UYUNI - DEATH ROAD (BOLIVIA) TO PATAGONIA (ARGENTINA)

Uyuni was and is a tourist hub. That means expensive food, drinks and general living. We spent one night there relaxing and stocking up on supplies for the road. Here we also tried llama for the first time, it was chewy at best but maybe we can blame the cook. The next day we rode out onto the world’s largest salt flat (11,000 sq-km), this huge expanse of flat-ness was such a dream to ride on... as the crow flies being my favourite type of navigation to date! That night was a windy camp next to Fish Island near the centre of the prehistoric lake.

Just before leaving Uyuni we had a look at the train graveyard, well until I got distracted...

Heading out onto the huge salt flats, so excited!

Wish we could be here for the 2016 Dakar but the timing is just slightly off.

Lots of flags at the information centre at the edge of the flats!

Lunch time, what a cute picnic!

Huge cacti everywhere, each one more impressive than the last.

Freddy having an 'inspirational photo moment'.

An almost idyllic camp location that night! 

The next day we had 550 km to ride in order to make it to La Paz. Our first decision of the day was a bit of a sketchy one. As the crow flies being the new preferred way of travelling we were smashing it across the salt flats making excellent time towards a minor road along the Northern boundary of the old lake. All of a sudden the bikes slowed, salt started flying everywhere and the entire thing got very boggy... with momentum, full throttle and a few tense moments we made it through the final 10 km to the gravel road. Both bikes were now totally drenched in wet salt, like icing on a cake! That afternoon we had some mystery meat (turned out to be llama again) and in the evening we made it to our destination. Overall a pretty damn successful and exciting day.

Washing off the salt that was caked on every inch of the bikes!

La Paz on the horizon!

Surprise surprise, La Paz!

Parking in the lobby, never gets old!

For almost 2 weeks now I had been heading North. The reason for this was that my dad had flown in to Peru, bought a motorcycle (Honda XR 650), and was heading South-East to meet me. At this stage I was in contact with him and he informed me that the bike was not running well and wouldn’t make it the 13,000 km we’d planned (we have until end of January together). So he flew to Santiago de Chile and hired a newer bike (Kawasaki KLR 650). While in La Paz I did death road with Freddy and then said my farewells as I started smashing it South again to meet my dad.

En-route to death road, not sure what to expect at this stage.

That day we climbed and descended over 8 km of altitude within a few hours.

600 m cliffs with the road only being as wide as 1 car in many places... it exceeded my expectations, as I was very skeptical of  all the hype.

Heading back from death road we were denied petrol 4 times before eventually receiving the local rate. Bolivia has an interesting law where there is a foreigner price for fuel (approx. $1.50 vs. $0.50 local price)... many petrol stations straight up reject foreigners because they cannot be bothered with the hassle, others haggle and pocket the extra cash whereas some don’t care and just fill up your tank as if you were a local, very strange indeed.

Freezing, cold and more freezing is the way to describe this day. Snow-rain was falling for most of the day whilst the road never dropped below 4000 m. Around the 300 km mark I tried to fuel up but as was typical by now, rejected. I continued on and didn’t manage to get fuel until the 560 km mark, I fueled up 32 litres (only 3 left in the tank!), lucky! Just before reaching Potosi, my destination for the day, I was pulled over by the local cops for doing 76 in a 60 zone. I think my bleak expression and uncontrollable shivering convinced them to let me off with a warning.

Wet feet, wet hands... everything was soo cold. At this stage I had already come out the other side of the storm.

Last views of Bolivia before the dash for the border with Argentina!

After a border crossing that took 4 hours I made it to Humahuaca in Northern Argentina. I received a nice discount for being a biker in the hostel there and then made my way to Santa Maria along Ruta de Vino (wine country). The new challenge in Argentina is withdrawing cash, usually taking around 5 attempts before receiving cash out. Interestingly the official rate of 1 USD to 9.8 Argentinean Pesos is easily beaten on the “black market” with a 40% better rate! But eventually the US dollars in my pockets will run out...

A thunderstorm to greet me in Argentina!

Huge gorges with strange little huts along the route.

More Argentinian beauty!

The road straightened out and I was almost there!

25 km of off-road before I could meet up with dad!

That night I arrived just in time to celebrate dad’s birthday, we had a great dinner in a local restaurant and did plenty of catching up... it had been almost a year after all! The following day we did a round trip of the local ruins and got the map out to plan our trip South to Patagonia and the “Land of Fire”.

Dad! Oh and some ruins...

They knew about 5 sentences of English, I knew about 5 sentences of Spanish... but they were adorable.

The road south was long and flat with occasional gravel sections, 500 km plus days were completed with relative ease. We saw many cyclists along the route, a few French overlanders in big rigs and of course a bunch of other motorcyclists, always nice to see people doing similar travels! Hot, dry but fast progress was the summary for those first few days until we got South of Mendoza. Insanely strong winds and a chilling drop in temperature made thermals and layering necessary even during the day.

The road South, along Ruta 40!

Eating our cheese and salami sandwiches...

More straight roads, making good progress.

Ravioli in cream sauce, amazing after a 10 hour ride!

Petrol station line all the way around the block, I'm under the tree on the right!

Ruta 40 occasionally turns to dirt, more fun times!

First oil change in South America... many more to come!

Admiring this hectic cloud... great roads through the mountains here!

Snow down at 1500 m, yep it's definitely getting cold now!

See the angle of that lean? This was a mild wind compared to what is hitting us daily!

Setting up camp just before the rains came...

There was a 2 hour lull in the rain so we got to enjoy our camp fire, we needed it as it dropped to 3 degrees that night.

As we crossed the border into Patagonia the scenery was absolutely spectacular even though it was raining. It was a shame as the photos could have been better, but nonetheless it was an awesome ride. Tomorrow is Christmas and as a present to myself I get to run around town trying to find someone to weld my broken pannier rack, replace my shot front bearings and fix my GPS that keeps losing power. So far Argentina has been an amazingly hospitable country with people greeting us on the streets and almost every car and truck giving us a wave, what a great feeling you have being a visitor in this country! Its Christmas tomorrow... Happy holidays!

More beautiful scenery, magic riding along this all day!

Some great mountain gravel roads, just gotta get away from the wind!

Such an amazing road called the route of the seven lakes (more like 50 lakes!).

Me in my sexy rain suit...

Even with bad weather this place was stunning!

If it wasn't so cold and rainy we would have set up camp here... but we're spending Christmas in the next city!

My latest track...

In the distance is San Carlos de Bariloche... our current location.

EUROPE TO SOUTH AMERICA

The time has finally come to emerge from my blog-writing-hibernation and be productive again, what a shame... haha! Rewind a couple of months now and I was organising the shipment of my motorbike from Germany to Chile. The process was quite simple, in that through a facebook group I came in contact with Stefan, a man that lives near Frankfurt (wow convenient!) who operates motorcycle tours. He just happened to be shipping his family’s bikes and a car to South America and had extra space for a tag-along such as myself. In his fee it even included an agent on the other end to sort out customs (that was well worth it). So I dropped the bike of at his place and said my farewells, teary eyed I knew I’d see her again... but still goodbye for now.

This was how I left her, all the packing was done for me... yeah yeah I'm a princess.

Backpacking around Europe in the meantime was also fun, a holiday from the travels (it really is a tough life I swear!). I met more great people, caught up with friends from home and spent a lot of time on buses! After a while I realised I wasn’t getting that kick that I enjoy so much from travel and missed my tent and own method of transport... queue my bicycle adventure. Man that was a great experience but now I missed my motorbike even more!

The Europe map...

After Sandy’s birthday in Lisbon I flew to Barcelona and did a Spanish course for a week before returning to Germany. Here winter was well and truly on its way, only a few more weeks until the bike arrives in Chile... patience.

Nutella owl, tasted even better than it looked!

On the 1^st of December I hopped on my plane to the Dominican Republic, caught the connection to Panama City, aaaaand then caught another flight to Santiago de Chile. 28 hours of pure excitement. 

Things to note: When transiting the Dominican Republic you have to go through immigration (avoid the 10 USD tourist card by explaining that it’s a transit, if you keep quiet you will have to pay). And no they do not speak English. A taxi from Santiago airport into the city centre costs around 50 USD whereas there is a bus running every 15 minutes for 2 USD (with luggage compartments).

Sunset over the Chilean coastline, amazing flying over the Andes.

The next day I caught the bus to Vina del mar (120 km outside of Santiago) which is the beach town next to the port in Valparaiso. Could not believe that it cost less than 5 bucks... everything else in Chile is expensive! After organising a sim card, camping gas, etc etc I made my way to the agent in Valpo. I won’t mention any names because he had a "good relationship" with customs and bam I had my bike within 2 hours, amazing! Besides the fuel having gone bad in the carb it was running great albeit after a spluttery, stalling first 25 km. On a side note everyone here has been extremely friendly even though we can’t understand each other!

Vina del Mar, it's nice being on the coast again!

My bike at the warehouse, everything went really smoothly.

There we have it, on the 5^th of December I was on the road heading North. The roads were long, straight and pretty much immaculate. Ocean views for most of the first 450 km to La Serena. Continuing North I passed through over 1000 KM of desert-scapes over plains up to and over 3000 m elevation. Hot days and cold nights I camped in the desert, totally alone... just me and the stars. On the 333^rd day of the trip I reached San Pedro de Atacama, a small town in the moon-like landscape of the Atacama Desert.

Riding along the famous Panamericana heading North.

Riding through the flowering desert, the camera just couldn't capture the 'purple-ness'.

Somewhere along the road taking a detour for lunch...

Back at the coast, the weather was great and the scenery even better!

Road works on the main road meant plenty of detours through small villages on the coast.

Back on Ruta 5 heading inland.

Starting to look for a place the spend the night...

Found one!

Foggy morning after a very cold night in the desert.

Hand in the desert, gotta get the typical tourist shot whilst I'm here!

Dreamy scenery but the highway drone was getting a bit old.

Up at 3700 m on my way to San Pedro de Atacama.

Arrived! The Atacama desert has 340 clear days a year, how insane is that!

Over the next few days the plan was to visit the usual tourist sites in the area, eg. Valle de la Luna / Muerte, Geysers de Tatio. However at the hostel I met another biker, Freddy from the UK riding an old (and sexy) R75 BMW, who asked if I wanted to join him on the off-road laguna route to Bolivia. I said yes, packed my things and off we went with petrol, food and water for the next 3 days of riding through this spectacular, desolate region.

So windy and bright at the immigration office!

Laguna Verde, almost as beautiful as my donkey!

Freddy reckons all roads lead to Uyuni, we shall see!

Well above 4000 m the bikes were struggling but the scenery was incredible.

Amazing camp location for the first night, or so we thought...

After being moved on from our idyllic camping spot we both had the most horrendous sleeps of our lives at over 4400 m above sea level. Head-aches and waking up breathless being the worst of the altitude sickness. In the morning we woke up to find all of our water frozen and Freddy’s bike struggling to start in the cold – coldest and highest I’ve ever camped at!

The parking lot the rangers made us move to, hot springs in the background.

On-wards to Laguna Colorado!

Customs was a bit of a wild goose chase as well in terms of actually finding the place, the route we were taking doesn’t exactly follow an ‘easy’ road. The customs house was at 5008 m and I felt quite ditsy, forgetting my bike papers on the chair and I just had that general drunk feeling... quite hilarious to try do serious paperwork in that state. Still we covered a lot of distance this day through some very sandy areas but nothing unmanageable for our mighty steeds. Wild camp that night at around 4100 m, luckily by now we had acclimatized.

Perfect weather to get a nice sunburn!

Flamingos everywhere!

Llamas grazing... wonder what they taste like (chewy).

That nights sheltered campsite, noodles and bread with some nice tunes before an early night.

Sunset over our campsite.

After the best sleep I’ve ever had in a tent it was back on the road for the final 167 km to Uyuni. The road got progressively better until it was just a gravel road with pot holes... that meant quick progress and we found a hostel with a courtyard for the bikes. First thing was first, a victory lunch to celebrate arriving back in ‘civilisation’... that meant a large pizza with beers, so delicious after days of stale bread and noodles! After that the bikes received some tender love and care before I finished this blog. Tomorrow it’s on to the Salar de Uyuni and then up to La Paz... South America has been absolutely stunning so far and Spanish is definitely very fun!

Tough roads but absolutely worth it for the experience.

Corrugations can be a nightmare but we pushed through... 

Our nice little room, look that those two cuties...

The route so far... next it's North, and then South to Patagonia!