The morning that I set off heading south from Sajama National Park I did so more in hope than expectation of being able to head south off road.  The journey should take me about a week of living in my tent to reach the salt Salars at Uyuni, but I had been told that there was a river crossing that lay 2 days ride away and as there was no bridge it may be impossible to cross.   

As January should be the month for peak rainfall people had told me that either there was no way that I could cross it or that the water would reach over my waist and the current would be too strong to cross. 

What I have seen since being in Bolivia is that the rainy season is nowhere near what it was even a few years ago.  In La Paz there are water shortages as the glaciers which should feed the rivers are in retreat and in the two weeks that I have been in Bolivia there have been a few showers but nothing near the rainfall the country should be experiencing. 

When researching this trip the words which kept cropping up for cycling in Bolivia in January were – don’t, never and avoid.  The reality of what I have found is that January is the perfect month – it is summer time so relatively warm at 13,000 ft, water is in plentiful supply in all of the villages that I cycle and so far I haven’t had to put on my wet weather gear.

The only negative on the horizon may be the river crossing that I needed to take in two days time.  Hopefully, when I reached the river climate change may for once work in my favour.

Before I left there was one job that I needed to do and that was to get some herpes crème.  Now I know what you are thinking but it was not for genital herpes but for the kind you get around your mouth. I find that I get a breakout when I stress my body and cycling at 13,000ft sure was putting my body under stress.   In the UK I would call them a cold sore but abroad nobody seems to understands until you point to your mouth and say herpes.

I went to the hospital in the village as there was no pharmacy.  It was not hard to spot which building in the village was the hospital was as it was the only modern building for miles around.

I tried to explain what I wanted to the guy on reception but my pronunciation of herpes in Spanish must have been off as he did not understand.  He took me into the back to where they kept the medicine but I couldn’t see the cream that I was after.  He asked me to wait while he went to find somebody else but when he arrived he also did not understand herpes so I wrote it down. 

Immediately he said “Ah herpes” which I’m sure was exactly how I had pronounced it 20 minutes earlier.  Still, now he understood he said that he didn’t have any crème but he did have tablets and so for 20 BOL I got 10 tablets that should sort out my herpes!!!

Now that that was sorted it was time to start cycling south and when I left the village of Sajama I did not take the official main road out of the National Park but instead took the track behind the football field as the map showed that the track should would bring me out on the same highway but 5km closer to the border with Chile.

The track was fairly sandy but it was still good enough to cycle on and once again led me through stunning countryside.

I passed several groups of houses by the side of the track but never saw one person in any of the houses.

The one thing that they all had in common though was that even if there were only 5 houses there was a church

The other thing that amazes me is that all of the shepherds ride bicycles when they are off looking after their animals and I often see bicycles just standing next to the track in the middle of nowhere.

After about 20 minutes I came across a family who were busy shearing the wool of the alpaca’s that they own. 

As it is summer time here in Bolivia it is that time of year when the herds need to be sheared and the father of the family said that everybody lends a hand.

The first job is to tie the legs of the alpaca together to stop them kicking.

Then you cover the eyes of the animal to keep them calm. 

Then everybody gets a pair of scissors hand shears the alpaca. 

The father explained that it doesn’t matter if the fleece doesn’t come away in one go as they get paid by the weight of the wool that they collect.  I think that he said that they get 40 BOL per kg but he might have mean’t 40 USD as the American currency is used in the country equally as much as BOL.

It was fascinating to see all of the family working together – you had grandmother, mother, father and the kids. Although the youngest didn’t seem that interested in doing any work and preferred to use the wheelbarrow as a see saw.

Here is a 3 minute video to show you the family in action:

I could have stayed there all day and watched as it was a fascinating sight but that wouldn’t get me south and so I bid the family farewell and continued down the track to the highway.

After 12km I hit the highway and turned right towards Chile. 

The border lay about 8km down the road and that was where I would pick up my track south.  Being on the tarmac was so much faster than on the sandy tracks but nowhere near as much fun.

When I reached the border there was a line of trucks waiting to cross into Chile and a petrol station. 

This was good as I needed to top up my cooker as I did not know when the next time I would see a petrol station was.  The only problem with buying fuel in Boivia is that by law they are only allowed to fill the tanks of vehicles and there are cameras on the forecourts to keep an eye on proceedings.  Apparently this is to stop people smuggling fuel across the border as it is far cheaper in Bolivia than it is in Chile.

When I asked the pump attendant to fill my cooker tank he said that he couldn’t but asked me to follow him to the office.  In the office he had a 2 litre bottle full of petrol and used this to fill my tank.  I only needed about 1 BOL worth of fuel but gave him 5 BOL for his time as if I hadn’t managed to get any fuel then I could be in trouble down the road as there weren’t many towns where I was heading.

The first real village of any size that I would ride through was 3 days ride away and so I needed to carry enough supplies for at least 3 days. For food I carried 1 pack of dried pasta, 3 small tins of tuna, a 750g pack of porridge (if you are looking it to buy it in Bolivia just ask for Avena which is the brand as they don’t seem to understand porridge or oats but all know Avena), two packets of dried soups with vermicelli, two packets of instant noodles (which are really expensive in Bolivia) and a packet of crackers to snack on.  This would easily give me enough food and if the worst came to the worst I could live on porridge for a day or so.

My biggest unknown was water as I did not know what the water supplies would be like en-route but I figured that as it was rainy season, even though it was not raining, I would come across puddles plus I knew from the map that their was a Laguna at the end of my first day and a river somewhere on my second day. 

I had read accounts of people cycling with 12 litres of water which is 3 days worth of water which I thought was crazy.  When I left the highway and set off through the mountains I carried 4 litres of water with me

A 2 litre bottle on the front rack, a 1.5 litre bottle in the front bottle cage and a 500ml bottle which I drank out of in the rear bottle cage. 

What I found en-route for the part of the Altiplano between Sajama and Sabaya (a 3 or 4 day ride) is that every village that is big enough to be mentioned on the map has taps at the entrance of the village that you can easily access and from what the people said that I asked was that the supply is available all year round as it is drawn from an underground aquifer.  Plus, most random houses that you pass draw their water from a well which you can again refill your bottles from.

Although I carry a water filter with me I have not bothered filtering the water as it is clean from an underground acquifer, and so in a way I am getting free Evian.  Now that I had enough water and food with me it was time to get on with the reason why I had come to Bolivia – to cycle the high altitude Altiplano and head into the mountains.

The road when I left the highway was in fairly good condition but was very rocky and what had happened is that other tracks had been opened up next to the main track and it was a case of choosing the bit was smoothest and then just jumping from track to track.

On the tarmac sealed road I tend to ride at about 20 kmph but on this section of the track I was keeping my speed to around 10kmph as if you pushed it any faster the panniers would probably shake apart on the stony sections and on the sandier sections it was too dangerous.  The sandy sections were smoother but every 50m or so I would cycle over a softer section where the front wheel would bog down and the rear end would slide out sideways.  It took me a few falls before I got the hang of riding over the sandier sections of the track. 

If you are reading this and are planning on cycling these tracks definitely don’t do it solely with clip-in pedals as you will have a nightmare and regularly fall off as you need to be able to put your foot down in a hurry when you hit the deep sandy parts or hit a rock which literally throws the bike sideways. I ride with duel sided pedals – on side has a clip-in for your shoes and the other side a flat ‘normal’ pedal where you can ride with any shoe.

The day that I set off through the Altiplano was a beautiful clear day and the views back to Volcan Sajama were simply stunning

After around 10km I passed through the first village of any size which was Chachacomani.  As I approached the entrance to the village there was a locked barrier across the track and I’m not sure what this is for – whether it is just to check who is driving down the road to stop smugglers or whether cars that pass have to pay a fee I’m not sure.  Anyway, the barrier was unattended, cars must have to honk their horns to get attention, so I just cycles around it and entered the village.

There was a shop on the right hand side just past the entrance of the village if I needed to buy anything

As I was fully stocked I carried on and continued on the track out of the village.  So far, navigation had not been too much of a problem as when I came to a junction, of which there are many, I just took the largest track and visibility was in excess of 10km and I could often see the direction that the tracks were heading away in the distance.

I also had my phone with me and although I had no signal the gps function still worked and so when I found myself on a track heading in the wrong direction I could use this to head in the right direction to pick up a different track.

The tracks that I was following all tended to stick to the edges of the salars that I was crossing rather than head directly though the centre of them so again if I found myself heading in the wrong direction I would just take the next track which headed towards the edge of the Salar where the main track was.

The other reason for not staying on the main track is that new villages have been built since the original track was upgraded and it is now not often the quickest, or smoothest way of crossing the salars but it is always reassuring to know that if you get lost that you can head towards the very edge and pick it back up.

Raising Llamas still seemed to be the only source of food and income for the people in the area and were my main company along the track and in the villages that I passed through.

They are kind of stupid animals in the sense that they don’t seem that bright.  After a few near misses with me catching them unaware and scaring them and then they bolt across the track in front of me I now tend to shout hello when I see one of them next to the track.  Their reaction is always the same and makes me laugh each time – when they hear me they stop eating and look around them and eventually see me, then I swear their eyes get bigger in shock that after staring at me for two or three seconds they bolt. 

As they are not solitary animals when they bolt the rest of the herd that are around them also bolt and it is like follow my leader, whichever direction the first animal takes the rest also take which means that you can suddenly have 20 llamas heading your direction.  It is more comical than dangerous though and another of those strange little encounters that you have when riding your bike through different countries.

The other first was Ostriche’s mixed in with the herds of llamas

The other thing that has stuck me when cycling through the salars is just how pristine the environment is.  There is not a speck of rubbish anywhere.  One of the highlights for me of cycling through Asia was climbing to the crater rim of Volcano Rinjani but the one memory that will stick with me is the amount of rubbish and toilet paper that there was where people had camped on the crater rim. 

When cycling any rubbish that I have I carry out with me and as we are all human then we all need to go to the toilet.  Again, I don’t want to leave any trace so I dig a hole to do my business in and as it can be days before I get to a town to dispose of the rubbish for hygiene reasons I don’t want to carry with me soiled tissue so I burn it, obviously taking care not to set fire to anything around me.  All of the ashes are then scooped into the hole and covered back over with the soil. Again, a kind of mantra I have when cycling is that my only trace of me in the environment should be my tire tracks.

By lunchtime I had reached the second major village that I needed to pass through which was Mogachi.  As I entered the village there were a couple of woman stood chatting next to the first compound of houses on my right.

I asked them if I could refill my water bottles and they led me into the compound where there was a tap. I had covered around 25 km so far and had drunk just over a 1.5 litres of water as the sun was now blazing overhead. 

One of the ladies asked if I was riding alone and when I said yes she said, again in Spanish so I may not have the exact translation, that I would never ride alone as Jesus would always be riding with me.  I thought that this was a beautiful expression and again a memory which will always stick with me.

It was now time for lunch and so I cycled out of the village in the direction of Macaya, which was the next major village that I was heading for, and looked for a wall that I could shelter behind to have lunch as the wind was fairly blowing as it often seemed to do in the afternoon.  The environment that I was now cycling through was akin to a desert and I could see the wind whipping up mini sand storms in the distance.

On the outskirts of the village there was a disused Llama pen in the middle of what should have been a laguna but was now a dry lake bed and this would be ideal for me to shelter out of the wind and eat my lunch without having sand blown into it.

It really was a stunning location for lunch and here is a 1 minute video so that you can see just how special a place it was:

Lunch was a hearty meal of vegetable vermicelli soup with a portion of dried pasta thrown in to top up the carb intake.

After lunch there were many tracks through the dried lake bed but the direction that I was heading was Macay and so I picked a track which headed towards the mountains that I could see in the distance headed in that direction and off I went.

After another couple of hours of cycling on a mixture of sandy and rocky tracks I arrived at the village of Macaya which was 45km from the main highway and had been my target destination for the day.

The village seemed to be an army outpost and at the entrance to the village there was an army garrison

And the central plaza seemed to be more of a parade ground than a social gathering place

And the village lacked any form of color with the houses being made from mud, sand and straw bricks. 

Again, I never saw a soul the whole time that I was in the village.  It was starting to feel a bit like a scene from the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang when everybody hides when the ‘child’ catcher comes to town.

I had made good time getting to the village as the tracks that I was following were in good condition and even the sandier sections I was able to cycle.  Again, the advantage of riding through here in the rainy season was that the sand tended to be fairly compact rather than being dry, loose grains which I imagine in the dry winter would be impossible to cycle through.

As it was only 4pm I decided to carry on as the river crossing that may put an end to my journey through this section of the Altiplano lay 15km further on and I wanted to at least lay eyes on the river to judge whether or not I could cross it.  If it was as deep as everybody told me then I would make camp on the side of the river and try to cross it the next morning as attempting to cross a fast flowing river at the end of a long day would be way too dangerous.

As I excited the village I lay eyes on my first highland Laguna in the Bolivian Altiplano (the area of the Andes above about 11,500 ft) 

On Laguna Macaya were my first pink Flamingo’s which are synonymous with the laguna’s throughout the Altiplano

I stopped to watch the Flamingo’s in action as their long legs waded through the water, and watching the watcher on the hill behind me were a group of llama who just stood and stared at me and only left once I did.

The track from the lake to the river was deep sand and very difficult to ride through as my front wheel kept sliding out and I was not travelling with enough momentum to be able to ‘plough’ on. It was time to push the bike.

Luckily, I only had to push for maybe 10 minutes and once I was away from the lake the sand became less deep and I was able to carry on cycling.  Where cars had also tried t avoid the deep sand they had broken through the wire fence line that ran down the side of the track and every now and again I had to lift the bike over sections of barbed wire that had been pulled across the track in front of me. 

So far in the last 8000 km I had avoided getting even 1 puncture and the last thing I wanted at the end of a long day in the saddle was to run over a piece of buried barbed wire. 

On my map it showed that there was a section of the river where the channel split into two as it swept its way around an island in the middle of the channel.  I reckoned that this was my best bet for crossing the river as the water should be less deep and although I would have to cross the river twice each section should not be as wide as in the single channel.

As I neared the place where I thought that I would need to leave the track that I was following and head to the river there were 3 chullpa’s (See earlier post for explanation) which looked like somebody had carved smiley faces on the side which faced east.

At least if I couldn’t cross the river I could use the chullpa’s as a wind break. Just past them there was a sign indicating that I was indeed in the correct place to cross the river and so I took the side track to the river channel.

Between me and the channel though were a series of large sand dunes that the only way across was to push the bike over them. 

After another 10 minute push I was on the river bank and dropped down 3 feet onto the river bed  and where there was supposed to be water there was just dry gravel bedload. 

At this point I knew that would be able to cross the river as the river should have been nearly 40 metres across but when I crossed the gravels to the channel it was only about 10 metres wide.

I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to turn back and that my plan to cycle all the way through the Altiplano to the salt salars was still a go.  This was another example of where the climate in this part of the world was changing as even 5 years ago this river would have been treacherous to cross in January.  In 2017, when I crossed the river it barely came over my knees.

The track on the otherside of the river was beautiful to ride on and the deep sand had been replaced by a type of fine gravel that I could cruise along on without fear of my tyres sliding out or bogging down.

It was now getting late and I was looking for somewhere to camp but the point that I had crossed the river had brought me out into the centre of the open plain where there was no shelter should a storm blow through in the night.

I decided that I would follow a track that would take me to the edge of the salar and I would pick up the main track again in the morning. 

I had last filled my water bottles at lunchtime and even though I still had over 2 litres left when I passed a building where I saw a tap I stopped to refill all of my bottles from their well.

When I reached the edge of the salar I was into an area of huge sand dunes that the wind had whipped up and these would be my home for the night.

The top height of my tent is about 1m so I parked the bike and went in search of a dip between the dunes which would be deep enough to shelter the tent and after a couple of minutes of wandering in and out of them I found the ideal spot.

The final job of the day after getting the tent put up was to get a pasta dinner and a cup of tea on the boil.

When I set off cycling I used to worry about washing both myself and my clothes at the end of the day but six months down the line I don’t bother.  I just hang my clothes on the nearest bush to ‘air’ overnight and if it’s been a few days without staying in a place with a shower I may throw a bit of water under my arms and around my crotch to freshen them up.  The luxury of travelling alone !!!!

The vista that I had that evening to eat my dinner too I don’t think could have been more beautiful.

I sat and ate my dinner and watched darkness fall on the snow capped mountains in front of me.  By the time I crawled into my sleeping bag that night I didn’t have a care in the world and not even the storm that blew through in the night could put a dent in an amazing night’s sleep.

My plan for the next day was to try to get to a town called Sabaya which lay about 90km away.  It was a tall ask given the conditions that I was riding through but just before leaving Sajama National Park I had found out that my dad had been taken into hospital and as I had no phone signal out here I wanted to find out if he was okay.

After breakfast I set out for the village of Julo where I would be able to pick up the main track that would lead me to Sabaya.  The track that I was following stayed on the edge of the salar and was in good condition so I was able to make good time

Here the surface of the salar was like a moonscape and it seemed that not even the llamas that I had seen everywhere were able to live in this barren terrain.

At the first place that I passed with water I once again topped my bottles up, or more accurately the builder who was busy plastering the walls of the house did so for me from the well.

For the first time on this trip I was dubious of the quality of the water from the well as it had bits floating in it.  I still had over 2 litres of ‘good’ water from the day before and so would keep this new water as an emergency and ditch it when I found a tap, hopefully in Julo, that had been bored into the aquifer rather than from an open well.

The overnight rain had turned the section of track that I was now riding on into what can only be described as porridge. 

It wasn’t so much mud as liquid and it was like glue paste.  Within a few metres of hitting this patch my mudguards and brakes were completely full of the stuff.
The only way that I could continue riding was to disconnect both the front and rear brakes to give the mud enough clearance for the wheel to rotate.  It made for an interesting couple of kilometres of riding with no brakes and a constant stream of liquid sand flying off the wheels in all directions.

Thankfully, by the time I arrived at Julo the liquid sand had been replaced by the main track and I was once again making good time.  I was able to replace my dubious water from a tap on the main street and also use the tap to wash the mud off the bike which was quickly setting to concrete in the sun.

Like Macaya, Julo had an army garrison attached to it and on the way out of town there was a checkpoint barrier where I had to show my passport.  I’m not sure how many passports the soldier had seen, nationals carry an identity card, as after flicking through it for a couple of minutes he passed it back to me and then asked me for my details which I called out and he wrote down.

I know that I have written a lot about the track conditions for the different sections of the Altiplano but it is the quality of the track which most affects my mood. On smooth bits I can forget about the track and enjoy the scenery around me and forget about the cycling but on narly bits it is 100% concentration on the road otherwise one of the wheels will slide out and I can guarantee that I end up on my bum.

The section of track that lay ahead of me now is what I would consider every cyclists nightmare – the dreaded washboard.

If you look carefully at the picture above you will see a series of corrugations in the track. There is no way to avoid these and it is similar to riding a bucking bronco.  The ridges are like concrete and the frequency is not wide enough for your wheels to be on a ridge or a trough at the same time.  Where usually I can roll along on most surfaces at around 12 – 15 kmph, here I was doing 6 kmph and my panniers were literally shaking apart.

Thankfully, after a few kilometres the corrugations gave way to a much better surface.  I was now about 10km past Julo and I had passed no sign of human existence anywhere along the way but walking down the track towards me were two women who were strolling along having a chat.

I stopped and looked around me and I have no idea where they were going as if they were heading for Julo it was a good hours walk in the blazing midday sun and when I passed them they had no water with them. It was a good job that I got a picture of them otherwise I may have thought that I was hallucinating. When I passed them they just said good afternoon and continued on with their stroll to who knows where.

A quick check on the map and the next town that I needed to head for was called Quea Queani which lay 20km due south and I could nearly see that far as the road was arrow straight.

For the first time in 2 days I saw my first vehicle on the road and a bit like when you are waiting for a bus you can guarantee that two turn up at the same time.

As the first truck passed me he slowed down and asked if I needed anything.  I told him that I had food and water and that I was heading for Sabaya.  (it was said more in single words and pointing rather than the more eloquent English translation but each day my Spanish improves just a little). With a big cheer and a wave he then gunned the engine and left me standing in a cloud of dust which made me laugh.

I had set myself a time of 1pm to have lunch and I like to stick to roughly this time when I am cycling through the middle of nowhere as time easily slips by and when I get hungry I tend to make bad decisions (ask my wife who normally carries a snack with her for those times when we are driving in the car and I start to get ratty)

Up ahead though I could see where the road was heading up and over a mountain pass.  I checked the map and it looked like there was a loop around the side of it and although longer it would save my legs the climb.  The only problem was thought that I would also have to cross another river.  I decided to take the river option knowing that if the worst came to the worst I would just have to back track to the mountain pass.

Again, when I reached the river bank I found what could be best described as a stream in what should have been a deep river.

Once I met back up with the main track that had gone over the top of the mountain pass it was time for lunch.  As it was now nearly 2pm the wind, as it always seemed to do in the afternoon, had picked up and I needed to find somewhere to shelter behind in order to cook.

Up ahead I could see a concrete pillar that somebody had gone to the trouble of covering in graffiti which would make an ideal windbreak for lunch.

Whilst I was waiting for the water to boil I just sat in my chair and soaked up the amazing view all around me

Sat behind the concrete pillar out of the wind I could feel just how hot and intense the sun was.  Still, it was nice to be able to strip off and soak up a few rays. 

I am always amazed by desert environments that you can fry your skin during the day but at night you need thermals to sleep.  I was just thankful that I was cycling through here during the summer months as in the winter the temperature can drop to minus 10 or below.  

I had only covered 48km which was just over half of my target that I needed to cover in order to get to Sabaya and it had taken me over 5 hours to cover that distance.  Unless the road surface rapidly improved there would be no way that I would make the town by nightfall.

After a late lunch it was only 5km to Quea Queani where I found another ‘abandoned’ village but at least there was a tap where I could fill my water bottles.

From the village I had a choice to make – I could take a track west which would take me out to the highway, or I could continue on the main track which would take me around the edge of the salar or there was a third track which led off into the distance between the other two straight through the middle of the open plain. 

Taking the track to the main highway would add 30km to the distance to Sabaya where taking the track through the middle should knock 10km off and if it really led nowhere I cold always just head for the edge of the salar to pick up the main track again.  Nothing ventured nothing gained so to speak.

The track turned out to be a mixture of pure ecstasy and down right frustration.  Parts of it were smooth and heading downhill where I cold roll along at 20kmph

Where other sections were deep sand where I had to push

I have no idea what the main track would have been like but at 10km shorter there was no way that it would have been faster.

The last major village that I was heading for before Sabaya was Tunapa.  Again there were water taps here and whilst filling my bottles I got talking to a lady who was cracking stones (no idea why).  I asked her how far Sabaya was and she said that I could either take the original track around the edge of the salar or take a straight line track through the middle.  I asked her how far it was and she said a couple of hours no more.  Now I wasn’t sure if she meant a couple of hours by car, donkey, llama or bicycle and she never seemed to understand what I was saying as she just repeated “2 hours, no more”.

It was now 4pm and so if it really was only 2 hours away then I would make it before dark and so headed off in the direction that she had told me was shorter.  Again this road appears on no maps but if you are travelling this way you will recognize the entrance to the track by the elaborate gate decorations.

Just like farmers the world over there was a sign on the left hand side which translated as “please shut the gate” or in this case rehang the piece of wire.

What the lady that had pointed me in this direction failed to mention was that there was not any one track here but literally hundreds that all seemed to come together at certain points and then spread out at others. The reason for this was that the terrain that I was now cycling over were huge sand dunes.

I know knew that her “2 hours, no more” referred to a car as there was no way that I would have covered more than 10km in two hours given the terrain so accepted that I would not make Sabaya that night and instead found myself a place to make camp in among the beautiful sand dunes.

If I had to have picked an idyllic spot to camp for the night then this was it.

As usual, I erected the tent first and then got dinner ready which was pasta with a tin of tuna and then sat back to watch the sun dip over the mountains, and words can’t really describe the amazing sunset that unfolded before me.

I was sat in the middle of a bowl with snow covered mountains circling around me and as the sun got lower the colour of the mountains and the sky changed with every passing minute.  I just sat in my chair and enjoyed the view.  Here is a selection of photos to give you an idea of what I saw:

To show you what a beautiful serene location that I had found for the evening please take a look at this 2 minute video:

The next morning there was no rush to get to Sabaya as the time difference meant that I couldn’t phone England to speak to my mother to find out how my dad was until the early afternoon, and I couldn’t speak to my wife until later that evening so I had a leisurely breakfast and enjoyed a lovely pot of coffee (I was down to just 2 Jed’s sachets)

It takes until about 9.30am before the heat of the day gets going and once it did I made myself a shade from the groundsheet of the tent, stripped off the layers and just sat and enjoyed the scenery around me whilst I updated my blog.

At midday, I broke camp and headed for Sabaya which lay about another 16km south and once again, like the night before, there was not one real track to follow but hundreds that all went in the same direction.

Apart from llamas the only sign of life that I had seen whilst cycling through the Altiplano were beetles that had a kind of purplish pattern on their backs. 

I must see hundreds of them in a day and can only assume that they are some kind of dung beetle because if they are not living on the llama poo I have no idea what they can survive on out here.

My map showed that I had one more river crossing to make and like the other rivers this one was fairly shallow and was actually refreshing on the feet. 

There was a lovely grassy bank on one side of the river that would have made an ideal camping spot where I could have had a dip in the river when I got up.

I followed the edge of the river rather than the track as it was nice to be cycling through what can be best described as a desert whilst following the edge of a clear bubbling river.

Eventually all roads lead to Rome (I think that’s the expression) and in this case all tracks led to the chullpas on the outskirts of Sabaya.

There was a village just outside of the town that was up on the hillside away from the salar and just out of interest I cycled into the village to see if they had a source of water. 

I eventually found somebody to ask and she said that as they were away from the valley floor they had to get water from the taps in Sabaya.  This was worth knowing for future reference.

As I cycled into Sabaya there was the greenest football pitch that I had ever seen.

It turned out that like the other towns that I had passed through there too was a military base here which is understandable as only a few kilometres down the road was another border post with Chile, and the football pitch was where they trained.

The town of Sabaya was nothing to write home about and consisted of a main street with a couple of eateries.  There was no llama on any of the menus in town – only chicken which seemed strange as I had not seen a single chicken in nearly a week of cycling. 

There were a couple of places to stay and I asked a couple of people which one was the best and they all told me the same one so I headed there and got a room with a private bathroom for 50 BOL (entrance is the brown door on the left)

The town was pretty enough and parts of it seemed like somebody had made a real effort to develop it whilst other parts looked completely unloved which seemed strange for such a small town. 

In the afternoon I managed to speak to my mother who said that my father was still in hospital and waiting to be transferred to a different city to have a heart operation but that he was in no immediate danger which was a relief.  I also got to speak to my wife which was terrific although she had just been on trips week to Hong Kong with her school and so was pretty tired as they had not flown back into Vietnam until really late the night before.

When I set off on this cycle ride in July 2016 I had a plan that I would cover around 25,000 km which meant 500 km a week.  There are some weeks when I still hit that target but more often than not I would rather sit down and enjoy my surroundings than press on just to cover a set distance.   

Sabaya was a perfect example of this as there was nothing really to keep me in the town in terms of things to see but it had a lovely frontier edge to it and so I decided to stick around for an extra night, soak up the atmosphere and to have a chat with the locals who seemed very friendly.  

Who knows how far I will eventually get on my original route plan and which bits will have to get cut out.  All I knew was that in the morning I would once again be heading south to tick off another bucket list item which wasto cycle perhaps Bolivia’s most famous feature – the salt flats. 

Most people may have heard of Salar Uyuni but the first one that I would be aiming to cycle  was Salar Coipasa.   The only problem with trying to cycle the Salars in the rainy season is that they fill with water and become lakes.  Hopefully I was not too late otherwise I would need to go round the side of Salar Coipasa.   The only problem was that for me to go round I would need to illegally cross the border into Chile for a large section of the ride as there is no border crossing on the track that I needed to take.  

The locals assured me that there would be no issue if the police or military stopped me as long as I had my passport on me. Hopefully, they are correct and for the first time in more than 25 years of travelling when I set off from Sabaya in the morning I will be illegally crossing into another country. 

Cycling the Bolivian Altiplano (the area of the Andes above about 11,500 ft)
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2 thoughts on “Cycling the Bolivian Altiplano (the area of the Andes above about 11,500 ft)

  • January 25, 2017 at 1:33 pm
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    The Odyssey continues. Brilliant.

    Reply
    • January 30, 2017 at 5:47 am
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      Time for the last push through Bolivia. (If you ever get the chance to cycle here do so as it is amazing)

      Reply

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