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Published: August 5th 2015
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Distance driven today: 339 miles / 546 km
Cumulative distance driven: 12,611 miles / 20,295 km
Today’s trip: Uyuni to Tarija, Bolivia
Enjoyed riding on paved roads all day: immensely
Our plan for today was really simple: avoid any unpaved roads at any cost. Our experience from yesterday’s extremely difficult sand and dirt road had certainly dampened our spirits a bit, the least to say. It was therefore a very welcome surprise when an older Bolivian man approached our table during breakfast at the hotel and started asking us questions about our motorcycle and our trip. When he heard about our PanAmerican itinerary he immediately got excited. Turns out he had a similar motorcycle and he had ridden it all over South America, and perhaps more interestingly, he had shipped it to Europe and driven on some of the most beautiful and spectacular motorcycle routes in Spain, Italy, Norway and Sweden. With the Bolivian GPD per capita being $2,800 per year we figured that this was not your average Bolivian. That’s when I decided to ask him about advice for which road to take to get to the Argentinian border.
As luck has it, this
man was a road engineer with the Bolivian department of transportation and he had designed several of the roads that I asked about. What are the chances, really? He had tons of detailed information to give us about the surface condition of the roads, which roads had road protection barriers, their usual traffic pattern etc. We had simply stuck gold when it comes to reliable and accurate information about Bolivian roads. Most importantly, he strongly recommended we consider a different border crossing than the one we planned to travel through to get to Argentina tomorrow. By his account, we would probably save up to half a day by choosing to cross into Argentina through the Bermejo border, rather than the Villazon that we had planned to take. He was so happy to meet somebody that drove a bike like his, that he he offered us to come visit him at his house at a city in the north east part of the country.
This encounter, and the invaluable information we got from the Bolivian road engineer, raised our spirits and we felt that we were off to a great start of the day. However, when we started rolling out
of Uyuni in the frosty morning, we felt that both man and machine were very tired. Zoe and I felt that we would need a few days of vacation (!) to regain our physical and mental strength following yesterday’s exhausting ride in the dirt and sand road. Unfortunately, our schedule does not allow us to take any time off. As for the bike, it took 5 separate attempts to start. When the engine finally did start, it too sounded very tired. This was a combination of the extreme sub-freezing temperature overnight, thinner air due to the high altitude, the lower grade gas that we got last time we filled up the tank, and the huge amount of sand and dust that must be clogging the air filter after yesterday’s gravel and sand road. It took almost an hour or so of riding in the morning, before man and machine started to feel more normal.
After a quick lunch stop at the city of Potosi, we started riding south toward our destination for today, which is the city of Tarija, a few hours from the Argentinian border. Tarija was suggested as a stop by the road engineer we meet this
morning. About an hour south of Potosi, in one of the many sharp turns on the mountain road, we saw several police officers, ambulances, and several motorists wondering about the side of the road. It was clear that an accident had happened very recently, and Zoe and I stopped among the other vehicles at the scene of the accident. It was evident that a truck had entered the sharp curve way too fast, and had as a consequence rammed through the protective barrier, and then smashed into the nearby mountain wall. The truck cabin had been completely flattened by the impact, and all of the cargo was spread on the side of the road.
Zoe commented that she hoped that nobody had gotten hurt. I answered her that I hoped the same, through circumstances on the scene suggested otherwise. In the next minute we saw the police retrieving the body of the dead driver and his female companion. None of them seem to have been wearing seat belts, since their bodies appears to have been flung over 20m / 60ft from the point where the truck had exited the road, and thrown toward the mountain wall. It
was a visceral experience the least to say, especially for Zoe who had never before seen a horrific traffic accident live. After we left the accident scene we talked for a long while about traffic dangers, what to do to prevent accidents, and how to judge risks when driving. For Zoe who has been counting road side memorials and crosses since northern Peru, this become a grim reminder of the fact that each cross is actually an unfortunate driver or passenger who have lost their lives on the roads.
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