Bolivia - from La Paz to the Salar de Uyuni and into Bolivia' s wild southwest

To the Salar de Uyuni


La Paz - Tholar - Caracolla - Oruro - Challapata - ? - Salinas de Garci Mendoza - Salar de Uyuni - ? - San Juan de Rosario

07.09. - 20.09.

(76 - 125 - 39 - 125 - 84 - 74 - 58 - 76 - 41 km)

In La Paz we had to decide on our further route in Bolivia; the Salar de Uyuni, the wold' s biggest salt flat was a must-see, and since the southwest of Bolivia was full of volcanoes, lagoons, high-altitiude deserts (which are really cold at night), flamencos, but with almost no traffic and villages, we chose this adventure. And I was fed up with Bolivian truck traffic and Bolivian school kids laughing at us. So - vamos into the wild; into the region I would love most of our voyage. Whose friendly inhabitants would change my image of this country. And, despite the cold and bad roads, I' m going to be sad to leave for Chile.

From Challapata on we weren' t cycling on paved road anymore; and for me who was used to thepaved Panamericana, it was hard to get used to sand, stones, some pushing, much of vibration, frustration, small speeds and the fear that the rack would break under the high weight of our baggages, the food and water. Plus a village each 2 days, but the non-existence of traffic, open-air camping with fire (only the first night after Challapata, because there was no wind between the sand dunes) and the great landscape compensated these problems of the beginning.

From Challapata on riding towards the Salar de Uyuni we approached the Volcano Thunupa, until we circled it when entering the Salar. As villages were scarce in this area, we had to camp several times until San Juan at the south of the Salar. And the nights are really cold in this area: as we have no thermometer, we made the "bottle test" every morning: most times the water outside the tent was half frozen, and inside the tent liquid. For exception of the Salar, where the temperatures remained over 0; nevertheless, there we passed most cold, and we suppose it' s because of the humidity of the salt flat. Even though the cold was supportable, we wished to have some warmer sleeping bags and tried to avoid outdoor camping at more than 4000m. From San Juan it was easy to find "refugios" or hotels to sleep in, as there are more than 30 jeeps full of tourists passing Bolivia' s southwest every day. And these 4x4 were also a big aid to ask for the right way. And every two days we could fill up our water bottles, not to speak of hth pityful tourists offering you water.

But first we arrived in the big city of Oruro. As it's a mining city, just as Potosi, we went to a visit to the mines of San Jose.

terrible traffic between La Paz and Oruro; and the trucks don' t care about leaving much space to us cyclists

the two Basques, Nacho and Idoia, with whom we rode together "in convoi" from La Paz to Challapata

"el Tio", the miners' god, needs offerings of Coca (small green leaves), alkohol and tobacco each time you enter the mine

in the mine of Oruro - the air was quite thick although we were on "level zero"

day 1 (15.09.) : From Chalapata on the traffic was really agreeable, and until Quillacas we had the paved road almost only for us. At the moment we arrived in Quillacas, there was a fiesta for the village' s saint, and as for all fiestas of this type, the village was busy drinking beer and dancing. When I arrived there, completely tired and sweated after the steep dumpy road, I had to drink one beer to the saint, and the people were very frienly there. Afterwards we did some kilometers more until we found some nice sand dunes for camping. This was where we could heat ourselves by a nice little fire and could enjoy the milky way, the cross of the South and millions of other stars of the giant sky above us.

our first camping spot in the dunes, after Quillacas

lots of llamas of all colours

day 2 (16.09.) : This second day we would be long and difficult, and in the last light of day we arrived in Salinas, a village much nicer than its first appeaerance. We could have arrived easier if we hadn' t got lost on the Salar: as the washboard road was terrible, with millions of little hills which make your bike and yourself jump up and down each 30cm, and we saw the northeast part of the Salar on our left, we decided to take the easier way on the Salar Which indeed was great to advance on the huge white surface; but which cost us more than 10km extra, because we didn' t know where to leave the Salar for arriving at Salinas. Nevertheless we saw many Vicuñas on the salt flat, in front of the Volcan Thunupa.

bumpy road...

passing the Salar and Volcan Thunupa before Salinas, day 2

day 3 (17.09.): We planned to enter the Salar in Jirira, and the way to Jirira contained a terrible 4 km uphill with so many stones that make the bike jump left and right on the narrow serpentines In Jirira we met a Quinoa farmer who is responsible to sell the Quinoa prodeuced int he region to lots of different "bio" or ecological labels in Italia, France, England and more He told us that scientist found out, that if humanity had to depend on only one basic food, it would be - you can guess - Quinoa. Because it has high contents of vitamins, minerals, proteins and prevents 25 diseases, including cancer. All in all the wonder nutriment.  And he the farmer' s  fathers, grandfathers and so on, have reched ages above 100 years. We saw him planting the Quinoa, a really remakable plant, as it' s the only growong at this rough conditions, in altitude, cold and salty soil. So we left Jirira for the Salar with the thought that we should have added some packs of Quinoa to our provosions.

Cycling on the Salar is "liberté toujours", the only problem is to have a fixed mark which you are heading for, as there are no marked paths.  On top of that there are plenty of  islands on the Salar, so that it' s not easy to identify the right one. So we headed the whole day for one island in the distance, which we supposed to be Isla Incahuasi, until we finally put our tents on the Salar. But during the nigt we remarked that this island could not be Isla Incahusi, so we had to change the direction for the next day and had done 20km extra on the Salar.

on the Salar, with volcano Thunupa in the background

just the Salar and us - we could here every car passing in 20km distance

sunset on the Salar

day 4 (18.09.):  The Salar de Uyuni is really an extraordinary place, a big white surface made of Lithium salts, which are really salty; this we experienced  riding over wet surfaces, completely covered with salt after that day, and the salt burning in the eyes and on the lips. And the surface of the Salar is really heterogen: some parts are as hard as salt "asphalt", others are coverd by the famous polygonal pattern whose limits are quite bumpy. And in the southern end the surface migt be covered by millions of 10cm-salt-crystals or be sandy and soft so that we needed to push, although the end of the Salar seemed sooooo near.

But first we arrived at he Isla Incahuasi, the most touristic of all, with plenty of hundreds-of-years-old cactuses and with stones of coral origen. Indeed, the islands had been coral reefs a long time ago, covered by a giant ocean. When this ocean evaporated, it left behind all the Salars you can find in this region. There we filled up our water, bread and biscuits and ate lunch with a French family, travelling with a caravan, which we had repeatedly met the last 3 days ( it 's good to know that a caravan is not necessarily faster than us cyclists on these bad roads).

From Isla Incahuasi we just wanted to avoid spending another night on the cold Salar (even though the sunset and the sky at night are magnificient), but as the southern edge was difficult to cycle, we had to put up our tents somewhere in a field, ready for quinoa seeding, before Colcha K.

heading towards the real Isla Incahuasi on the Salar

Isla Incahuasi, with cactuses nearly 1000 years old (they grow 1cm per year)

day 5 + 6 (19.09. + 20.09.):

In our description in this part till San Juan it was supposed to be difficult to find the right way. Indeed, there were lots of different paths  leading in all directions, but the tourist jeeps overtaking us not only left us in big dust clouds, but also told us the right way. The bigger problem was the deep sand in some parts, and pushing a bike is no fun if it' s charged with 22 kg of baggage plus 5kg of water...

Once in San Juan, we had one day of rest, being calm, relaxing, washing our clothes and bikes (full of salt) and fill up our food provisions. There we also ate llama meat for our first time, and lots of Quinoa soup. Only finding bread was a challenge, as half the village, including all men, women and children and the bread bakers, were on the fields seeding Quinoa.

our provisions for Bolivia' s southwest - from San Juan on there were no fruits or vegetables available

Into the wild - Bolivia' s magnificent southwest

San Juan - ? - ? - Laguna Hedionda - Hotel del Desierto - Refugio Laguna Colorada -
Laguna Chalviri - Refugio Laguna Blanca - San Pedro de Atacama (Chile)　
　
21.09. - 29.09.2011

(58 - 48 - 29 - 40 - 48 - 60 - 45 - 70 km)

after having crossed the Salar de Chuguani (background), the road goes up in serpentines (day 7)

From San Juan on, we had 50 flat kilometers, passing the Salat de Chiguana. Afterwards we left the 3700m above sea level for the rest of Bolivia and climbed a difficult, stony and serpentine track.

day 8+9 : The next day we arrived at the "international road" to Alota, a dream of street with strong tailwind. Unfortunately, our route description, made by cyclists, had one error, which we realized almost 20km too late: we had missed the exit direction to the 5 lagunas Cañapa, hedionda & Co. So we had to return and due to the enormously strong wind blowing against us, we arrived at laguna Hedionda the following day...so from now on always always ask for the way...

Volcan Ollague in Chile - we cycle south near to the border; Ollague is active, see the smoke on the left

Laguna Hedionda, one of the first lagoons; and as the name implies, it stinks a bit

Flamencos in the Laguna Hedionda

Arriving at Laguna Hedionda I already perceived a bad smell, and Juan told me "hedionda" means stinking..Despite of that and the strong wind, I really loved this light-blue lagoon, with the noise of a big flamingo colony. In Laguna Hedionda we slept in the "Ecolodge Los Flamencos" in the guides' dorm, but in the evening we had our dinner in front of a comfortable, interior fireside.

day 10: For me, my first time at 4700m, and also the hardest day of all. Above 4600m I had some respiration problems and had to make a break every 5 minutes because of slow respiration and fast fatigue. On top of that we were captured by a narrow canyon during a big part of the uphill to that pass, with needing to cross a small river every some meters, with ice and snow formations on both sides and no idea where we actually were (because of the canyon walls). We saw a "Viscacha" there, a rodent which looks for me like a big grey Chinchilla; but I have no idea what this animal is eating there.

After the 4700m we rode downhill to arrive at the "Hotel del Desierto", where we were received very friendly, slept in a dorm with 6 guides and had the best breakfast ever. A wonderful place to arrive at after complete exhaustion.

washbord surface on the road: extremely uncomfortable when pedaling

day 11: 10km after the hotel del Desierto the road improved significantly, which was due to the fact that we had entered the Parque Nacional Eduardo Alvaroa. And as every tourist needs to pay admission there, they could invest in "de-sanding" the roads. We were crossing the Siloli desert that day, but it was not necessarily sandier than before, with rocks in the sesert and high mountains on both sides. The "highlight" of that desert is the " Arbol de Piedra", one of many rocks in the desert, but which is formed to a "tree" by wind and erosion.

in the Siloli desert

the Arbol de Piedra in the Siloli desert - fortunately the road was not too sandy

After picnicing beside the Arbol, we went downhill towards Laguna Colorada ( also called "Laguna Roja"), a lagoon which had been on the list to vote for the 7 new world wonders. Let' see if it is so special.

the Laguna Colorada - much wind in the afternoon on the red-coloured water

in the bachground the refugio Laguna Colorada, where we stayed one pause day

flamencos in the Laguna Colorada; I wonder why they persist in these rough conditions

day 12: Rest day in the Refugio Laguna Colorada. During the day we made some walks alongside the lagoon and watched the numerous flamingos. The lagoon is not deeper than 50cm, I suppose, as the flamingos are walking through all parts of the lagoon, with their long thin legs, filtering algae (the lagoon' s colour is due to red algae) and diatomeae from the salty water. The flamingos there belong to 3 different species, beside plenty of other birds.

day 13: We had been afraid of climbing the 4926m pass, which we did this day, but all in all it was easier than we had thought, and, funnily enough, I had no respiration problems at all. And there, on a 10km-long plateau at 4900m, we were feeling like on the top of the world, surrounded by all the snow-capped mountains; it was a really great view and we felt as if everything was possible. And thereafter the descent to Laguna Chalviri.

ice or snow fields at 4900m; fortunately they were already melting...

feeling like on the top of the world: at 4926m



Laguna Chalviri with the thermal bath left to the small house: a wonderful bath at more than 30 degrees after a hard day...

day 14: From Laguna Chalviri, where we friendly owner let us sleep on the floor of the warm restaurant, we had to traverse another mountain ridge and the so-called Desierto de Dali. To arrive at the two inter-connected Laguna Blanca (the water has the colour of milk when there is wind) and Laguna Verde (you can guess the colour;)).

Laguna Blanca, the last of the lagoons

day 15: Goodbye, Bolivia!!! From Refugio Laguna Blanca to the border and then downhill towards San Pedro de Atacama.

in Chile: Lamas in front of Volkan Licancabur

dashing downhill into the desert of Atacama: from 4600m to 2300m in 40km...

Crossing the Chilean border was sad, whith all the spectacular mountains in our back and whith more than 2000 altimeters downhill into a moon-like desertic landscape. The driest desert, Atacama, where it is really hot on midday despite its 2300 m above sea level. And into a country that on first gaze seems like Europe: the prices, the people, modern, arrogant when speaking about the poorer neighbours Bolivia and Peru, and macho. Welcome to San Pedro the Atacama!

the church of San Pedro de Atacama

After one week in San Pedro, doing tours into the Valle de la Luna and others, tomorrow we continue cycling towards the Chilean coast, to Antofagasta. And we' ll stand up early these days, for the desert heat at midday.