Bike About South America with Stuart and Anita

Hola everyone,

 

we are in the town of Uyuni on the edge of the largest Salt lake/flat in the world.

We decided to take a train from the border (Villazon to Uyuni) as we had heard a number of horror stories about the dreadful road conditions (all dirt) and extreme undulations and scenery that while nice not worth the effort.  We wanted to avoid mulitple ¨honeymoon from hell days´. Certainly there are tougher people than us but there is always someone tougher, fitter, stronger... :*) 

We stopped into a town Tupiza for a couple of days.  2 Train rides of about 300km in total took about 8 hours all up (average of less than 40km/h). In fairness the train had to climb to about 4000m on two passes (so said my altimeter watch).   We are now rested and champing at the bit to take on our biggest challenge to date. 

 

Tomorrow morning we intend to depart for a town called Colchani (22km north) and then head west across the Salar de Uyuni stopping in at Isla Pescadores and Isla Inca Huasi.  We are aiming for the town of Llica on the other side.

 

We are then heading north to the salt lake Coipasa and then onto a national park called Sajama.

 

The internet connections in Bolivia are way too slow to do much internet email and the BlackBerry stopped working just before the border due to a wind storm that knocked out all mobiles in the north west of Argentina (and yes we did get caught in the storm).  Vodafone doesn´t seem to have a roaming agreement with any of the Bolivian networks so we expect to now have very limited contact until we reach La Paz.

 

The route we are taking is very remote so we have no idea what to expect from Llica to Sajama but we have been advised that it is Muy Linda (very beautiful).

 

We will continue to use the GPS Spot device so you can track us across this stretch. 

 

We have also heard many horror stories about the roads and signage north of the Salar but we fortunately procured a map today that seems to have accurate positions of towns and we can guesstimate positions for the GPS.  Finally get to use it after lugging it all the way from Santiago... of course the map doesn´t help the road conditions but we are hoping there won´t be too much climbing... hhmmmm.

 

Wish us luck and keep your fingers crossed for us, we are now at 3600 meters or so.  Our chests are always tight and we gasp at the top of each flight of stairs but we are feeling strong and sleeping well.  Bring it on!  -20C on the Salar in the tent. No problems!!

 

Regards,

 

Stuart and Anita