Bolivia, backroads and basics

6 December – Back in Cusco after a long 2-day detour to Machu Picchu. Amazing side-trip. Instead of taking the over-priced gringo train to the famous inca site, I took advantage of the motorbike and took a 6 hour road over the andes and to the “backdoor” entrance to Machu Piccu. The road went over a 4.8km pass through the andes and then a fun last couple hours of dirt. From there I hitched a ride with a combi-van to get to the Hydro plant on the train line, which was then a 2 hour walk to Aguas Calientes, where I slept and got the first bus up the next day to catch the site on a rare sunny day in December. The site is really out of the way and the absurd number of people visiting means they try to extort as much money out of you as they can. I shared a guide with some swiss friends and he pointed out some truely amazing features of the site. Done by 10am I decided to get my walk on and try to get back to Cusco by sundown. I made good time until I hit roadworks. The kind of roadworks where they force landslides and then clear it out with bulldozers. Booo. Then it started to rain. I hadn’t crossed the pass yet and it was getting late. I tried to stay dry but with no cover available I stood like a robot out of batteries with my helmet on which kept me the driest. At 5pm I started the ascent. It was completely dark as I got close to the top, through the fog I could see amazing snow-capped peaks against the starry sky, but the rest of the time I was dodging rocky debris as best as I could through the fog. It was only going to get worse before it got better. When I finally made the top, the wind was chilly but I reminded myself every 100m lower I get the warmer it will be. The fast highway to Cusco chilled me to the bone but I made it eventually.

9 December – La Paz. I’m high now.. about 4km of altitude. I have a general sense of fatigue. During the ride up I have been breathing deeply to get as much oxygen out of the air as possible, drinking lots of water because the air is alot drier, and chewing on the local cocoa leaf which also helps with altitude syptoms. All I knew about Bolivia was it was cheap and the drivers are crazy. Both are true. But its the pedestrians that are worse. They like to get halfway across the road and then check to see if cars are coming. The streets are filled with minivan busses, and the pedestrians will cross 3 lanes to make sure they don’t miss their ride! La Paz is quirky, I kind of like it. They don’t try to be someone they are not. Also the police force use KLR 650′s which means I was able to get some parts I needed pretty easily.

12 December – Day trip to the “Most dangerous road in the world”. I would love to perpetuate this by bragging about my huevos grandes, but I can’t. They have built a bypass road which means no traffic uses the road. At only 3m wide most deaths (100 per year) were caused by swerving and oncoming cars going over the edge during passes. But now only downhill traffic is allowed and the only traffic it sees are about 50 downhill bicycles and a couple tourist jeeps each day. Don’t get me wrong, a no traffic dirt road through epic scenery and sheer cliff drops was one of the funnest rides of the trip, but by far not the most dangerous. I took the bypass road on the way up… brand new pavement twisting from the jungle basin back up to 4km was fun by itself. An awesome day of riding and I got to fall in love with the bike again after all the problems I had been having with it. The story is the same for all of latin america right now. There is a mix of wild dirt roads with brand new paved roads as they develop their infrastructure. If you want adventure riding across latin america you better hurry up because soon there won’t be backroads adventure left! Adventure is truly being replaced by asphalt!

14 December – Potosi, the highest city in the world. The bilke is coughing for the lack of air and my voice has decided to sit out for a while. I can barely speak in a whisper. I was planning on heading straight on to the salt flats, but I had to stay to take a tour through a Bolivian mine. We got some soda and some coca leaves to tip the miners, and a couple sticks of dynamite ($3USD each). Chile and New Zealand were in the back of my mind but I sucked it up and went anyway. The mines were definately not built for 6″5′ Australians and the lack of oxygen, near crawling sized tunnels and the altitude exhausted me. It was not ‘pleasurable’ experience but it was worth it to see a working mine run by hardcore miners with cheeks full of coca leaves.

15 December – Uyuni, the base town for trips to the Salar de Uyuni (Salt Deserts). I made it to town early and had enough time for an afternoon./sunset trip to the flats. I got out there quick and was blazing across extreme nothingness in no time. The only way to tell the distance to anywhere was by the shade of haze of the mountains. What looked like 10km away was more like 100km away. I got somewhere in the middle and fooled around the camera and eventually found the hotel made of salt. The sunset over the flats was amazing and definitely worth sticking around for.

16 December – Tupiza, a small, friendly town set in a wild west backdrop. The 200km ride here was really remote. About 95km into the ride, my gear shifting lever wore out its grip completely. My went as macgyver as I could but could only managed shifting to first with some pliers. I could then roll it down a hill for a pushstart and hobble to the only village on the road which was 10k’s away. I found a mechanic with a soldering machine to fix it and after lunch I was on my way. Doing all of this without any voice made it all the more challenging and reminded me of what it was like in Mexico when I had no spanish and had to rely on everything other than words to communicate. The road was amazing, over arid desert hillscapes, through cactus fields and then arizona-like canyons. The road itself changed from mud to dirt to sand to rock and back to dirt, it had more blind corners than Mr Magoo could poke a stick at. A really fun ride, Potosi – Uyuni – Tupiza is a highly recommended route for any other riders! Tonight will be my last night in Bolivia, an amazing country and it had a lot more to it than I expected. Tomorrow, Argentina, and Buenos Aires, the final destination and where I will sell the bike.

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