Pedro de Atacama. Y fue alucinante, de lo mejor del viaje, el Salar espectacular, cosa esperable, pero yo sobre todo alucine con los paisajes de mil colores de las lagunas altiplanicas, un paisaje desértico de volcanes, géisers, flamencos rosados y lagunas de colores a más de 4000 metros de altura, mágico, de otro mundo, solo faltaban los dinosaurios paseando. En el tour éramos siete más Octavio, nuestro guía-conductor-cocinero-y lo que hiciera falta, un tío muy majete aunque sordo como una tapia, le preguntabas cualquier cosa gritando y te respondía otra – ¡Octavio! ¡¿Esa montaña es un volcán?!- y él te respondia -¡faltan 10 minutos!- y todos nos descojonábamos, también tenia algo de maestro zen, siempre hablaba con pocas palabras y conciso, una vez nos dijo – Esa montaña se llama ???, y esa otra ???- entonces se giro y nos miro solemne, y levantando el dedo índice afirmo rotundo -Porque cada montaña tiene su nombre- mágico silencio y todos flipando. Además la convivencia con mis compañeros de viaje fue muy buena, fueron tres días estupendos. De lo mejor del viaje.

El Salar de Uyuni

Isla del pescado, en mitad del Salar de Uyuni. Con cactus milenarios que pueden alcanzar los diez metros de altura.

El arbol de piedra

La Laguna Colorada

La Laguna Verde

Los géisers

Mis compañeros de tour, de izquierda a derecha: Felipe (Brasil), Cata (Chile), Andrey (Francia), Rocio (Chile) y las Anas (Polonia), agachado esta Octavio (Maestro Zen Boliviano).

La carretera que une la frontera boliviana con San Pedro de Atacama, en Chile, es algo más que una carretera, es el paso a otro mundo, a otra América, una América más rica y confortable, y para mí, en cierto modo, ha sido como el paso a Europa, Argentina y Chile son muy europeas y uno se siente como en casa. San Pedro de Atacama fue un lugar tonificante donde descanse durante un par de días, allí compartí habitación en el Hostel con “mis adolescentes chilenas favoritas”, con Rocío y Cata, ¡vaya pareja!, como había fiestas se iban de “carrete” y volvían a las tantas de la madrugadas “piripis” (vamos a decir eufemísticamente), así que me despertaban y me daban la murga. Me he reído mucho con ellas sobre todo cuando se reían de mi, son muy majas, ya hemos quedado para vernos en Santiago y que me lleven de cervezas.  Desde San Pedro también visite en tour el bonito Valle de la Luna, desde donde contemple un espectacular atardecer de tonos rojos y violetas sobre el desierto.

Y de San Pedro de Atacama me pase a Argentina, patria del Ché, Borges, Cortazar y Maradona, habitantes insignes de mi imaginario personal, es un país que tenia muchas ganas de conocer, y en el cual ahora me encuentro. Así que salte en bus desde un lado a otro de los Andes dejando atrás “la espina dorsal sudamericana” que habia seguido desde Venezuela, el autobús atravesó una zona preciosa de cerros de colores y llegue hasta Salta, y desde allí me descolgué por el norte de Argentina hasta Asunción, capital de Paraguay, este viaje lo hice con Jesús, un puertorriqueño que conocí en Salta y que trabaja en Paraguay, es el primer Jesús negro que he conocido, venia de marcarse un viaje por tierra desde Caracas en solo tres semanas! . Y también durante este trayecto en autobús ví algo excepcional, algo de lo que había leído mucho pero que nunca había contemplado, ví “el rayo verde”, un fenomeno lumínico que ocurre raramente al atardecer y que tuve la suerte de ver desde la ventanilla de mi autobús.

El rayo verde…

Con luna y todo…

Los Jesuses.

Asunción no tiene mucho que ver ni hacer, a parte de sorber un “terere” en un parque del centro y darle un paseo para satisfacer la curiosidad de conocerla. Solo estuve dos noches en Paraguay, fue solo una tapita del país, una noche en Asunción y la otra en Encarnación, a la cual llegue atravesando los llanos paisajes paraguayos llenos de grandes fincas ganaderas. La verdad es que me esperaba un país muy pobre, en las macrocifras Paraguay es el país más pobre de Sudamérica, aun así a mi no me pareció más pobre que Perú o Bolivia, e incluso la sensación que ví en sus calles y pueblos fue más positiva que en esos países. A veces confundimos el PIB con el bienestar, y no es lo mismo, véase India. En Encarnación visite por la mañana las ruinas de las misiones jesuíticas de Trinidad y Jesús, en esta visita conocí a José, un bombero de La Coruña muy viajado que esta recorriendo Bolivia y Paraguay, con el me tome unas birras con muy buena conversación antes de volver a Encarnación, y entre que si esta la pago yo y esta la pagas tu y tal y cual, y la falta de costumbre, pues yo me puse pedete, así que pase la frontera argentina digamos borracho, menos mal que aun no les ha dado por poner control de alcoholemia en las fronteras, si no no paso.

Trinidad

Jesús

y José

Desde el lado Argentino, Posadas, tome un autobús hasta Puerto Iguazú, ciudad desde donde se visitan las famosas Cataratas de Iguazú, las cataratas más grandes del planeta y uno de esos lugares que siempre quise conocer. Un lugar espectacular, una pasada, es el sitio que conozco donde más se siente la fuerza y el poder la naturaleza, te hace sentir pequeñito pequeñito, -demasiado poderoso- decía una chica para si mientras las contemplaba. Además el entorno es precioso, las cataratas están en mitad de la selva, lo que le da más exhuberancia al gran espectáculo hipnótico de agua que son las Cataratas de Iguazú.

Y de Iguazú a Buenos Aires tras veinte horas de carretera y paisajes pampeños llenos de fincas ganaderas, da gusto ver a las vacas tan sanotas y libres, no me extraña que luego estén tan ricas. Y aquí estoy, justo un año después de haber iniciado este enorme viaje, parece ayer cuando aquel 28 de septiembre del 2008  salía muy de mañana de casa de mis padres en Coslada con la idea de hacer un viaje sine die y hacia oriente, casi naa, aunque ahora le podríamos llamar de diferentes maneras, el viaje evolucionó de sine die a una vuelta al mundo, a una ruta transamericana, a tres meses en la India, a un Camino de Santiago planetario con sorpresa italiana, a un año viajando…

Yo siempre me había preguntado ¿que se siente después de viajar un año de manera ininterrumpida? y ya puedo responder a esa pregunta o al menos ya tengo mi respuesta. Mi estado actual se podría definir con tres palabras: contento, satisfecho y cansado. Contento por todo lo vivido y sentido; satisfecho al contemplar lo transitado y por haber hecho lo que tenia que hacer, por estar en el rumbo; y cansado porque nada es gratis y todo tiene su ciclo, y el ciclo de Mi GranViaje se está cerrando, mi cuerpo y mi mente me piden otras cosas, otros alimentos, y ya miran a la siguiente flecha amarilla, igual que antes del viaje miraban hacia oriente y sine die…

Foto>Roberta

Uyuni is ugly, cold and has terrible food.. But you cannot help ending up there!

The line above says it all… We only stayed here the night because catching a night bus from Potosi was not appealing at all, when we did get here at 7pm there was no power in the whole town, and it was just at the tail end of a storm that had covered the whole town in dust. After finding some appropriate accommodation, no heating, no hot water, no lights we went out to book ourselves on a tour, that wasn’t difficult at all as there is approximately 60 companies in Uyuni selling them. In the end we went with a one that was recommended to a friend, from a friend… so from here the tour could go either way!

The day started at 11am, Thankfully the power had come back on the night before so we managed to have a hot shower to warm us up, had some food and met up with the other 3 backpackers that would accompany us in the Jeep, which by the way didn’t look to bad, so i guess we were off to a good start. The first stop was the Train Graveyard which is based 3kms from Uyuni, a few dozen empty and rusted carriages sit beside the Bolivia – Chile rail line, it screams tourist attraction but creates some beautiful photos.. I didnt take enough now that i think about it.

Uyuno Train Graveyard, Great for photographs.. as i said!

Uyuni Train Graveyard, my favourite shot.

Not too far along a dusty road brings you into the Salt flats, and soon after that a token stop at the Salt Museum alongside the 30 or so other jeeps lets you see some tacky salt statues and gives you the last chance to buy some warm gear for the next couple of days.. Nothing interesting.. Next!

Further along into the Salt Flats brings you to Isla de Pescados (Fish Island), here you stop for lunch and get a chance to walk around the cactus covered landscape. Some of the cacti are over 1000 years old and are still growing to date, despite the multitude of jeeps at the base of the island it really is quite a beautiful setting. After lunch came the token salt flat shots, we only managed to get a few before our driver hurried us off to find some accommodation for the night, i actually don’t have any of the funny ones on my camera and am still waiting to see them!

Fish island and lots of Cacti

The Salt Flats.. a photgraphers dream!

I now realise why our driver was so persistent to get us moving, because as we sat in the front room of the hotel built of salt we watched about half a dozen jeeps driving around in the dark trying to find a bed for their now grumpy looking backpackers, at this time i thought ‘yes we have one of the good drivers, lets just hope he knows how to cook!’. The toilet in the hotel may have been blocked up, and the showers not working.. and it was bloody cold, but overall i was quite impressed so far.

we used the rest of our energy climbing this hill before dusk and getting a group shot.

You can see the rest of the Day 1 pictures here and here

Our jeep of adventure

Since I started planning my trip I have been excited to do the salt flats in Bolivia. In San Pedro we scoured the various agencies trying to find the best one for the best price. We had heard good things about the company Estrella del Sur and so bargained them down from 65,000 pesos to 58,000 and decided to go with them.

Then, the night before we were set to leave, we receive a knock at our hostel room door saying that the company had called and we were to go right away. They told us that the other people on our tour had cancelled and it was just the two of us, so we couldn’t go. They said they had called another company, Colque Tours, and we could go with them. We weren’t satisfied with this, though, because we would be paying the same price for a lesser company (base price at 60,000) and we had heard bad things about Colque.

So, annoyed, we went out onto the street trying to figure out what to do. Then a tour operator we hadn’t tried before, Tierra Mistica, was standing outside and asked us if we wanted to go to Bolivia tomorrow. He had just had two people cancel and needed to fill the spots. Lucky us! We had him in a spot and bargained him down from 65,000 to 50,000. On top of that deal, everything was included — entrance fees to the national parks and Bolivia, etc. — which was another 10,000 pesos that would have been added on to the price we would have paid for any other company. In effect, we saved about 18,000 pesos, or around $36US! Not bad!

Laguna Verde

So on Monday morning Natalie and I climbed into a van with our fellow tourmates for the next three days: Sven from Germany, Ray from Holland/Switzerland, and Michael from Australia. We crossed the border into Bolivial, loaded into a jeep, and our adventure began. We entered the Reserva de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa. Basically desert, mountains, and tons of lagoons. We drove past the Laguna Blanca to Laguna Verde, a beautiful lagoon in a gorgeous shade of green.

Laguna Colorada with the flamingos

We stopped at a thermal bath in a gorgeous landscape, but cut our time there short when the jeep got a flat tire (just another day on the road in Bolivia!) and we had to go to the hostel early. We had lunch: probably too old hot dogs, mashed pottatoes, tomatoes and cucumbers (an early indicator of how our food was going to be), then we went out to Laguna Colarada. This was by far the most impressive lagoon. The water was red, and there were flamingos everywhere! It was gorgeous.

Flamingos

I was truly fascinated by the flamingos. Normally you see them at the zoo and they’re kind of boring. But out in their natural environment, they’re really cool. Not to mention, it was strange to see them in cold weather…walking around ice and everything. And watching them fly is really incredible. Especially when they’re first taking off, they flap their wings and for a second it’s like they’re walking on water and then they’re in the air. I had never seen a flamingo fly before…we all tried to get good pictures, but it’s not that easy!

That night we stayed in a “hostel” by the lagoon. It was…interesting. There was a tiny fire stove (think circa 1800s) but they wouldn’t light it until almost eight at night, and it was freezing alll day before that. For dinner at first all they brought us was soup, which we weren’t too happy about after our paltry lunch, but finally they brought out some spaghetti as well. We were excited until we tasted the noodles — chewy, sticky, and all around not how spaghetti noodles should be. The sauce was alright though. After dinner we sat around the stove and drank some wine, then went out and looked at the stars for a bit, trying to find the constellations we’d learned about before, but it was too cold to stay out long.

Happy and free of altitude sickness

The next morning I was the only one who seemed to sleep fairly well (we all stole blankets from the other rooms since we were the only people in the hostel, so we weren’t entirely freezing). Everyone else (except Natalie and I) had had trouble breathing in the night and/or woke up with headaches from the altitude. The entire trip everyone had on and off problems with altitude, and I never felt even the slightest difference. No headaches, lightheadedness, or trouble breathing. And I didn’t do anything they tell you to do — didn’t take my altittude sickness pills before ascending, didn’t drink that much water, and had coke at lunch and some wine at night, which you aren’t really supposed to do. But I never had a single problem! It was pretty nice. Even our driver and the people at our accomodation thought it was strange because no one in our group got really sick at all. Everyone else we met had at least one person in their group who got really sick from the atltiude and had to lay around and try not to throw up all day. I guess we were lucky.

Group at the Stone Tree

Our second day was full of more lagoons, all filled with more tons and tons of flamingos. After a while we almost had to be like, enough! No more stops and pictures of lagoons and flamingos! We also saw the infamous Arbol de Piedra, or Stone Tree, and we had lunch (rice and tuna…) by a volcano. We climbed around there for a bit, then drove out to a small salt flat, then stopped in a small town to buy some wine for dinner, then were on our way to the hotel when we had another vehicle problem. Apparently the shock absorbers fell off a tire (the same tire that was still a spare from the first day) so I guess they just tied it up with some string and kept on! It’s all pretty normal for driving in this terrain, I gather.

Walls made of salt...mmmm...

That night we stayed in a salt hotel. Everything was made of salt — the walls, the tables and chairs, basically all but the bathroom and the mattresses! This was our “luxury” night. We all got to take showers! And hot ones, at that! So that was pretty awesome. Then we had a decently good meal of chicken and potatoes, with some really good soup and some wine. We played cards until it was late enough to go to bed, and all slept well. In fact, we had so many blankets, and the place was just that much “warmer” (or less freezing) than the first night, that I actually started to overheat at night and had to take off a couple blankets!

Group on Fisherman's Island

The last day was the salt flats. First we went to Isla de Pescador, or Fisherman’s Island. Very cool place. It literally is like an island in a sea of salt. It’s covered in cacti, and you can climb all the way to the top for some great views. Naturally we all took a ton of pictures, then did some fun ones on the salt flats surrounding.

Then we headed out into the middle of nowhere in the Salar de Uyuni. This is the place you see in pictures. The salt is blinding white and formed into strange patterns all over. We did our best to take some good “play with depth perception” pictures that are typical of here. Lots of fun!

Natalie holding me in her hand!

Finally we visited a salt museum (basically an old salt hotel that they filled with some salt sculputres and called a museum), salt mine (basically just pyramids of salt), and a train graveyard in Uyuni. Then our tour was finished. All that was left was getting a visa (for me – i.e. paying lots of money) and getting a ticket out of there!

Uyuni is a tiny little middle-of-nowhere town that you would never want to spend more than a few hours in. It’s mostly locals – indigenous people selling things and schoolkids running around – and then tons of backpackers coming off or getting ready to go on the trip through the salt flats. Lots of tourist agencies and pizza places. We did come across some really cute, giggly little kids when we were buying our bus tickets (more on that later!) and played ball with them.

Group attempt at jumping on Salar de Uyuni

Basically it was a fun adventure, with some ups and downs. Probably not something I would ever repeat again, but worth the trip definitely. We saw some really cool stuff, and we got to have a bit of a “roughing it” adventure. Not to mention, any meal after that seemed quite incredible! And I’ve certainly found that it’s easy to learn new Spanish words when you’re here and they’re important to your life. For example, the word “calefaccion” is one I’ll never forget again. (It means heating!)

It would have been frighteningly easy to have left Brazil and entered Paraguay without having had any paperwork processed. Fortunately for me I’ve crossed enough borders now to know what needed to be done, even if finding someone to do it became a task in itself!

I visited three offices on the Brazilian side before I found a guy prepared to make a few phone calls in an attempt to track down someone to process Lady P (my bike) out of the country. His telephone calls led to nothing and for the next twenty minutes I watched from his office window as he wandered from office to office in his pursuit of a customs officer with the ability to process my temporary import document. Eventually he found someone and it wasn’t long before I was on my way.

Paraguay

I rode across the bridge into Paraguay and could have ridden straight into the country without even having my passport stamped, let alone having a temporary import document issued. Once I’d cleared immigration I had to ask around for the location of the customs office and after several false turns, eventually found the ‘Aduana’ where the process was quick, friendly & painless.

As I rode out into the traffic so the difference between the two countries hit me immediately. Bumper to bumper traffic was overlooked by bill boards advertising ‘Tax free electronics’ and hemmed in by street vendors stalls and when the traffic did move parking touts chased me along the street in an attempt to direct me to ‘their’ parking area.

All of the banks, money changers and jewelry shops had security guards brandishing pump action shotguns and wearing cartridge belts across their shoulders like the Mexican cowboys in Westerns. Not wanting to leave Lady P out of sight, I parked on the pavement outside a bank and tried to enter. The revolving door though was locked and the shotgun wielding security guard was gesticulating at a ‘drop-box’ into which people were depositing their phones. Trying to explain that I didn’t have one, in broken Spanish, through an inch of bulletproof glass, proved rather difficult and when I unzipped my jacket to show the guard I wasn’t carrying anything I thought he was going to pull the shotgun on me! All was well in the end and I left town without further hitch.

The rain drove me out of Paraguay after just three nights which was a bit of a shame. Despite all the ‘warnings’ and comments like “OH!! You’re going (to Uruguay) are you?” I liked it. It had an ‘edge’ to it that was more akin to SE Asia than the other South American countries I’d travelled through but despite that, everyone I met was polite, friendly and helpful.

Back to Argentina

After a fairly painless exit from Paraguay and entry to Argentina (though the Argentine Customs system did say that my temporary import document from Patagonia 3 months earlier was still ‘live’ despite my having departed to Chile, returned to Argentina and departed to Uruguay since then!) I rode out into the rain but not before noticing two Chilean registered Harley Davidsons on a trailer heading back to Chile….poofters!

Motorcycling...for boys AND girls!

At the first police checkpoint, a few hundred kilometers from the border I was stopped. This was quite unusual as I had passed countless numbers of them in other parts of the country and had rarely been stopped. When I had and they realized I was a tourist, I was sent on my way with no further questions. This time however, I was asked for my driving licence and ‘seguros’ (insurance). My heart sank. After spending the past few months in Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay I’d forgotten all about Argentina’s requirement for seguros and it hadn’t been mentioned at the border. When I couldn’t produce seguros I was escorted to the office where the ticket and receipt books were produced and a fine of 300pesos (GBP 60 quid) demanded. Fortunately for me I’d got into the habit of keeping most of my cash tucked away with just enough left in my wallet to look like a realistic amount. I produced 125pesos and the boss just laughed and walked off. When he returned he started ranting about wanting 300 so I shrugged and pulled 15k Paraguayan pesos (10 Arg pesos) from my wallet then tipped it out to show it was empty. After more ranting he told his junior to write me a ticket and a receipt. What little of the explanation of the ticket I understood suggested I had 30 days in which to buy seguros and produce it, along with the ticket, at any police station. I couldn’t buy it that day as it was Sunday.

I rode into the next town, collected some more cash from the ATM and rolled out of town straight into another police checkpoint where I was once again stopped. “Driving Licence & Seguros” – Bollocks…here we go again! As soon as I entered the office I asked to use the toilet where I quickly redistributed the cash I’d just withdrawn about my person. In the office I produced my previous ticket for no seguros and explained about being stopped at the previous checkpoint. They read the ticket and said it was for a licence infringement and that they were going to fine me for not having seguros!! (it pays to speak/read Spanish here!!) I flatly refused to pay anything and said “You are holding my licence. What is the infringement?” They didn’t have an answer of course because there was nothing wrong with my licence. This seemed to agitate them and it seemed they wanted me to return to the previous checkpoint to get the ticket corrected. I flatly refused and pointed to the telephone on the desk at which point the two  policeman started ranting in Spanish and so I started ranting in English! Suddenly, the one holding my licence handed it back and briskly lifted his chin towards the road in an Italian style ‘Go on…fuck off’ gesture.  So I did.

I couldn’t help but think this was all a deliberate scam to extract cash from non-Argentinians coming across the border. Ultimately though, the incorrectly completed ticket (an therefore it’s carbon copy) was for a licence infringement and negated my need to buy seguros. IF anything was ever said about the ticket I could produce my licence and say “No entiendo”!

For the rest of that day and all of the next I rode across hot, straight, flat boring plains where the only things of any interest were the combine harvester crews towing their accommodation blocks behind them. Finally, 1060km from Paraguay, the foothills of the Andes came into view with just a faint, hazy line above the distant tree line. South West of San Miguel de Tucuman I turned onto Ruta 307 and headed for Tafi del Valle and immediately I felt like I’d been teleported to another country. The damp air was in stark contrast to the heat of the plains, moss covered every tree trunk and the temperature plummeted. The road climbed swiftly through the lush green gorge, up to a plateau at 1900m where I found a great spot to pitch my tent on the shore of Lago Nahuel Huapi at the opposite end to the town of Tafi del Valle.

After a night by the lake I rode on past Tafi del Valle. The road soon turned to ‘ripio’ as I headed on up to the pass at 3000m from where I descended through a treeless rocky pass full of huge cacti. I rejoined Ruta 40 for the first time in several months and set about finding my may to the old Pre-Inca Indian ruins that are Quilmes. I managed to pick the wrong trail and rode along an ever steepening and narrowing track towards the pueblo of Quilmes and not the ruins of Quilmes. By the time I’d realized my mistake, turning round was quite difficult but after much sweating and cursing I managed it and as I did so was afforded a cracking view through giant cacti and across the valley.

I eventually found the ‘correct’ Quilmes which was worth seeing but would have been far more interesting, had there been some sort of literature explaining the site.

Cachi

All but the first 20km of the 160km from Cafayate to Cachi are ripio.  Adobe houses are scattered amongst the immense rock formations where the (mainly indigenous) inhabitants manage to scratch what, for most, looked to be a meager living.  Rounding a corner I was surprised to encounter a lake beyond which lay a good sized farm. The lake marked the beginning of a fertile valley that ran all the way to the pretty town of Cachi at 2400m.

Whilst camping on the surprisingly well kept municipal campsite above the town I met Per and Emma from Sweden. They were nearing the end of their three month trip around Argentina and were on their way back to Buenos Aires where Per worked for the Swedish Embassy.  Over a few bottles of wine I learnt that Per was also a ‘Eurocrat’ in Brussels but I tried not to hold that against him.

I left Cachi via the Parque Nacional los Cardones, a large plateau at 2800m where giant cacti grew (bizarrely) on one side of the road only. Leaving the plateau, the air became rather cold as the road climbed to 3300m and turned once again to ripio. The road headed for what looked like a dead end but turned sharp right to reveal the magnificent Quebrada de Escoipe. I’ll let the pictures do the talking…

At the end of the valley the road intersected with Ruta 68 at El Carril. Once again I’d managed to ride into town in the middle of siesta and spent a while riding around looking for a shop in which to buy supplies for dinner. Eventually I found somewhere and after stocking up I headed south out of town so I could see the ‘Quebrada de Cafayte’ in the late afternoon light. It was a good decision as the low sun cast a gentle light on the multi-coloured rocks, adding extra warmth to the already spectacular landscape.  Spectacular rock formations mostly coloured red like western Australia, but also greens, browns, turquoise, pinks and so on. Once again, having my own transport meant I could easily avoid all the tour buses that drive out from Cafayate late in the afternoon and I was able to snap a few photos…

Salta was my best chance of finding tyres for Lady P and so I spent four nights there taking in the sights, looking for tyres, repairing trousers etc. Amongst the sights was the Museo de Arqueolologia de Alta Montana (MAAM) where the star attraction is one of the three 500yr old child mummies found perfectly preserved in 1999 by an Argentinian/Peruvian expedition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llullaillaco).  I met a few good lads in the hostel and courtesy of Thomas (Switzerland), enjoyed a rooftop ‘asado’ (Argentine BBQ where the coals are arranged thinly under thick steaks so they cook very slowly….mmmmmm…..) along with Chris (ex-pat Kiwi) and a few French lads.

I had a few things to post home so headed for the correo (post office) with my parcel addressed and ready to go but left open for inspection. My first trip came to nothing when I learned they only accepted overseas mail between 0900-1100 and even then, in a different building. I returned the following day and when I got to the front of the queue was told they wouldn’t accept it unless it was wrapped in brown paper! What difference does that make I asked, only to be told “Those are the rules”. But this is Argentina… not Germany! I exclaimed before heading off down the street to find brown paper. I eventually found some in a pavement newspaper booth and after making a purchase returned to the correo, and the queue. “FM…How much!!” It was a good job nobody understood English when they told me it would be $233pesos (GBP 45 quid!!!) to sent it to England…but I REALLY like that hammock so I bit the bullet and begrudgingly gave Dick Turpin his money.

North of Salta, the old Ruta 9 was a smooth, narrow (single lane) road that wound its way along a valley of trees draped in vines almost all the way to Jujuy. From there on it was much bigger but climbed 1300m as it headed north through the picturesque valley of the Quebrada de Humahuaca. I spent a few days in Tilcara visiting the Jardin Botanico (full of Cacti) and the Indian ruins of Pucara. Similar but smaller than the runs at Quilmes they had much better signage and were therefore far more interesting.

Before leaving Tilcara I fitted the new front tyre I’d bought in Salta and adjusted the steering head bearings. My next destination was the small village of Iruja, accessed via a 49km ripio from Ruta 9. The ride was stunning. I rode through a few tiny hamlets and forded a few shallow rivers before climbing to 3954m for a view across a mountain with a coloured peak of sand(?) unlike anything I’d seen before.

The road then descended via a series of switchbacks onto a plateau in the valley below. Across the almost dry riverbed, the cliff face rose up 200m to a patchwork of fields seemingly precariously perched above. Descending again through another series of hairpins, the road met the river and followed it past some spectacularly eroded rock formations to Iruja. The streets of Iruja were so steep and narrow that I found somewhere safe to park Lady P and set about wandering around to find accommodation. There was plenty to choose from but seemingly none with parking. When I did find somewhere with a courtyard there was nobody home. The sun was setting when I finally found a place on the plaza (which itself was hidden behind a maze of small streets). There was no ‘secure’ parking for Lady P so I unloaded everything and chained her up outside the front door. A lovely old lady fed me well in her ‘restaurant’ close to the plaza and it was a good job she did because breakfast the following morning was shite! Once again I enjoyed the ride back out of the valley and once back on the main Ruta 9 I headed south again and stopped off in Urquia to visit the little cactus roofed church built in 1591. Its most unusual feature though, was a series of poster sized paintings depicting angels wearing 17^th century battle dress and sporting shotguns!

By now my regular lunch stop whilst on the road had become the YPF petrol stations.  I’d camped in several and knew they generally served croissants and toasted sandwiches but most importantly, the best Café con Leche I found in Argentina – and all at the right price. So, after a YPF lunch back at Tilcara, I rode a little further south and turned west onto Ruta 52 and the rather nice little village of Purmamarca, famous for its mountain of seven colours.

Two blocks from the central plaza and immediately behind the church I found a campsite, pitched my tent and sat in the afternoon sun sewing up all the holes in the fingers of my now rather tatty riding gloves. An early night was followed by an early morning to try to catch the low sun on the mountain of seven colours and so after a few attempts to do the scene justice, I packed up and continued west. Once again the scenery didn’t disappoint  and the road hugged the left side of the valley as it passed by multi-coloured rock formations eroded into shapes even my camera struggles to portray. Across the river, tiny small holdings with goat and llama pens were dotted along the bank and up the valley sides. Further along the road began a long series of switchbacks as it climbed steadily to 4200m.

There’s something about being in the mountains that raises my spirit, invigorates me, makes me feel alive. When I look at the rock I think about time, inconceivable lengths of time, Mother Nature. I feel humbled surrounded by this greater force; perhaps this is how religion affects believers? I once heard the timeline of Planet Earth described thus: ‘If the planet were 24hrs old, the human race would be but the blink of an eye’. Hard to comprehend until you come here and stand amongst these giants.

Ruta 52 is the main route to Chile via Paso de Jama but I wasn’t headed that way this time. Instead, as the road dropped down to the salt plateau of Salinas Grandes I turned onto a ripio track and headed south west to San Antonio de los Cobres. Along the way the track not only got rather sandy but the sand was a brilliant white and despite my black visor I was blinded several times and had several near crashes after getting cross-rutted and riding into pot-holes when I couldn’t see. I ended up wearing my sunglasses under my black visor which worked well against the blinding sand but had the visual effect of looking at an underexposed photograph.

I found the only hostel in San Antonio and was in the middle of making some lunch when the manager told me the Tren a las Nubes (Train to the clouds – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tren_a_las_Nubes) would be crossing La Polvorilla viaduct in 20mins time. “So what?” you all say. Well the Tren a las Nubes remains one of the world’s most spectacular railway journeys, La Polvorilla viaduct is its most photographed feature and this was the first train to run in six months. I skipped lunch, jumped on Lady P and rode the 16km to the viaduct just in time to watch the last carriage clear the structure – bollocks! What a difference 5mins would have made to the photos.

Walking around town that evening I felt I was truly in the Andes for the first time. Not only was I at 3200m but there were very few Latino Argentineans; this was home to the Quechua Indians. Old American pick-up trucks with families of seven wedged across the front seats cruised into town, mothers carried babies in multi-coloured blankets strapped to their backs and older women wore bowler hats. The town’s dirt roads had many shops but as none had signs to indicate what they sold I took a stroll around, peeking through doorways until I managed to find enough ingredients to cook dinner.

Back at the hostel Marcos, the owner, invited me to park Lady P inside. I was grateful for this as the old ‘failure to start from cold at altitude’ had raised its ugly head again and it would be -5°C overnight.

Paso Sico

Despite being parked inside overnight, Lady P once again failed to start despite parking her in the sun whilst I loaded up. Fortunately, around the corner there was a hill to bump start her down. Unfortunately, she still didn’t want to start! Once again I parked her in the sun, sat around for an hour and finally she fired up.

San Antonio de los Cobres (Argentina) to San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) is 350km, the first 250km of which is ripio. The route has been superseded by Paso de Jama and as a result sees little traffic. When I arrived at the Argentine border I was not only the only one there but I was the only person they’d seen that day. The younger employees were very friendly and efficient but there boss was a miserable bastard. It was a pretty remote posting so I forgave him! I climbed away from the border post past rock formations reminiscent of Arizona’s Monument Valley and headed up to Paso Sico itself. The approach to the crest was spectacular as the distant multi-coloured peaks slowly came into view. A truck rolled by in the opposite direction and was only the third vehicle I’d seen that day and it was 3pm.

As the road descended so it turned a corner into a most amazing valley(?) where the grass tufts were a golden yellow and seemed to carpet all but the ripio that cut a line through the bottom and out of sight over the horizon. As the road began its climb out of the valley so I had t stopat the Chilean customs post. Despite being as desolate as the Argentine border post this was a truly breathtaking location and looked across to a salt lake invisible from my initial descent. I went into the office and removed my crash helmet to complete the necessary paperwork. This was the first time I’d realized how sore my ears had become from taking my helmey on and off all day taking photos (If anyone fancies donating a Nikon dSLR with live preview I’d appreciate it!!!)

Chatting with the border guards I learn that the overnight temperature here (4200m) was currently -10°C but would drop to -30°C come August! By the time I left the Customs post it was 1530 and there was no way I would make it to San Pedro before dark. I had to start looking for a suitable place to camp but given my problems getting Lady P started in the morning I needed to find some high ground so I could bump start her in the morning. Luck came my way a little further on when I came across the turn off for Lago Miscanti. The road headed up over a ridge and from where I was it looked as though there was some sort of shelter at the top. Sure enough, at the top of the track I found the entry kiosk for the National Reserve with a curved wall built next to it. Not only was the space behind the wall just big enough for my tent but it was located perfectly to shelter me from the wind. I soon had my tent pitched and dinner cooking; watching the sun go down, coffee in hand. All being well I would have eaten and been in my tent within half an hour of sunset as the temperature was sure to plummet. All was not well though as three female park rangers arrived to tell me I couldn’t camp there. Pissed off? You bet! Communication was entirely in Spanish and therefore limited but I managed to explain my problem with Lady P and my need to be on top of a hill. They wanted me to leave but as the sun would set in another 30mins I flatly refused stating that I didn’t ride in the dark, especially on ripio. Eventually we struck a compromise that involved me re-pitching my tent next to the rangers house inside the reserve which meant missing the sunset, pitching my tent in the dark and eating cold rice for dinner.

I set up my laptop on my camp stool and snuggled into my sleeping bag to watch Gandhi but the battery didn’t like the cold and expired halfway through the film. I awoke to a glorious morning and had to stand my 5ltr water container in the sun to thaw enough water for a cup of tea. It had frozen solid inside my inner tent thanks to the overnight -10°C.

With the best of the scenery behind me I rolled into San Pedro de Atacama but not before noting it was the first time I’d ridden with five volcanoes within my peripheral vision. Made up largely of single story adobe dwellings San Pedro was a tourist trap. Every third shop was a tour agency and the two in between either a restaurant or artisanas. I hung around for a few days and visited the spectacular and unusual ‘Valle de la Luna’ (Valley of the Moon) before moving on to Calama where I camped on a site owned by a retired detective. I was the only one there and in place of a camp toilet block/kitchen he gave me the keys to one of the cabins and so I slept in my tent but had the use of the cabin the rest of the time. On my first morning there I awoke to fog! Unheard of in this, the Atacama desert. Luckily for me it cleased by late morning and I rode 16km north to the mining town of Chuquicamata in the hope of getting on a tour of the worlds largest open cast coppermine. Thanks to fellow overland traveler Goh (from Singapore), I had the GPS coordinates to the car park the tours left from and sure enough I arrived to find several other gringos waiting for the coach.

Chuquicamata is now a ghost town, the last resident having left in February this year. It was quite eerie to visit somewhere so new and yet deserted. The mine had expanded so close to the town that it was deemed unsafe for residents to remain. Our guide had been born in the local hospital, said to be the most technologically advanced in Latin America when it was opened in the early eighties but it is now buried under millions of tons of spoil.

Despite having previously visited Western Australia’s ‘Superpit’ the hole in the ground here was incomprehensible. Already 10km long, 3km wide and 1km deep, it will be 15km long by 2015 when the current three sites are linked. The mine produces 2000 tonnes of copper per day but in order to do so 600,000 tonnes of material are excavated! To help move this, the mine has a fleet of 100 giant tippers including 30 Liebherr T 282B’s – the world’s largest tipper truck with a capacity of 400 tonnes – about the same as a fully loaded jumbo jet!!

Back to San Pedro

From Calama I made an aborted attempt to visit the Geiser del Taito after getting caught in a sandstorm. Instead I headed back to San Pedro then south to Toconao where I picked up the ripio to Peine. En-route I detoured to Laguna Chaxa, a favoured spot for pink Flamingoes.

The route from Peine across the Salar de Atacama and the Cordillera de Domeyko was recommended by Axel (from Santiago) and gave me a real surprise. My maps of the region have no contours and without then this route looked nothing special but after passing several salt mines as I crossed the Salar so the road climbed 500m as it crossed the Cordillera from where it was downhill all the way to the ocean.

After losing one pair of pannier padlocks on the Carretera Austral, I managed to lose the other pair on Paso Sico. The few days I spent in Antofagasta were spent searching the Ferreteria’s (hardware shops) for a set of four padlocks all using the same key. Try explaining that in Spanish! Eventually I found a guy who knew what I was talking about and he showed me a picture of exactly what I wanted on the back of the packaging of one of the manufactures. He didn’t have any locks though. He did however phone the local distributer and after waiting half an hour for a return call was told they didn’t have any either. So four separate padlocks with four separate keys it was and what a pain in the arse that is!

South of Antofgasta I made a quick photo stop at the ‘Hand in the Desert’ before riding on to the coastal town of Chańaral. I was riding around looking for a place to stay when I was flagged down by a guy in a pick-up truck. I told him I was looking for a place to stay and he said I could stay at his mum’s hotel. I was a little suspicious but decided it was worth a look. When we pulled up I immediately spotted the big poster of Chilean Dakar competitor Carlo de Gavardo who, coincidentally is a friend of Axel in Santiago. Eduardo’s mum offered to move her car so I could park my bike inside and that was it, deal done. I ended up with my own room, an evening meal and breakfast all for the same price as a cheap hostel dormitory. A chat with Eduardo revealed the connection with Carlo de Gavardo. Eduardo was his mechanic! – Small world.

Paso San Francisco

It had been my intention to cross the Andes three times before winter set in and the snow came. Paso San Francisco was my second of these crossings and once again provided breathtaking scenery.

The valley road through Diego de Almagro followed the old mining railway until becoming ripio near Potrerillos and climbing steeply through a series of switchbacks onto a plateau at 3500m. It was bloody cold in the wind and so when I got to the Chilean border I fitted my handlebar muffs and got a mug of boiling water from one of the officers so I could make coffee.

20km or so further on the road turned east and it was this east-west section that provided the most amazing scenery. Away to my right were three peaks over 6600m whilst to my left was the turquoise Laguna Verde.

Once again I was virtually alone. Just one truck had passed through the order whilst I was there and it remained the only vehicle I saw since Potrerillos.  I had hoped to camp at the Argentine border but it was at the bottom of a ‘bowl’ and so there would be no chance of bump starting Lady P the following morning. Instead I rode on and turned south into a wide valley where the late afternoon sun repeated the ‘golden carpet’ effect I’d seen on Paso Sico. Refugio’s started appearing at regular intervals and I was lucky to come across one on a bit of a hill with 40minutes or so of daylight remaining. I had hoped to ride all the way to Fiamballa but once again all the photo stops had eaten into the available daylight.

Sunsets in the mountains don’t normally amount to much but I was privy to a beautiful post sunset sky before setting up camp in the refugio and cooking dinner.

Sure enough, the following morning, Lady P didn’t want to start. I was at 3600m and it had been just below 0°C overnight. I tried bump starting but the incline of the road wasn’t steep enough and the knobbly front tyre (Pirelli MT21) created too much drag for me to get any speed up. Once again I resigned myself to waiting for the sun to rise and warm her up so I got my book out (Khaled Hosseini’s: A Thousand Splendid Suns. V.good) and sat by the roadside. After a few hours it became apparent that as the sun rose so the cloud increased and the expected increase in temperature didn’t occur. I unloaded everything and tried bump starting again but this time instead of jumping on before ‘popping’ the clutch I just stamped her into gear and kept running alongside to keep the speed up. On my third attempt the engine started just before my heart stopped. Bump starting alone at 3600m is not recommended!

The palaver of the morning was soon forgotten once I’d pitched my tent at the thermal springs above Fiambala where I spent the evening in the splendid complex of naturally heated outdoor pools that ranged from 35-43°C – marvelous!

Cafayate – again!

For the third time I found myself back at the campsite in Cafayate. I had wanted to stay high in the Altiplano and ride through the remote Antofagasta de la Sierra to Susques and my final Argentina/Chile Andes crossing at Paso de Jama but I needed to return to Salta to buy a new rear tyre and to do some research into my cold starting problem. I got up before sunrise with the intention of making an early start but once again Lady P didn’t want to play ball. I left her in the sun and walked into town for breakfast but when I returned an hour later she still didn’t want to start. I took her to bits, checked the battery voltage and connections but everything seemed normal. Once again I unloaded everything and this time pushed her out of the campsite and along the road out of town to the bridge over the river where I hoped to bump start her down the incline of the bridge. Three times I pushed her up the bridge until eventually she started. Up at 0730, engine started at 1315. I wasn’t very happy.

Salta II

Second time around I stayed at the Correcaminos Hostel where I was able to park Lady P in the courtyard and which I liked so much more than where I’d stayed previously. Free Wi-Fi enabled me to do plenty of research into the starting problem but rather than be a fault with my bike in particular it seemed to be a generic BMW F650 problem. Suggested solutions included; pull the clutch in when starting, change oil to 10w40, change to synthetic oil, update the BMS (Fuel Injection Software) and most commonly, ensure the battery is in tip-top condition. When I’d replaced the battery in Chile in January I’d been unable to buy my battery of choice (Yuasa) and therefore had my suspicions about the one that was fitted. The BMS had been updated in Singapore in October. I also learnt from a friend in England who is the workshop manager for a BMW dealer, that BMW had released a modified decompressor lever to aid cold starting.

Along with a new rear tyre I managed to find a new Yuasa battery but I couldn’t find 10w40 oil anywhere. Walking back from the tyre shop I saw a BMW GS1150 parked outside a hostel near the plaza. I was sure I recognized it and returned to my hostel to check my photos. Sure enough, it was Nicos, the dreadlocked Ecuadorian American I’d met in Ushuaia, ridden to and camped with in Rio Gallegos back in February. The following morning I knocked on his door to be met by one very surprised Nico. He and his girlfriend were on their way back to Ecuador and so I’ll catch up with them again in a couple of months.

Hostel Correcaminos was full of good people including (amongst others) Ian from Florida, Dave & Ali from Bournemouth (UK), Rich from Yeovil (UK). All were staying for several days and a good time was had by all including another splendid asado and a few rather messy late nights.

Paso de Jama…or not…

I left Salta, passed through Purmamarca and continued up to Susques where there was a nice looking place to stay on the main road just out of town but where the price was so ludicrous I didn’t even bother to start haggling. Instead I rode into town where the advertised hostel was still double what I wanted to pay and eventually found myself in a bit of a dive but it did the job for one night and I was able to cook in my room. Guess what happened…or rather didn’t happen the following morning? Yep, Lady P failed to start – so much for my new 50 quid Yuasa battery. Even bumping her down the hill into the town centre didn’t work and once again I sat around like a right lemon, waiting for the sun to do its job.

I was more than pissed off. My planned route into Bolivia was across Paso de Jama to San Pedro de Atacama (again) then into Bolivia’s south-west corner at the remote Hito Cajon and past Laguna’s Colorado and Verde and onto the Salar de Uyuni. The route is ripio and sand and almost entirely above 4000m with night time temperatures of around -10°C, and with the exception of some mining traffic is only visited by 4×4 tours. There was no way Lady P would start in that climate and the effect of the sun at that altitude would be limited. If she wouldn’t start until lunchtime the route would take twice as long and I would have to carry double the food and water. Just like Lady P, the idea was a non-starter.

So back to Ruta 9 it was, and the ‘conventional’ route from Salta to Bolivia. I had hoped to camp in the little pueblo of Yavi, east of the border town of Quiaca but the riverside campsite was inaccessible by bike and so I returned to Quiaca where I found a room at the friendly ‘Cristal’.

By now you all know the drill that ensued the following morning and so whilst Lady P was sunbathing I sat in the bar drinking coffee. Finally, at 1145 she fired up and after using up all my existing Argentinean pesos in the petrol station I rode to the border.

Bolivia

Exit Argentine Aduana, exit Argentine immigration, ride across bridge, enter Bolivian immigration. So far so good…but where’s Bolivian Aduana? Back across the bridge in Argentina I found the Bolivian Aduana.

“Seguros!” (insurance) was the first word out of the officers mouth. Of course, I didn’t have any. All of my research had suggested the only place I required it was Argentina but this guy was having none of it. Being a Sunday I couldn’t even by any. I tried my luck with my travel insurance policy and nearly got away with it but because it only had my name and no vehicle registration number he eventually declined it. Once I realized it wasn’t a definite ‘you can’t come in’ I started negotiating and after a while he suggested he would let Lady P in for 60 days. I had a 90 day visa and eventually bartered him up to 70 days but I couldn’t get him to give me the full 90 – whatever, I was in Bolivia!

Outside town I had a good chuckle at a toll booth for the gravel road that led north. I spent my first night in Tupiza where the following morning Lady P once again refused to start but a group of friendly locals offered to bump-start me down the road. It took a while to find the right route out of town but once I did I had a great days riding. The track was being improved in many places and there were many detours. It ran along a dry riverbed for many kilometers crossing lots of streams and a few rivers along the way.

Just south of Potosi I had my first encounter with a ‘Chollita’ (country woman). I stopped at the roadside for a coke and had quite a chat with her – all very friendly. When I came to pay the price was 5 Bolivianos (Bs). I offered her a 10Bs note but she shook her head. “No tengo cambiar” (I don’t have any change). I pointed at some of the other establishments nearby but she shook her head “No hay” (there is none). I pulled out 4Bs in coins from my pocket but she just looked at me in disgust so I shrugged my shoulders and put all my money back in my pockets. Then, with a face like thunder she rummaged in her apron pockets and produced 5Bs change! So began my education of the distrust/dislike between Campasinos and Latinos.

Sucre

I met up with Aussie Adam Mulvanny in Sucre and spent a few nights at his place before moving into the homestay he had recommended where I spent a month with the family of Julio, wife Lilian, sister Roxanna and son Sergio. I spent 4hrs a day in Spanish school but to be honest I struggled. Despite a fantastic teacher my reading and writing improved enormously, my speaking improved some but my understanding remained/remains very poor. When someone is speaking to me, I’m still translating word no3 when there on word no10! I guess I’m just not cut out for languages but I’m still trying.

Whilst at the school I met Tom. English by birth but Aussie by residency, he was travelling with his girlfriend Juliette and daughters Luca 10 and Isla 7. A lovely family who’s company I enjoyed immensely. They had rented a house with a great view across the city and we spent several evenings eating, drinking and sharing a few yarns.

The Che Trail

Back in 2006 Maarten, Ilse, Danny and I all stayed with Dutchman Maarten Munnik and his Thai wife Tip (Tippawan) when they lived in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Since then however, Maarten and Tip had moved to Samaipata, approx 160km west of Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

The ride there took me through ravines and river valleys and reminded me very much of northern Pakistan but without the really jagged peaks.

Maarten and been sick for a few days prior to my arrival (the thought of sharing his house with an Englishman I suspect) which was a real shame as it was Tip’s birthday on the Sunday and she had a picnic planned. All was not lost though as Maarten had arranged a surprise party for her and around 20 ex-pats and locals turned up. There are somewhere in the region of 12 different nationalities living in the small town of Samaipata.

Maarten added a few ‘roads’ to my map that weren’t marked and when the time came to say goodbye I followed ‘Ruta del Che’ to La Higuera where Che Guevara was executed by the Bolivian Military on 8^th October 1967. Along the way I stopped at the Che museum in Valle Grande and visited the hospital where Che’s body was presented to the press the following day. It was a good history lesson as I hadn’t realized he had been involved in so much fighting in Bolivia.

La Higuera itself is reached by a dead-end track, 300m and several kilometers below the ‘main’ track from Valle Grande. 50m from the memorial is the beautiful guesthouse ‘Telegrafista’ where I spent 1½hrs reading and watching the sunset from a hammock. I was the only guest.

I awoke to low cloud, mist and drizzle. I hoped it would clear – it didn’t. As I climbed away from La Higuera and into the cloud I stopped to don my waterproof jacket. It was the best decision I made that day. It was a real shame about the weather. Every once in a while I got a glimpse through the clouds to the stunning valleys beneath. In places my speed was reduced to 20km/h because of the visibility in the mist, in others it was reduced to 20km/h because the dirt road was like ice and I could touch neither the clutch nor the brakes. I descended out of the clouds through a leafless winter forest to cross Valle Grande where once again my thoughts turned to NW Pakistan. It rained harder but now I was below the clouds at least I could see. Despite the weather it was a fantastic ride on which I met only two other people during the first 250km or so. Just how good would it have been with good visibility? I guess I’ll just have add it to my ‘must return to’ list.

I rejoined the tarmac near Tarabuco and stopped in a lay-by to clean my chain. When I went to rock Lady P off her sidestand, one side sank into the ground and it was all I could do to stop her falling over. I was stuck. I couldn’t let go and eventually managed to flag down a passing mini-bus by shouting and shaking my head. I must have looked a right lemon.

Potosi bound

I spent the night in Sucre with Tom and the girls where I was glad to get out of my wet boots and have a hot shower. In 8hrs of riding I’d stopped only to clean my chain. The following morning I picked up a new front tyre (Metzeler Karoo 345Bs – 30 quid!!!) before leaving town. Tom and Aussie Don had taken a taxi to Potosi (160km) and I met them there. We checked into the Carlos V Hostel where Lady P had top billing parked in the lobby and booked ourselves on a mine tour that afternoon.

The state mine, which dominates the landscape around the world’s highest city, was closed by the government in the ‘80s and is now operated by cooperatives formed by small groups of miners. Small quantities of silver are still mined but these are substituted by lead and other minerals. Working conditions are 18^th century and the whole experience reminded me of an Indiana Jones film. Dressed in waterproofs, rubber boots and hard hats with lamps we entered the mine above 4000m and waded through 20cm of water as we crouched and walked through the maze of tunnels. Wooden trapdoors alongside the tunnels covered ladders that led to smaller tunnels we scrabbled through on our hands and knees. Some weren’t even tall enough to get through on all fours and it was more akin to pot-holing than mining. At the workface miners hammered chisels into the rock to make holes for dynamite and chewed coca leaves for energy and to help with the effect of altitude. We all carried gifts of more coca leaves and bottles of drinks to share with the miners. 4hrs was a long time to spend in the mine but it went surprisingly quickly. On the walk out I noticed the (frighteningly few) wooden roof supports covered in ice.

If the day-to-day working conditions were tough, the long term conditions were deadly. The majority of miners live a relatively short life due to the exposure to noxious gasses. The next time you hurl your alarm clock across the bedroom on a Monday morning, just think about where you could be going to spend your day…

I spent a few more days in Potosi, visiting a few museums and wandering through the streets and among the markets with my camera.

Uyuni

Thinking the road I’d entered Potosi on was a ring-road I zig-zagged my way through the maze of one-way streets to the outskirts of town where I’d entered only to find it wasn’t. Back through the city, past the central market and on out of town to the first toll booth where I checked I was on the right road – I wasn’t. 1km back towards Potosi I turned onto a dirt track that led me to a road of pristine tarmac – well, for a few km’s anyway.

The days ride was 225km of ripio that started at 4000m, climbed to 4300m, descended to 3400m and ended in Uyuni at 3700m. The riding in Bolivia (if you like ripio) is awesome. I stopped off at the mining village of Pulacayo, SE of Uyuni and hope to the Train Cemetery which contains the first locomotive in Bolivia and the train robbed by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And I got to play Casey Jones for half an hour…whooo whooo!!

In Sucre I’d managed to change my engine oil from 20w50 mineral to 10w40 synthetic. This was one of the suggestions that had come up when I was researching Lady P’s starting problems back in Argentina. It hadn’t cured the problem but it had certainly seemed to make a difference. As a result I was going to make a second attempt to visit the remote SW area of the country around Lagunas Verde and Colorada. Both my maps of the area were different and other than a few waypoints I picked up on the internet I had very little in the way of GPS information. I spent a morning wandering around Uyuni’s many tour operators, looking at their maps, writing down villages and routes, talking to a few guides and gathering the information I needed to alter my maps and plan a route. The best piece of information though, was that there were sufficient 4×4 tour operator running trips into the region that if (or rather when) the track split into many options, I could stop and wait for a passing 4×4 and ask directions.

Maintenance…then more maintenance…

Whilst fitting my new front tyre in my hostel (Tati Laura) I gave Lady P a check over and found a missing subframe bolt, a broken cradle bolt (again)  and leaking waterpump. I had a parcel of spares being delivered to La Paz from the UK and decided I could get away with topping up the radiator until I got to La Paz where I could carry-out all my maintenance in one go.

The following morning I loaded up, checked out then checked the water level only to find oil in the radiator – I wasn’t going anywhere. I checked back in, unloaded, replaced the waterpump and flushed out the radiator as best I could. Italian Paulo and his Japanese wife staying in a room a few doors away invited me to share their pasta lunch they’d just cooked with Paulo’s brother, his wife and a few more friends. It was the perfect invitation – cheers Paulo!

Whilst cleaning the clutch cover gasket it split but I took a chance and re-assembled it anyway – bad decision! When I fired up the motor it wasn’t long before she was pissing oil out. I went out to buy instant gasket before the shop closed but it was too late in the day to start the job again. The next morning I found the courtyard full of tour operators 4×4’s and it was some time before there was enough space to work on Lady P. I took the clutch cover off and replaced the proper gasket with instant and booked another night as it would take 24hrs to cure properly.

It was roughly -10 °C overnight, enough to freeze the water in the toilet bowl, all the water pipes and put an inch of ice on the 50 gallon drum outside the toilet block. I hadn’t experienced water that cold since trekking in Pakistan’s Hindu Cush.

I didn’t get the early start I wanted as once again Lady P refused to start despite a few hour sunbathing. When she did finally start I was delighted to find no leaks – apart from a tiny drip from the waterpump drain screw (I didn’t have a new copper washer).

I queued for fuel for 45mins then finally rode SW out of town and after 90km came to San Cristobal where I saw a sign for fuel. Filling up there would give me added security for crossing the Salar de Uyuni at the end of my planned loop. In the petrol station I got chatting with 3 Landcruisers full of Italian tourists. Many questions followed leading eventually to “How old are you?”… “41 errr…well 42 tomorrow” and with that I was sung an impromptu ‘Happy Birthday’ – good job I still had my lid on as I was glowing like a baboon’s arse.

I checked the route with one of the guides and continued on past Alota before turning south past a lake where a herd of llama’s were drinking and on towards Culpina K. A little further on I came to a split in the road; straight on alongside the river or across the river and onto a sandy track. A sat there for a while scanning the horizon when I spotted three dust clouds heading my way. Once they were close enough to ensure they were 4×4’s and not local trucks (which could have been coming from any of the remote settlements) I crossed the river and picked up the sandy track. After a second river crossing the track climbed again passing some spectacularly eroded rock formations away to the west. The track became little more than a single vehicle wide and I rode in one deep sandy wheel rut around blind bend after blind bend praying nothing would come the opposite way – it didn’t. As I entered the the Valle de Rocas a smaller track led into the vast expanse of peculiar rock formations I’d once read described as ‘Mars on Acid’.

It was a beautiful location and so after finding as sheltered a spot as I could I built a small wall out of rocks and had a great place to pitch my tent. Like all good bush camps I had the place to myself and after an early supper sat on top of a rock watching the sun change the colours of my surrounding as it slid rapidly behind the distant mountains.

I had a fairly leisurely breakfast and let Lady P bask in the sun until 10am when she started fairy easily. I had a slow puncture in the front tyre for a long time but it was so slow I couldn’t find the hole. Checking the tyre pressures the front was indeed low so I pumped it up before leaving camp. At the first bend in the track I narrowly avoided crashing as the front wheel tucked under on me and so I stopped to alter the tyre pressure. Again I stopped to adjust the pressure but again I nearly fell at the next corner. Back on the main track I was struggling to maintain control. The surface was rutted and in places soft. It wasn’t that bad, but whatever I did the front end just wanted to ‘plough’ in the ruts. I stopped again and this time noticed the left fork seal had blown. I couldn’t (and still don’t) believe this was the sole reason for my bike’s poor handling but the track would get much worse further on and I decided against continuing on. It was my second attempt to get to the SW corner and it was the second time Lady P had decided she didn’t want to.

Salar de Uyuni

Instead, I returned to Uyuni, filled up with fuel and headed out onto the Salar de Uyuni – the world’s highest and largest salt lake. Although cold, it was the idea time of year to cross it by bike (ie dry). Ever since I began researching this trip back in 2004 I had wanted to camp on the Salar and doing so on my birthday was a bonus. A few people had relayed the story of a couple of German cyclists who’d been run over in their tent in the middle of the night by a couple of locals racing around in 4×4’s with no lights on. I figured you’d have to be pretty damn unlucky to get run over in the middle of 12,000km² of salt lake but nevertheless I chose my campsite carefully. Any vehicles crush the salt ridges that form the patterns on the lakes surface and so it was easy to pick a spot where nobody had been. Far away from the edges of the lake I parked up and spent several hours taking photos and observing the routes taken by the 4×4’s. Once confident I was as safe as I could be I  ran Lady P’s motor until the fan came on then wrapped the engine/tank/radiator in my insulated groundsheet to keep the wind out. I was expecting -10 to -15°C overnight + windchill so I figured limiting how cold she got would help when it came to starting in the morning. I pitched my tent, cooked supper and absorbed all the beauty of the ever changing light as the sun set – a truly memorable campsite.

I awoke just before sunrise and got up to watch the sunrise. At -6°C it was much warmer than I’d expected and again I had a leisurely breakfast and took many photos. At 10am Lady P started up fairly easily. Wrapping her up had obviously worked and I was soon on my way to Isla Incahuasi (also known as Isla del Pescado), a coral island raised up from the sea bed and covered in tall cacti. After walking the trail to the top and back I rode north towards Tunapa Volcano (easy navigation!) where I exited the Salar at the ancient pueblo of Tahua. Riding past the stone walls and dwellings I continued north, skirting the volcano along the roughest track I’d encountered in a long, long time.

My leaking fork seal was soon pissing out oil and I ended up with a piece of rag tied around the fork leg to soak it up before it got into the front brake. A few more pueblos passed by and I entered another dry salt lake as I rode in a big anti-clockwise loop to the pueblo of Salinas de Garcia-Mendoza where I expected to meet the ‘main’ track that runs NW and on to Huari where I’d hoped to spend the night.

A new ripio was being built alongside the old one and I was constantly diverted on and off it. The new sections were like a billiard table but the detours were a different matter. Ruts, potholes, bulldust, sand and dried mud were the order of the day. Not to mention the multitude of tracks that spread out across the plain as traffic had obviously tried to avoid the worst parts during the wet season.

To the south, a vast plain stretched out into the distant mountains and it was as though I’d been transported to the Kazakh steppe – only the llamas gave away my true location. Stopping at the Miguel y Alex Tejada Meteorite crater I climbed the cactus wood observation tower but as it swayed in the wind I opted not to stay long and rode on.

It was late afternoon, the road was running in the same direction as the one on the ‘World Map’ on my GPS (no detailed map for Bolivia) but not ‘on’ it. It could be a mapping error, it could be the same road, I would never be certain. What I did know was that it was late afternoon, there was no sign of Huari and there was nowhere out of sight to camp. I rode on.

The sun was getting low in the sky and the diversions off the new ripio all ran on the opposite side of the road several metres below and hence were in the shade. Every time I was diverted I had to lift my visor to see and after doing this several times I ploughed into a huge pothole and got a face full of bulldust. It was a while before I could see again and continue riding; all the while the sun was setting.

Off the track I rode through a small pueblo I hoped was Huari – it wasn’t. Behind the pueblo I was delighted to find a way onto an un-opened section of new ripio but my delight was short lived s I soon found my way blocked by piles of earth. The sun had virtually set and so I had no choice to ride into what looked like some abandoned adobe buildings nearby. Scouting around, some of them were indeed abandoned but others were obviously used by passing shepherds. I made myself as discreet as I could (but not as discreet as I’d have liked) and waited until after dark to pitch my tent. Having not been able to scout around properly in daylight I was uneasy with my choice of site which was compounded by my proximity to the pueblo and combined with an overnight temperature of -10°C it was a restless night. I need not have been concerned. Up early to thaw out my frozen water bottle in the rising sun before I could make breakfast, every local who cycled past gave me a friendly wave.

14km (20 mins) up the road I rode into Huari and onto tarmac for the first time since leaving Potosi eight days and 900km earlier. I rode straight through Oruro and onto the pueblo of Tolar where I turned right onto a 29km ripio and the natural thermal springs of ‘Thermas de Urmiri’. The track climbed to 4100m, turned a corner and presented a magnificent view of Illimani (6439m) before descending to the termas at 3600m.

After three night bush camping at temperatures from -1 to -10°C and lots of sweating in between, I arrived stinking like a pole cat and spent the following day in and out of the thermal pools, sauna and swimming pool. Watching the Milky Way appear in the night sky from the warmth of a hot spring was pretty special. Stepping out of the pool into the night air was not.

Blown head gasket?…least of my problems…

My plan for the day was to ride to the border with Peru to try to get permission for Lady P to stay in the country for another 20 days as her papers were due to expire in four days. I hadn’t topped up the radiator for a few days so before setting off I did just that. I continued the descent to Sapahaqui and followed the valley out to the main Oruro – La Paz road. Whenever I stopped to take photos so Lady P would drip coolant…sometimes leaving a sizeable puddle. Several times I stopped on my way into town, let her cool down and topped up the radiator. Twice she blew out a large volume of coolant from the header tank overflow and once again I was concerned to find the radiator cap covered in oil.

Founded by the Spaniards in 1548, La Paz is said to be the world’s highest capital city though it seems many think of Sucre as Bolivia’s capital. Whether it is or isn’t, it is surely one of the world’s most spectacularly located cities. From its airport at 4058m the city sprawls into the canyon some 500m below where building cling to the steep sides, affording views across snow capped peaks.

Concerned about finding somewhere to stay before Lady P came to a complete standstill I was overjoyed to see a hostel pop up on my GPS. Maarten Munnik had given me all his waypoints of the Americas from his RTW trip and if he had stayed there, there must be parking – there was.

The staff at El Carretero were friendly and helpful and between us we bumped Lady P up the few steps from the cobbled street and into the courtyard. Knowing I had some maintenance ahead of me I took a single room with bathroom for 40Bs and unpacked.

I had a spare fork seal but needed a few special tools to fit it and so took it to the local Honda dealer who replaced it for 50Bs. With Lady P re-assembled I checked the water level properly and took her outside where I ran the motor until the fan came on – no leaks. I ran it for 5 mins more – no leaks. Once cool I checked the water level – normal. I waited until the following day (Sunday) when the traffic would be quieter before going for a ride. 35km – no leaks. Again I let her cool down and checked the water level – normal. Conclusion – pilot (ie. Fuckwit) error. I think that when I set out for La Paz I’d inadvertently overfilled the cooling system causing it to expand beyond the volume of the header tank. The oil in the radiator I concluded to be residue from the waterpump failure back in Uyuni.

I hope it is/was a false alarm as there is no BMW dealer in Bolivia and I would need to have the parts flown in from Chile (v.expensive).

Time out in La Paz

On the Monday I collected my parcel of spares from the UK, had Lady P washed and set about servicing the brake calipers, replacing seals and pads. When I removed the rear wheel I made my customary check for vertical play in the swingarm as the link arm bearings have a tendency to fail. On a good day there would be no play, on a bad day there would be perhaps ½”, today there was 2”. FM!! 2”!! The whole shock unit was moving up and down.

It’s a long job to remove the shock as the whole pannier frame assemblies, rack, seat and tanks and exhaust have to be removed before the subframe and underseat fuel tank can be unbolted and tipped up to reveal the top mounting bolt for the shock. At least it would have revealed itself had it been there. It had in fact sheared off allowing the shock body to impact the frame damaging the top of the unit (cylinder head), the shock of which had snapped the U-bracket on the opposite end – OH FUCK!!!

I emailed the Manufacturer – Ohlins – in Sweden to get the part numbers I needed, then emailed all the South American distributors – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru. It took a few days but they all replied – nobody had the parts. I emailed Ohlins USA who had most of, but not all, the parts but even if they did they wouldn’t sell them to me. I would have to ‘find’ a dealer prepared to post to Bolivia and have them order the parts from Ohlins USA who would, in-turn, order them from Sweden! I did find a dealer in California who’s website claims to be the ‘World’s largest Ohlins dealer’. I figured there had to be a chance they’d have the parts in stock so I emailed them only to have them contact Ohlins USA. I received a reply saying “It seems you already know what’s going on” ! I emailed the UK distributor who also had most of, but not all of the parts I required. Again I emailed Ohlins in Sweden, told them who I had contacted and asked if they could supply to me directly. I received a reply saying they had spoken to the UK distributor who had told them they had all the parts! I promptly forwarded them the message saying theUK didn’t have the parts and received a reply saying “Please order your parts through the UK distributor”.

Even if I did manage to get the parts I would still have to fly to Santiago, Chile, to have the distributor make the repair. At GBP156 a plane ticket was the cheapest way to get my shock to an Ohlins agent. The Chilean dealer quoted U$250 labour only and the bill for the parts was running at U$350 + shipping…not good for the piggy bank.

Whilst all these emails were flying around I walked miles up and down the hills around La Paz seeking a solution. It’s tarmac all the way to the Ohlins agent in Lima, Peru, approximately 1600km away and if I could make a temporary repair to get me there I could avoid paying for a plane ticket to Chile, have the parts delivered regular mail instead of paying for a courier and leave Bolivia before my visa expires (Lady P’s papers expired a few weeks ago so I’ll have to wing it at the border).

Worth hanging around in La Paz for was an AC/DC cover band playing in a local club. They were awesome. How a Bolivian managed to sing in a high pitched Geordie accent I’ll never know.

Three German overlanders rolled into the hostel on their way south from Alaska. Husband & wife Carlos & Monica, and Richard were the first overlanders I’d met since Patagonia back in March and it was good to be able to share some info. When I watched Carlos and Monica leave I couldn’t help but wonder why it was my suspension that had broken!

Eventually I was given directions to another Honda dealer on the other side of town. The guy I spoke to indicated that the ‘experienced’ mechanic would return soon and that I should wait. Two hours later I was freezing my ass off. Wearing just a T-shirt as the sun set I said I’d return the following day. I did exactly that and met José. I had hoped we could remove the broken U-bracket and have a new one CNC’d but we couldn’t. Instead we made a shield to protect the rebound adjuster knob from the heat of welding after which I jumped on the back of José’s ’83 Kawasaki Z650 and we rode across town to find a welder. I’d never seen aluminium ‘stick’ welded before but by now I had nothing to lose so shrugged my shoulders and let them get on with it. The finished article wasn’t/isn’t pretty (I know…neither’s the rider) but one can’t complain for 15Bs.

Back at the workshop, Josés’ assistant had finished turning up a new spacer for the top of the shock. Final bill – 50Bs. I couldn’t thank José enough and hurried back to the hostel where I spent the afternoon re-building Lady P. All the needle rollers in the linkage to shock bearing fell out and had to be cleaned and re-assembled, the link arm bearings are again worn out and the linkage to frame bearings are seized. Given that I replaced the link arm bearings and seals and cleaned and greased all the other linkage bearings when I arrived in Chile I’m not very impressed.

So, after two weeks of emailing, waiting and walking, Lady P is finally back in one piece; but will she get me to Lima? Tune in to Chapter 20 to find out…

PHOTO GALLERY -click the Smugmug logo

anyone want to sponsor my vacation to Brazil?? what i wouldn’t give to be cruising in a Jeep through the flats of Salar de Uyuni.   at 4,085 square miles, this is the largest salt flat on the face of the Earth.  what is interesting about this location is that when covered with a layer of water, the vast stretch of perfectly flat salt creates a giant mirror…. giving way to some very astonishing photographs!  fly me there!

Mas eu tinha minhas próprias idéias e elas não tinham nada a ver com a parte “lunática” de tudo aquilo. Eu queria comprar um equipamento completo com tudo que é preciso para dormir, abrigar-se, comer, cozinhar, na verdade uma cozinha e um quarto completos bem nas minhas costas…

…e partir para algum lugar e encontrar a solidão perfeita e olhar para o perfeito vazio da minha mente e ser completamente neutro em relação a qualquer e toda idéia.

Pretendo rezar, também, como minha única atividade, rezar por todas as criaturas vivas; percebi que essa era a única atividade decente que sobrara no mundo.

Estar no leito de um rio em algum lugar, ou no deserto, ou nas montanhas, ou em alguma cabana do México ou em um barraco em Adirondack, e descansar e ser gentil, e não fazer nada além disso, praticar o que os chineses chamam de “não fazer nada”.

Texto: trecho de “Os Vabagundo Iluminados”, de Jack Kerouak

Fotos: Jailton Moreira

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