Tupiza to Oruro
10.8.09
(Click here for link to photos for Tupiza, Uyuni and Salar)
(Click here for link to photos for Llica to Oruro)
I tried to convince myself that there were still people out here that could help us if the sand road lasted the full 100 odd kilometers but the knot in the pit of my stomach was not responding to any rational thoughts. All I could think about was the fact I had suggested this path and I had Anita’s health, well being and life in my hands.
As we came around the corner to a little village called Challacollo (?) the road began to firm but the site of the church back against a gigantic sand dune did nothing to increase my confidence. Anita stopped for something to eat but our meal was made in silence. Anita had tears in her eyes. I asked whether she wanted to turn back but she bravely said she would rather see what lie ahead than drag her miserable bike and load back through the sand to Llica. Our positive feelings towards this adventure were certainly being challenged!
We left you last at Villazon at the border of Bolivia where we were about to catch a train to a town called Tupiza and then Uyuni. We decided to catch the train as the two cycle touring books we had read about this section of Bolivia were decidedly uninspiring. We had read about massive 1000m ascents on dirt roads and then having to walk or make an agonsingly slow roll down due to the roughness of the road. Indeed both Ezra the texan rider and Berri/Bauer (Swiss couple riders we met in JuJuy) had hitched or bussed some/majority of this section after attempting it. Their opinions were that the views and scenery didn’t repay the efforts. It was enough for us to decide it wasn’t worth the time or energy. And besides, we both love train rides – a change is as good as a holiday!
The train to Tupiza was very slow and windy but we were on the right hand side of the train so we got some of the best views of the valleys and peaks. It was a great train ride but it was a nice reminder that on a bus or a train you can’t stop and take photos whenever you wish. Tupiza itself was a nice respite. We were back at 2900m and the air felt THICK. Tupiza is a relatively wealthy town. The school kids were all in uniform. The streets were paved. The plaza was green and well cared for. We ate well and nourished our growing appreciation of Te de Coca (Coca Tea). We don’t believe were are becoming addicted but we are certain that its affects are assisting our acclimitisation. We stayed a few nights and then caught another train up the line to Uyuni.
The train arrived at about 2am in the morning but I had successfully made a telephone call from Tupiza and booked accomodation. I was pretty proud of myself as it was all in Spanish and the booking was there when we arrived. Uyuni is a classic tourist town. It was originally established because of mining interests in the region in the early 1900’s (from what I can guage). Now it is there primarily to feed and support and service the steady flow of tourists that come to visit the amazing Salar de Uyuni and the colourful lakes and Volcanoes to the south. (I do believe that there are still mining interests in the region and we have learned that the Salar supposedly has the largest Lithium Carbonate reserves known in the world – required for Lithium Ion batteries in laptops, cars, etc.) Check out this link, very interesting: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=8273187
Uyuni is itself quite a curious place. There was the Cementerio de Tren which literally is a cementary for trains. The photos speak for themselves but it was an eerie place but very cool to climb on the old steam engine carcasses. Some of the passenger carriages didn’t look that old though and were badly smashed up so we were pleased in some respects that our train journey was complete. The plaza is dedicated to the tourist trade and looks well maintained but on our ride out to the Cementerio de Tren we rode through a field filled with discarded plastic bags all stuck to the thorny scrub bushes and people fulfilling their daily ablutions. A disturbing reminder that we were indeed now in the third world.
We were very excited to meet Zouhir and Celine in Uyuni. They had ridden from Caracas in Venuezuela down to Manaus on the Amazon and then caught three different boats to Pulcallpa in Peru. They had not ridden much in Peru or Bolivia but were now preparing to ride across the Salar and then south to San Pedro de Atacama. We were impressed with their enthusiasm and verve. They expected to take about 10 days. Our trip was similar but opposite – cross the Salar and then head north to La Paz. We ate dinner with Zouhir and Celine and I spent much of the evening quizzing Zouhir about Peru and the Amazon as we have been considering going to Ecuador via Pulcallpa, Iquitos and the Amazon.
The next morning we said our goodbyes to them – they were much faster at getting ready than us - but we still half expecting to see them out on the Salar. We didn’t and as I type this I am looking forward to reading how they went. Check out their blog if you get the chance (it is in French but Google Translate should help you out): celineetzouhir.over-blog.fr.
One reason we were slow to get going was that we had to get some Kerosene for our cooker. Unfortunately for us none of the petrol stations bothered to stock kerosene but there was a pump operated by a lady (supposedly) between 8 and 10 am. We got there at 9 am but there was just a locked pump and no lady. We soon gave up and went to the petrol station for some diesel. Optimus (stove manufacturer) says that diesel is dirtier but should work alright if you can’t get Kerosene). The petrol station was out of the way, and although it had diesel we turned onto a road that two different people said was for Colchani. And it probably was but as Anita soon pointed out if this was the road, why are all those four wheel drives on that other road over there? We argued a while and as a compromise we scrub bashed straight to the road rather than go back (or forward) on our sandy road/track.
The road was further than I expected with 1000’s of highly prickly scrub bushes, sandy terrain, a dried up canal and a set of train tracks to cross first. Thankfully our super duper Schwalbe touring tyres protected us from getting any flats and further infuriating our progress. Needless to say, Anita was not happy with me... :^) The town of Colchani is on the edge of the Salar and many of the residents mine the salt by hand. It took half the day to reach the Salar with some head wind, and hassles but when we did it was nothing short of gobsmacking. We rolled across the Salar on a main ‘road’ skirting just north of the famous salt hotels. The guide book suggested avoiding them as they are ‘illegal’. We didn’t mind to miss them primarily as it would have added more time to our lengthy crossing. As we rolled towards to the sunset we finished the day utterly alone on this salt flat/lake/expanse. It was eerie, it was wonderful, it was terrifying just how cold it got once the sun went down. We had heard that it reaches -20C on the Salar overnight. My guess is that the salar was very kind to us and that it was only about -5C that night. Only the small water bottles froze solid...
We woke to a relatively windless day and over the course of the day saw only 2 cars and one bus. Yes, it would seem that there is a bus service between Llica and Uyuni and the surrounding villages that crosses the Salir. We rode with our music on and stopped frequently to take many photos. In all some 200 odd photos of the Salar. It is a fascinating place but I must admit after riding past thousands of those crystalline forms on the surface it starts to do your head in. And I was surprised to see that there were in fact many holes in the salar and down the holes was WATER! So when I wasn’t approaching clinical insanity I was wondering whether the salt was really like ice on a lake and that we might fall in somewhere along the way.
In order to increase our confidence, we had picked up a ‘relatively’ detailed map (by Walter Guzman Cordova) of the Salar de Uyuni and the regions north and south of the area. It had Longitude and Latitude markings so we had purchased a ruler and made some calculations to the decimal point for the GPS. The inaccuracies of the map indicated that our points were out by 1-2km but out here that is close enough to get you where you need to go. We passed within a few kilometers of the famous Isla Inca Huasi but decided to push onto Isla Pescados thinking that Pescado was the more famous of the two. It was not and unfortunately that means we didn’t get to sign the book that is supposedly there for all cyclists that make their own way across the Salar. I was very disappointed to discover my mistake but we certainly weren’t going to ride back 20km to sign the book. On day two of the Salar we were camped with still another 40 odd km to ride to the western edge. We stopped at about 445pm and we had our tent up, dinner made and bed ready by 6pm and sunset. No sooner had we laid our heads down then the wind kicked up and filled me full of dread that we would face a fierce westerly (head wind) for our last 40km. We were getting low on water and certainly did need to get to Llica the next day.
I slept fretfully despite the wind dropping over night and at 7am when the alarm went off I was immediately into preparing the stove for our breakfast. Unfortunately one idea we had to save water was to use the pasta water for porridge the next morning. It was an abject failure as the vegetable/pasta favoured porridge was completely inedible and we wasted more water just cleaning up the result. It was amusing and there is a photo of me plugging my nose trying to nullify the vegie smell.
It was, however, our earliest start yet from camp. We were on our bikes by 9am and my worst fears of a westerly didn’t transpire until we hit the western shore of the Salar de Uyuni with only 10 km to ride over ‘land’ to the town of Llica. It was both relief and sadness that we said goodbye to the Salar. Sadness as it is an incredible place. On the western side you can no longer see the eastern shore near Uyuni. It is a big white sea of salt. Supposedly it was part of an ancient sea. We surmised as we rolled that as the sea slowly dried up the salt slowly concentrated until there was only salt (NaCl). The crystalline shapes are fascinating. We have read that it is 10m thick in places. A place you can never and will never forget. It is the kind of place that is marked indelibly in your mind for your life.
Despite its incredibly positive impact, it was absolutely a relief to leave as it is such a lifeless place. No animals, no insects, no plants, and no drinkable water (in the end not many holes with water at all). It is a place to visit, not a place to live. The lack of people also meant that it was pleasing to see there was not a lot of rubbish. It is surprisingly clean. Indeed that was one more good reason to leave. We did our part by not leaving any rubbish on the salar. We had a particularly strong plastic bag into which we desposited ALL our waste. Somehow I got the job of handling the bag but fortunately we were able to delegate to Bob (the trailer) the job of actually carrying it. Ewww...the stench - by the time we arrived in Llica we were pretty pleased to get rid of that particular load.
Llica is a tiny town only about 60km from the Chilean border. It was a cute little place and we were able to replenish our food and water supplies. We gorged ourselves on Pollo, Arroz y Papas Fritas (Chicken, rice and hot chips). The two young girls that were running the restaurant were rather taken aback when we asked for double portions of chicken and even more so when we explained it was because we had ridden our bici’s across the Salar from Uyuni.
We were filled with anticipation of our next stage of heading north to Sabaya. We rolled out of Llica the next morning after talking to three different people about the best route. All had suggested the same route and cautioned against going to the eastern side of the Isla de Coipasa on the Salar de Coipasa. The first 5 km were excellent gravel road. It was very rough with lots of rocks and washboards but it was FIRM. But as with cycle touring, especially in south america, you can’t expect the good times to last forever and as we rolled down and around a corner we came face to face with that enormous sand pit and our we faced our despair.
We managed to get 30km on our first day from Llica. The soft sand wasn’t endless but it was always there, waiting to trap our wheels. I was carrying over 10kg in water in my back pack as well as pushing my load. Anita also carried additional water. We carried enough for 3 days easily and 4 days at a stretch. It seemed like an exercise in futility but we struggled, pushed and moved forward. I encouraged Anita to keep going to a hill ahead to find a camp hopefully better protected than the ‘sandpit’. It was both positive and negative. We did find an excellent campsite tucked under a cliff but as we came around the corner we could see nothing but more and deeper sandpit waiting for us the next day. It was demoralising but we stayed positive that if we could get to the Salar de Coipasa (only a 10km’s away) we would make good progress to our next destination of Sabaya.
Indeed the next morning dawned with our energy replenished and we pushed to the village of Hizo. Hizo was not connected to the electricity grid and it seemed that they subsisted on the llamas that they herded. There were signs of the earth/sand being tilled but unless there is an amazing transformation during the rainy season you couldn’t help but wonder why they lived there. There were two cute, young children in Hizo that were very excited to see us. They had the stereotypical bicycle tyres to roll for their one (and probably only) toy in their possession.
We were soon rewarded for our efforts in that the track firmed up but then we were slowed and stopped by Anita’s rear tyre going flat and then I realised that my front racks were partially damaged. It was just another couple of things to add to the list of challenges to cope with. (Later inspection of the tube indicated that the some of the scrub near Uyuni had indeed penetrated the tyre.) And then finally after some riding, pushing, swearing and cursing we finally arrived on the edge of the Salar de Coipasa. Aaaahhhh, it was heaven. The surface slowly hardened, a tail wind slowly picked up from the south and soon we were sailing at 25km/h across the salt flats. We got a solid hour of riding in before the water puddles started to show. The salt became like slushy spring snow, spraying our bikes and sticking like porridge glue. We made it to dry land before sunset with about 35km to go to Sabaya. We slept well knowing we had broken the back of the monster and there was a good chance we would get a night indoors shortly.
At Sabaya it only took one man to shatter our plans when we enquired about travelling north to Sajama National Park. He shook his head and illustrated with his hands that the road was ‘sauve’ and about 100-150 mm deep in sand or ‘polvo’. Added to the fact that it was difficult to find any food decent supplies in Sabaya and we made our plans to head north east to Oruro. Ultimately this proved to be the best and although much easier still had its challenges. We were fortunate that of the 200km to travel only half of it was dirt road. This should have proved a much simpler challenge but it wasn’t to be.
In the village of Huachacalla (U-a-cha-kiy-ya?) we had one of our most pleasurable interactions with a bunch of people. As we rolled deeper into the town off the road in the search for supplies and a mercado (supermarket, of sorts) we were stopped and asked where we were from, where we were going, where we had ridden from. When we finally reached the plaza we found a lovely park packed full of happy, confidant people. As I was in the shop buying our supplies and talking to Anita who was just out the door we were swamped and swarmed by townspeople of various ages. They were all very friendly and curious about our bikes, our luggage and the places we had been. It became a memory that carried us to Oruro despite the new and unexpected challenges we came across.
Overnight I succumbed to a very nasty stomach bug that had me out of the tent in sub zero temperatures a few times. Highly unpleasant all around and in the morning I could hardly move. As Anita packed up around me, I slowly got going and somehow we managed to do 45km. Thankfully 30km was on the bitumen. I never would have made it except that Anita even took ‘Bob’ for a while. It was an indication of my lack of strength and indeed an indication of just how strong Anita has become.
On our last day to Oruro all seemed in our favour, with 35 km of dirt to ride to the bitumen. We woke up to a beautiful camp spot, with GRASS of sorts and no dust. Beautiful altiplano lakes and ponds. Indeed we even found a lake with wild flamingos – one of Anita’s dreams was to see some in the wild. We didn’t get so close, they are a tentative, wary bird but it was very cool. And the adjacent town was called CocapabANITA so seemed all the more appropriate.
Unfortunately my bicycle didn’t last so well on the dirt roads and within site of the town of Toledo (where the dirt road ended) the rear wheel/rim split or burst (see photos). I was rolling to a stop to take a photo and as I got off the wheel suddenly stopped rolling. It caused me some panic as I couldn’t roll the bike and it was a one lane bridge AND there was a massive bus hurtling towards me. In the panic of trying to shift the bike close to the edge, the bike fell over thereby taking up even more of the lane. The bus was honking continuously now telling me to get the hell out of his way. Rationale finally took over and I stood up with my hand held out with the (thankfully) universal ‘stop’ signal and he finally slowed and inched his way around me.
In order to roll I had to disconnect the rear brake completely and drop the air pressure down to about 10 psi. The bike became an absolutely pig to push and after we rolled from Toledo the wind picked up and we were down to a miserly 10km/h. In total on our last day we did only 85km but it took us over 6.5 hours to get there. Anita, bless her heart, rode my bike for about 6 km when I was ready to give it all in. Amazing what the promise of a shower and a hotel bed will get her to do!
And then if that wasn’t all challenge enough, when we arrived into Oruro and we were on our way to the hostel we were stopped by a TV crew asking us our opinion of the demonstration. I heard the word Universiadad and assumed the university students were getting angry about something. All of a sudden all the stationed army battialions seemed sinister. All the shops were shut, the city seemed to have battened down the hatches for trouble. There were soldiers on every corner with riot batons and high powered rifles. The TV lady suggested that we don’t go across the train line to our destination and ‘stay away’. There were at least half a dozen tanks with massive cannons. We re-oriented ourselves and after a few directional stumbles in the growing darkness we found Hotel Sucre. It is a bit expensive but their hot showers are HOT.
As we watched the TV to better understand what was going on, the news finally talked about how the Presidente Evo Morales was in Oruro making a speech on Unity (Unidad, not Universiadad!). The army was there in force to illustrate the power and might of a unified Bolivia as part of 'Army Day' a traditional performance the day after Independence Day (August 6) and in a different town each year we hear. I believe that there are concerns flagged by the relatively wealthy lowland province of Santa Cruz wanting to separate from Bolivia. Not so very sinister in the end as I can’t imagine Oruro wanting to separate. The town of 200,000 odd people is far from wealthy and thus a very safe place for Evo to do his speech.
We are alive but not so well as both of us have now been hotel hostages for two days due to a nasty Boli-belli stomach bug.
I spent yesterday trying to source a new rear rim for my bike but could only find a poor quality 36 hole rim for about $6.50AUS. It was a rather bizarre, third world shopping experience with about 12 bike store/stalls on one side and about 30 butcher stalls with raw meat all over the place on the other side of the aisle. It took a while just to source a rim but none of the stalls had a mechanic so I brought the rim back to the hotel and rebuilt the wheel myself with 32 spokes leaving 4 equally spaced blanks. It’s my first effort of building a wheel from scratch. Stringing the spokes was tricky but the true craftsmanship goes in truing and balancing the wheel. Neither skills, it is clear, I am particularly good at. Fingers crossed it’ll get us to La Paz and a decent bike shop.
We hope to depart Oruro soon.
Regards,
Stuart (and Anita)
Posted byStuart Kane at 10:53 PM
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We continue here being your followers...Beautifull pictures and very impressive de Uyuni Salar.
Regards.
Diana y Gustavo.
Rosario - Argentina.