Advertisement
Published: November 24th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Little did we know that leaving La Paz would mean no internet until now, in Uyuni, on the edge of the Salt Flats. So we apoilogise for the lack of updates, but here are three stages for your amusement. We also want to point out that Bolivian computers being true to form, we have had further problems with photos, so again, it may be a while until we put up more pictures, which is irritating.
It was a slight relief leaving La Paz as it was noisy and dirty, though we had an enjoyable rest day there. It was also the place where we met Raphael as mentioned in the last blog. He has been with us now for 11 days and has certainly been an asset to our trip, not least because he has a pack of cards and has taught us a very good Swiss card game. The more music-savvy readers may mistake him for the front man of the Killers, Brandon Flowers, but I assure you this is Raphael.
Despite many people advising us to take a bus out of La Paz due to the boring road, reluctant to cheat, we started pedalling. The road was
indeed very boring but it was over sooner than expected as we decided to tweak our route slightly. We smashed 80km of dull tarmac and arrived in a small town called Patacamaya having been aided by a late afternoon tail wind, a welcome rarity. Rather than continuing south to Oruro, our original plan, we headed west from Patacamaya in search of a more scenic route. This is exactly what we found. The road was good so it allowed us to really stretch our legs and bash out some kms. This was a long yet productive day in which we cycled 105kms in just over 5 hours of riding. We timed our arrival at a small town called Curahuara just right, as a fierce storm arrived and forced us to reluctantly stay in an overpriced hostel which had a baby Llama responsible for the maintenance of the lawn. Another bowl of chicken soup complete with innards, and what looked like a floating neck was supper and after a game of cards we headed to bed to make the most of the overpriced room. The following day we headed into the town´s morning market in search of a breakfast and some supplies.
We ate several tasty but dissatisfyingly unnutritious deep-fried doughy pancakes and purchased some veggies and pasta for the next few days. Little did we know, that this day was to be the toughest so far. As per usual, the sun was ever present and thanks to the altitude of the altiplano there was little air to dissipate the sun´s penetrating rays. Obviously this was not the only hardship we had to endure. Becoming increasingly bored of the long yet scenic tarmac road, we took a road to the right which we knew would eventually lead us to the ever-looming monstrous snow-capped extinct volcanic mountain Sajama, the centre-piece of a national park. The dirt road we took turned out to be the wrong one. We could either have turned back, something which we have always tried to avoid, or push our bikes thorugh the sandy scrubland to the correct road. We decided on the latter and eventually came to a rock and sand infested washboard road, a surface which we would in the next few days become very familiar with. Darkness was creeping in and we soon came across a very expensive hostel, one which reluctantly we had to say no
to. We did manage to persuade them to sell us some tomatoes onions garlic and chilly though. A few kms on from there we found a lake with a flock of famingos; surely an odd place for them to congregate, 4000m up. This proved to be our best camp site to date as we were able to feast our eyes on Mt. Sajama right next to us and in the distance two massive volcanoes over the border in Chile. Not wanting to be too much of a travel bore, the sunset was astonishing.
After a couple of very draining days, we were relieved to come across some more hot springs. Getting to them required a slight trek but not surprisingly it was well worth it. After a long soak in the lava-heated pool we headed for the village of Sajama, a road which took us around the back of the massive mountain, Bolivia´s largest. We decided to take the rest of the day off and use the time to give our bikes some well earnt TLC. It was here that we took the decision to cross briefly into Chile rather than just head due south to the salt flats.
So we kissed goodbye to Bolivia for the time being, received our exit stamp from the cheerful Bolivian immigration and continued on the road to Chile. We thought we had done the last of arduous mountain passes, but ahead of us were no less than three, the first being just before the Chilean immigration. A smidgen of downhill later we arrived in Chile where the customs officials were bizzarely more efficient than Peru´s or Bolivia´s. Raphael inadvertedly smuggled some contraban across the border, two onions and some garlic. Tut tut tut. From here we had about 200km of Chilean / Bolivian border to get thorugh in a short amount of time, partly due to our slight lack of food and water and the complete lack of towns or villages on the way, as we would be cycling through three national parks.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0462s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb