So after the road from Puno, Peru, we arrived at the Bolivian border crossing near Copacabana. I was immediately surrounded by local folks asking me many questions. Normal stuff.
Bolivian Migracion is a little bit interesting if you have a US Passport. First off, they charge you $135 to enter the country. So the smart ass migracion dude says to me, you owe $135 dollars, George Bush tax. Ok, fine. Then he asks me if I have a yellow fever vaccination. Of course I say that I do. Then he asks for the card to prove that I have one. I tell him that I dont have the card. He then huffs and looks disgusted. I quickly ask him why I need to show a card, and no one else coming through needs one?
He again says, “George Bush Tax.” When I tell him that I want my $135 bucks back, he just waves me through and looks disgusted. Brilliant. What a nice guy. Welcome to Bolivia. However, the normal people in Bolivia are friendly and helpful. It was just that one low level bureaucrat that was a pain in the ass. That figures.
Curious people always ask me all kinds of questions. Where are from? Did you ride that moto all the way here? How much does it cost? How fast does it go? Do you want to sell it to me cheap? Ha! Its always enjoyable answering these questions. Just a little patience and a big smile will go a long way.
The town of Copacabana on Lago Titicaca is spectacular.
The local church.
The local prayer room in the local church.
Nice town. Touristy, but not over the top.
Leaving Copacabana I rode again with Holger and Anja. We headed toward La Paz and upon leaving Copacabana did an interesting lake crossing.
You have to be careful where you put your tires. How ’bout that bus?
And the first panorama of La Paz. Cool city actually. I spent about a week here. I dont know why. However, I had a good time and considered it one of the better big cities that I have visited.
Then I went to the white city, known as Sucre.
I ran into the Dutch guys again.
Steve told me that I was a hippy and needed a haircut. I told him that a number 3 would be just fine. However, Roel warned me not to let Steve cut my hair. I now know why.
Fresh out of the institution, I decided to do a little route planning.
I was headed to high and cold places, so I decided to make a little camp stove out of beer cans.
It burns alcohol and will boil a liter of water in 4 minutes. Not bad for a home made stove.
Then it was time to go buy some meat for my journey.
The pigs feet were particularly nice.
The vegetables were even better.
I was a little sad to leave friendly and warm Sucre for the cold Altiplano.
But down the road I went…….
A Vicuña, the slightly retarded cousin of the Alpaca.
Sand, sand and sand.
I’m not sure what these guys are, but they looked a little not quite right.
In the background is the first glimpse of the Salar de Uyuni.
This view of Uyuni, reminded me of Star Wars.
“Mos Eisley spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.” – — Obi Wan Kenobi
perfect………
I was less than thrilled with Mos Eisley so I decided to head to the salar.
The wind was absolutely brutal as I got out on to the salar, but I expected this……….
The Salar de Uyuni at over 4000 square miles is the largest salt flat in the world and contains around 50% to 70% of the worlds lithium reserves. It is roughly 25 times the size of the Bonneville salt flats in the U.S. It sits in the Bolivian altiplano at over 12,000 feet. The average altitude of the salar varies only one meter over its entire expanse. Because of this, the large area, and clear skies, orbiting satellites use the salar to calibrate their laser altimeters.
I learned all this from Wikipedia, so I have no idea if its true or not, but it sure sounds good.
But, the absolute coolest thing about the salar, is that its a great place to ride a motorcycle.
In the foreground in the above photo you notice what looks like a hole in the salt. It is a hole, and you have to look out for these when you are riding. They call them Ojos de Sal, or Eyes of Salt.
There are numerous islands on the salar. I visited a couple, then settled down at the main island, Incahuasi to camp for the night. There are some indigenous people that live here and cater to the Land Cruiser tours coming through. I was going to go camp at Isla Pescado a little further northwest on the salar but it was starting to get dark and I wanted to take some pics and get camp set up before darkness fell.
My camp.
Its a good idea to set up camp at one of the islands, as the wind blows hard all night long so it provides some shelter. Also, as remote as the chance my be, you dont want to get run over by a passing Land Cruisers in the middle of the night. So, its good to stick to the islands.
The sun is going down and it is just starting to get cold. And as if on cue, the wind starts to kick up to around 40 mph. It is quite pleasant during the day before the wind picks up. However nights are typically around -10 to -20 degrees Celsius.
The next day I got up and headed south across the salar. The feeling you get riding the salar is hard to describe. It really feels as if you flying in an airplane, or riding in the middle of a perfectly smooth ocean because even though you are clipping along at 80 mph+ you don’t have a sense of motion. Its a very strange feeling on a motorcycle.
This is one of the southern exits off of the salar. It is a wise idea to know where these exits are, and use them, or you could wind up stuck in the mud up to your axles.
After the exit, it was a couple of hours to the little village of San Juan, where I was able to buy some barrel gas and stock up on water for the day. Many tours pass through here, so the little village is pretty well stocked with things you might need.
This village really reminds me of something out of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. The whole experience of coming off the salar and into this village was quite surreal. I half expected to see Lee Van Cleef and Eastwood come riding out of town as I heard the tune from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, playing in my head.
They had everything in this little tienda in the middle of nowhere.
After San Juan, you can cross another small salar, Chinguana, I believe it is called. Its not small by any means, but not nearly the size of the Salar de Uyuni.
The wind is blowing again and is sometimes so strong its downright spooky. In fact just after I took this photo, the bike blew over.
High speed run down the Salar Chinguana. Epic.
There seemed to be only a few good exits off of this salar, but it was relatively dry, even off of the tracks. I picked up a little two track headed to the Volcan Ollague that you can see in the distance.
Slowly but surely getting closer. I live for this stuff. The riding and scenery was mind blowing.
That two track I took wrapped around the back side of the volcan off the main tracks. I’m not sure but I think that I might have crossed into Chile at a couple of points along the track.
Is this Mars? I know I have ridden a long way, but I had no idea that I crossed 50 million miles of interplanetary space. This is good stuff.
Behind the volcan I picked up a wide graded road for a few miles. I think the Martians might have some big trucks they use to get around.
Then made a turn off onto another two track.
It brought me to the first of a series of small lakes that were stunning. This was the first place I saw people. Sadly they were humans and not Martians. For a while, I thought I might have been the first motorcyclist to ride on Mars.
There were a couple of tours having lunch here. I was moving pretty quickly so I started to gather up the Land Crusiers once on the main route.
I contemplated just stopping here for the night, but it was freaking cold an the wind was howling at sand blaster velocity. No sense in sitting in the wind behind a rock, being cold and miserable all day. Since it was only about 1 pm, I pushed on.
And the trail meanders down the valley, revealing more impressive scenery.
Crossing sections like this is fantastic. Make your own tracks in the sand and gravel wherever you please.
Mars, this is definitely Mars. Its butt freezing cold, the wind is howling and blowing little rocks around, and its difficult to breath. Its Mars, no doubt about it.
Then I head off the main track again to a two track that I decided to explore, and things started to turn green.
I re-joined the main route after a while and had fun throwing the bike around the curves going through this narrow wash.
Then back into the wide open lonesome. Moonscape. Impressive.
Then back to Mars.
About mid afternoon I wound up at the famous Arbol de Piedra. I took my helmet off and immediately got pelted in the face by small pebbles blown by the relentless wind.
As the afternoon wore on the wind got even more relentless as I started to approach Laguna Colorado.
By the time you are nearing Laguna Colorado, you are up around 15,000 feet or more, and you can feel it getting colder and harder to breath. I figured that I would stop here for the night as they actually have rooms you can stay in since the Land Cruiser tours come through here. A lumpy bed out of the wind sounds really good to me about right now.
I pull into Camp Ende and see two very familiar looking F650’s. Holger and Anja! I put in 200 miles of sand, rocks and washboard this day from the salar to Laguna Colorado. It was a big day for me, so I was tired and ready for a break. Holger and Anja had a bit of a slower pace. Their goal was to go about 50 miles a day in this terrain. They had left the salar 4 days ago. On loaded F650’s with street tires, I can understand that.
The next morning I was up and on the road again. That stuff below is not salt, its ice. Yeah, it gets a little chilly around here…….
Now these guys really like suffering. They figured two weeks from the salar to San Pedro de Atacama. They had camped well over 15,000 feet for many cold and windy nights.
I went on riding on Mars.
Then, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, you see a sign for Bolivian Aduana. It turns out that there is a mine close by, hence the aduana office.
As I checked the bike out of Bolivia, I found it was a little hard to breath and was winded after only saying a few words to the aduana dude. I wonder why?
After dropping a little elevation, I found myself at the Geyser Sol de la Manaña.
It didn’t put on a show at all. Just a bunch of steam and bubbling mud. I think it spouts off early in the morning. It was still fun to stop by.
Shortly after the geyser, I found myself headed down to yet another lake with some hot springs. Good place to spend the night. That is salt blowing off a dry lake near the springs. The winds were cranked up yet again, and would almost blow you right off the bike. The elevation here is around 16,000 feet, so its a bit cold.
The hot springs were a welcome place to warm up and wash off the grime of the previous days.
The next day proved to be yet more spectacular scenery, and of course more sand and rocks blowing in your face.
I dare say that this is the most spectacular desert I have ever seen. Well, it is Mars after all.
Again on the big wide open lonesome. I never get tired of this stuff. This has by far been the most epic stage of my South America trip.
Heaven on a motorcycle.
It never seems to end. I am overdosed on spectacular desert scenery.
Some people beg for it to end. I dont want it to end.
The exit to the national park. Bummer.
And on to the migracion office and out of Bolivia……..
And into Chile where the pavement starts and the magic is almost gone. As you descend over 8000 feet into the Atacama the scenery starts to change, and Mars becomes a distant memory, like a dream that you are having difficulty recalling. You are back on Earth, in just another plain old common desert.
OK, just a few words about this route. Its epic desert riding at its best. In my opinion, if you have the skills, this is a must do route. You dont need great skills as in my opinion, nothing is remotely technical, even on a big loaded bike, but you better be comfortable riding hours and hours of sand, some of which can be deep and rutted. This route is not for those that are not confident riding in sand.
Its remote. Its 380 miles from Uyuni to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile along the route that I took. Except for the passing tours, you will not see another human except for the folks at Laguna Colorado, and the hot springs and a few small structures inhabited by folks that cater to the tour groups.
If you stay on the main tour route you will at least see several vehicles pass by a day, and probably many more during the high season, so you can get help if you need it. If you wander off the tour route as I did in sections, you are really on your own. You might not see a vehicle for many days, if at all.
Prepare for scorching sun that will burn you lobster red just minutes of uncovering your skin, -20 degrees C temps, brutally strong and cold winds, and thin air. You want to be well acclimated to altitude before taking off on this route.
Another thing about the altitude. When you drop your bike, picking it up can be quite taxing. I remember picking up my bike one time at around 15,500 feet, and I had to go sit down and rest for a few minutes. Don’t underestimate how much the cold, wind, and altitude will zap your strength.
This was the best segment of my trip, hands down, no contest. Totally epic.
Saludos, Vicente