This leg of my round the world cycle would be characterised by a dose of the trots, a cycle down a railway, sleeping with Llamas and cycling through the area that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their match.

If you had read my previous post (Cycling the Bolivian Salt Flats) you will know that I had planned to cycle across the Salar de Uyuni but had to turn back when confronted by a 50km wide ‘lake’.  My new plan to get to the town of Uyuni was to take a bus, come boat, for the 150km journey across the salar.

My bus left at midday and on the morning when I woke at 7am for the first time on the trip the heavens had opened and the rain was falling relentlessly out of the sky.  The place that I was staying included desayuno, breakfast, in the price of the room and once I had showered and eaten it was gone 9am. 

Outside the rain was still hammering down and the owner phoned the bus company to check whether the bus would still be departing or would they cancel it that day given the relentless rain.  The bus company said that at this stage they still planned to make the trip but if the rain didn’t relent then they may cancel it by midday. The one thing about the weather patterns in Bolivia is that the weather systems are notoriously slow moving and once rain sets in it can rain all day. 

Thankfully, the rain gave up around 11am and so when I cycled down to the bus office at 11.30am it was dry even though all of the surrounding mountains were obscured by low hanging cloud.   When I got there the lad in the office said that the bus would still leave and at midday it arrived.

All manner of luggage was piled under the bus from gas bottles, empty beer bottles, metal poles, cages of livestock, dried goods and peoples bags.  In the back of the bus, along with the gas bottles, went my bike.  Worryingly, nothing was tied down and hopefully the bus journey wouldn’t be too bumpy as I could see one of the gas bottles taking off and landing on my wheels !!!!!

At 12.30 the bus sounded it’s horn and everybody jumped on board as we headed out of town for the salar which lay 8km away.  When we reached the salar what had been dry salt bed the day before was now part of the ‘lake’

For the next 2 hours the bus turned into a ‘boat’ as it drove it’s way across the salar at a steady 20 kmph passing many small ‘islands’ en route.

It was weird being on a bus driving across a lake for hours on end watching a huge plume of water spray up from the wheels

After 3 hours we had reached Isla Incahuasi which is the main stopping off point for tour jeeps that come out onto the salar and where I had planned to sleep the night had I managed to make it this far on the bike. 

The bus pulled onto the island so that we could use the toilets and stretch our legs for 10 minutes.  All of the furniture on the island was made from salt which was a great touch.

Although given the cold and overcast conditions nobody decided to sit on them and just got back on the coach where it was drier and warmer.

After the quick stop at the island we continued our journey eastwards towards the exit to the salar at Colchani, which is about 20km north of the town of Uyuni.  The water was much less deep here and the bus was able to pick up speed which made the second half of the journey across the salar much faster.

Heading the other way towards Llica there was a steady stream of buses which looked pretty surreal as they sped their way westwards.

After 5 hours of crossing the salar we reached our exit point at Colchani and joined a queue of jeeps waiting to get off the salar.  It had been a great experience crossing the salar by bus and for anybody travelling on a budget save yourself 100 USD and just get the local bus to Llica for a night if you want to experience crossing the salar for just the princely sum of 5 USD.

Here is a short video that I filmed on the way across:

In a way I was glad that I hadn’t spent 3 days crossing the salt as I think that I would have regretted it after cycling for a whole day across the relentless brilliant white featureless surface.

Once we were off the salar it was a short journey on sealed roads into the town of Uyuni which was a typical tourist hotspot given it’s proximity to the salar.  There were streets upon streets of tour offices, hotels and restaurants catering for the masses, like myself, who use the town as a transit point either going to or coming from the salar. 

Even though it was low season the first few hotels that I tried in the centre of town were full and the ones which had spaces were trying to charge me the price of the whole room i.e. for 2 people even though I was on my own.  This was the first time that it had happened in Bolivia and each of the places who were trying to charge me double even had the price on display for a single room.  I suppose that it was a combination of arriving at night and being in the most touristy place in Bolivia.

I decided to cut my losses and cycle out of the very centre to a different area a few blocks away and found a place that was charging 100 BOL which was way more than I would normally pay but hey it was late and this was touristville.

Once I had showered I headed into town to get some food.  Next to the place that I was staying was a barber shop so I popped in to get a haircut and a shave which cost me just 15 BOL.

It was then time for food and I walked down to the main centre and went to The Liyhium Club and had a couple of beers and a pizza.

The restaurant had a great atmosphere to it and was a nice change to be able to sit in a nice place and enjoy a cold beer and spend time eating good food.  They also had wifi which worked (such a novelty).

When I got back to the place that I was staying it was fairly loud with people coming and going.  It wasn’t that anybody was being particularly loud but the central courtyard had a plastic roof over the top of it which seemed to amplify all noise.  Still, after a couple of beers I slept like a log.

In the morning my stomach was doing back flips and I wasn’t going anywhere for a n hour or two as I needed to be near to a loo.  Whether it was the rich food that I had eaten the night before or something earlier I have no idea but whatever I had eaten had disagreed with me.

By 11am it was looking safe to head out as long as I didn’t eat anything I would be fine and so I jumped on my bike and did a couple of laps of the town to see what there was to see.

Along the main street of the Uyuni there is the old railway track where old steam engines are still parked

On many of the intersections there are metal works of art

Whether these are from melted rail iron I’m not sure but either way they are fairly impressive.

As I was in town on a Thursday the market had  come to town and people were busy setting up their stalls in the centre of the streets

Most travelers come here wanting to get out onto the Salar de Uyuni and all over town 4 wheel drive jeeps were busy loading luggage, water and food onto the roof of cars ready to take the hordes of tourists off for a few days adventure.

Apart from accessing the Salar the other thing that Uyuni is famous for is it’s train cemetery that lies a few kilometres to the west of the centre.

It is quite an eerie place and the trains were used to transport minerals which were mined in the area in the early 1900’s.  The train line was originally built by the British in 1888 and Uyuni served as a distribution hub for the trains carrying minerals on their way to the ships in the ports along the Pacific coast of Chile.  

The train line was encouraged by the then Bolivian President Aniceto Arce, who believed Bolivia would flourish with a good transport system, but it was also constantly sabotaged by the local indigenous people who saw it as an intrusion into their lives. In the 1940s, the mining industry collapsed, partly due to the mineral depletion and many of the trains were just abandoned thereby producing the train cemetery. 

As I cycled back into town the market was in full swing and everybody was busy buying their chickens, fruit and veg.

The people were out in force and the women in Bolivia don’t seem to use bags but instead carry their purchases in the colourful blankets that they have wrapped around them.

In contrast to the busy market scene that was happening in the streets of Uyuni the central market was deserted.

When I had headed out in the morning I had checked out of the place I was staying and taken my panniers with me.  It was now time to find a more reasonably priced place to stay that would be less noisy and so I cycled into the first place that took my fancy and got a room for 70 BOL which included breakfast.

I still didn’t trust my stomach so decided that the safest option for food was just to cook myself some soup but I needed to wait for bread to be start to be sold.  There is this weird thing in Bolivia that you can buy bread first thing in a morning and after 4pm.  I’m not sure it is because the bread has little/no preservative in it but the only place that I have seen bread sold is on the street at those times.

At 4pm I headed out from where I was staying and all along one side of the street women were setting up their bread stalls

Bread rolls, no matter what size or shape, costs 0.50 BOL per roll and some of it is very light and tasty while other rolls are just solid dough.  When you don’t live in a lace and just go to somebody randomly it really is just a case of take your chance.

After getting bread I headed back to get some soup and an early night as I wanted to get off early in the morning as I still had a good 4 days cycling ahead of me and only 6 days left on my visa.

My early starts, even when planned, never seem to happen and by the time I had had breakfast and got my stuff together it was nearly 10am by the time I finally left the hostel. 

For the first time since arriving at Sajama National Park nearly 3 weeks ago I was riding on a proper tarmac surfaced road which ran along the very southern edge of the Salar de Uyuni

The road from Uyuni to Tupiza has a reputation for being bad and so in 2016 they started to tarmac the section of the road from Uyuni to Tupiza to link up with the good road south of Tupiza to the border with Argentina.  The section of road that they are working on is 100km long and crosses many rivers and mountains which makes it an ongoing project for at least the next couple of years.

To be honest, from a cycling point of view I think that it will spoil the cycling as part of the charm of cycling in Bolivia is that the cycling is rough and dirty and takes a lot of effort.  Once they lay tarmac then for me it will lose part of it’s charm.  Still, once you get off the main route from La Paz to the border with Argentina there are still lots of tracks to choose from along the Altiplano.

The tarmc section of road lasted about 20km before the track turning into a construction site as they completed building and grading the road ready for the final top layer of tarmac to be applied. 

The road they were building ran parallel to the railway line

I had followed quite a few sections of the railway line and although people assured me that the tracks were used I still had not seen a train come past.  In fact, the only trains that I had seen had been in the ‘train cemetery’ in Uyuni.

At the 30km mark the new road continued straight ahead while traffic was diverted back onto the ‘old road’ which was back to being sand.

I had made fantastic time up until this point with an average speed in excess of 20kmph but now I was back on the old road it was time to get off an push the bike for short sections due to deep sand.  Still, I know which road I preferred !!!!

It was gone 1pm by the time I had gotten through the patch of sand and time for lunch so I pulled off the road and had my usual Bolivian lunch of soupMy stomach still wasn’t right and anything I ate tended to last about 30 minutes before it came squirting out the other end. It never seized to amaze me how the colour changed depending on what I ate.  Still, at least I was getting some nutrition in my body.

After lunch I set off and came across the first sign of human life that I had seen all day when I cycled through the village of Noel Mariaca (there is a shop and a place to eat should you need it).

On the other side of the village there was a river crossing and thankfully once again the wide river was practically empty apart from a small stream in the centre.

The track that I was following then started to rise which meant that the low lying sand dunes were replaced by scrub vegetation and the track got a lot easier to ride.

Not having to concentrate on my front wheel meant that I could once again enjoy the stunning scenery that I was riding through; for as far as the eye could see the landscape in front of me was pancake flat and if anything slightly downhill.

Too soon though I was heading off the valley floor and back into the hills as I needed to cross into the next valley

The bad news for me was that I had descended into another sandstone valley and the road was once again treacherous to cycle on – especially on the long sweeping descents

By the side of the road there were what looked like old deserted mining camps as there were rail tracks which headed up into the sides of the mountain that I was now cycling at the foot of.

I was now only a few kilometers from my destination at Atocha and the lack of nutrition over the last couple of days was beginning to tell as my pace slowed to a near crawl.  I was at the stage where I was ready to get off and walk the bike and if it had been more than just a few kilometers I would have given up and camped.

The star to this section though was once again the landscape that I was cycling through and as I rounded the edge of the mountain I saw for the first time Mount Cerro Chorolque , with it’s pyramid peak that would be form part of my vista for the next few days.

Cerro Chorolque is a dormant volcano and it is the highest mountain in the Cordillera de Chichas and can be seen for hundreds of kilometers. The Cordillera de Chicas is a subgroup of the Bolivian Andes Cordillera Central.    If anybody fancies cycling to the summit, which lies at over 16,000 ft, the good news is that there is a road all the way to the top.

The mountain is home to one of the highest mining operations in the world, which collects minerals all the way up to the summit. The main ore which is pulled from the mines is tin but gold and other metals appear in smaller amounts. The nearby village of Santa Bárbara, where most of the 5000 or so miners who work on the mountain live, is located at 15,600 feet on the western slopes and is the highest village in Bolivia.

I was now heading directly for the mountain as I descended through the cut through that had been sunk into the side of the hill where at the bottom I knew that the River Blanca and my destination of Atocha awaited me.

It really was a relief to finally pedal into the town after over 100km of cycling through every surface imaginable – sealed tarmac, deep sand, corrugated tracks, smooth tracks and more sand.  Still, after nearly 9 hours in the saddle the end was finally upon me.

As I cycled into the main plaza sat on the curbside eating burgers were 3 fellow cyclists from Germany – Flo, Manu and Hannes.  They had set off from Uyuni two days before and were surprised that I had managed to cover the distance in just one day. 

I think that the reason why I tend to cover a lot of kilometers in one day on the bike is because I am cycling on my own and apart from stopping for the odd picture and an hour for lunch I get into a zone where I can pedal for hours on end without taking a break.  It really is the best form of therapy in the world and come the end of the day I have no idea what I have thought about all day.

After discussing with my new three amigos the day that we had had it was time to go find a room for the night and we headed off together in search of a good place.  The first place that we tried wanted to charge us 70 BOL per person which was taking the mickey as that would have been nearly 300 Bol or 30 GBP for the 4 of us.  The owner was taking advantage of the road construction that was taking place between Uyuni and Atocha and charging high rents to the captive market of construction workers.

The next place that we tried was much better 20 BOL per person but they only had two rooms so myself and Flo decided to share as there were twin beds in the room.

The three amigos had already eaten and as I wanted to sort out my stomach I decided that I would once again cook myself some soup and pasta rather than eat out.  This way I knew that I would be giving my stomach every chance of sorting itself out.

For 20 BOL there was no hot water or even a shower except for a large barrel of water in the toilet.  As those who have followed my blog know I can get away without showering for a fair few days and this was one of them.  The amigos headed off in search of a hot shower as in towns you can normally find a place that offers you a 15 minute hot shower for between 5 and 8 BOL.

After eating my soup and the amigos showering there was only one thing left to do and that was to find a bar and have a few beers (apart from Flo who seemed to be tea total)

The next morning I was going to head off cycling with them as we were all heading the same way towards the border with Argentina which lay 3 days ride away.  We had decided to meet up for breakfast around 8am and then to be on the road by 9.30am.

Breakfast was taken on the path outside the room and it seemed that porridge was the order of the day – I had mine cold and plain with water while the 3 amigos had theirs hot with fruit, milk and honey.  I really should vary my diet on the bike a bit more but again I think that as I cycle alone I tend to try to limit the weight.

After the guys had headed off to the market to replenish supplies and I had gone in search of fresh bread it was time for the bike convoy to head off into the hills on the final Bolivian leg of the journey in search of the border with Argentina.

For some reason on our way out of town we passed a plane that had been mounted on a type of scaffolding platform and formed the focal point for the minibus station.

Atocha was located on the banks of the River Blanca and surrounding the town were huge mountains that would need to be climbed when you left the town by road.  The other option was to cycle up the fairly dry river bed or railway track that followed the contours of the river.  Guess which option we picked?

The track was fairly smooth, if a little sandy in places, and even though it wasn’t going in the exact direction that we needed to go it was so much better than climbing our way out of Atocha.

The landscape next to the river/track was again the highlight of the cycle ride that morning with Mount Cerro Chorolque keeping a watchful eye over proceedings.

Every couple of hundred metres or so there were mini bridges where the tracks ran over either river tributaries or mini creeks.

At each of these we had to dismount and either walk our bikes through the river bed or if the ‘bridge’ was over a creek we would just put our wheels on the railtrack and push the bike over the rail while we walked on the railway sleepers.

It was pretty special cycling down the railway tracks through the silence of the river valley.  After about an hour I saw my first Bolivian train as behind us the silence was broken by the shrill sound of a whistle as an engine came thundering down the tracks. (I didn’t get a picture but caught it on video as it passed). 

The four of us pulled our bikes off the track and stood there waving like a scene out of the Railway Children as the engine rattled past us.  Again, it was a special moment on this cycle ride through Bolivia that will stay with me. 

If this was back in Europe somebody would have called the police by now to arrest the 4 idiots cycling down the railway line but as this was South America nobody seemed to mind and the engine drivers just gave us a huge wave as they passed.

It was slow going on the rail tracks given the sand, rocks and rail bridges that we had to negotiate and by the time I stopped for lunch at my normal 1pm we had only covered around 15km in over 3 hours.

As my visa was due to expire in 3 days and none of us had any idea whether it was feasible for us to actually get all the way through to the border by following the track I had a decision to make as looking at the map 5km up ahead there was a track which would take me back to the main track to Tupiza. 

As I was on a tight time schedule I decided that I would take the track rather than follow the railway I bid the 3 amigos a sad goodbye and headed off east in search of the main track to Tupiza.

Here is a video that I shot of our short time on the railway:

I knew that I would pick up the track on the other side of a river and so headed off on Llama tracks in search of the river and eventually found the track that I needed

It was now a case of following this track back to the main ‘highway’ to Tupiza and within an hour I was wishing that I had stayed with the guys on the railway as the road I was following just seemed to climb and climb

I was once again heading for 13000 ft and I was spent. 

The picture above is a view back down the valley I had just climbed out of and the hills had gotten the better of me and for the first time I was having to push the bike up the hills. 

I reckon that pushing a 30kg bike uphill took more effort than riding it up but my legs were like empty tree trunks and I just had no energy as I hadn’t eaten anything but soup for the past few days.  The only thing that kept me going was a bloody mindlessness not to be beaten by the hills.  The sections that I could manage I rode while the rest I pushed.

I had passed no villages all day and I was now running out of water.  I pulled into one of the road construction camps that seemed to be located every 10km or so and asked one of the workers if they could give me some water.  One of the workers headed off to their pick up and came back with a 20 litre bottle of water and said that I could help myself.

The hours rolled by and so slowly did the kilometres. In my head I wanted to get to the 50km mark by nightfall and little by little I pushed on and by late afternoon I hit my target.

Just after reaching my target for the day I came across my first village and thankfully there was a shop and water tap where I could refill all of my bottles and get a snack

The owner of the shop said that to get to Tupiza I needed to cross two more mountains – one big one and one small one and as I still had an hour or so of daylight I decided to push on over the ‘small one’ before finding somewhere to camp for the night.

I had no idea how big the small one was but pushed on and yes I literally did push the bike up the steeper sections of the hill.

Eventually I reached the top of the small hill and now just had the issue of trying to find somewhere to camp on the top of an exposed hilltop without any vegetation or flat camping spots.  After checking out a few possible spots without finding a suitable option I decided to head down in hope of finding somewhere more suitable.

In the distance I could see some houses and decided that pitching my tent next to them was my best option.

I cycled into the village and shouted my usual hello into the first compound of houses to which a young boy came out to see who was at the door.  I asked if his mum and dad were there but he said no only him and his sister were there.  I asked if there was anybody else living in any of the houses and he said an old woman in the last house.

I thanked him and cycled onto the last house where I repeated my shout of hello and the old woman came out to see who was shouting.  I explained what I was doing and that I had a tent with me and asked if it was okay if I camped next to her house.

The old woman said fine and took me around the back of the house where there was a flat piece of earth which was sheltered by the buildings just in case a storm blew through.  I now had a home for the night and set up my tent and got another helping of pasta soup boiling away.

It turned out that the young lad and the old woman were ‘Llama farmers’ and as the sun started to set they headed off to round up their respective herds to put them in their pens for the night

Now, sleeping next to 100 or so Llamas sure isn’t a quite experience and I can’t really put into words the noise they make as they bleat, spit, fart and hiss the night away but let me assure you that ear plugs are recommended if a quiet night’s sleep is what you are after.

Llamas tend to always pee and poo in the same spot and in this village it was no different as each herd seemed to have their own toilet spot.

Here is a short video to show you just how special, and remote, the spot that I had spent the night was:

After my normal porridge breakfast it was time to head out into the hills for one final push up and over the final mountain summit before descending into a river valley which would lead me to the border with Argentina.

The road out of the village went up from the off

The night’s rest had done me the world of good and my legs felt fresh as I powered my way up the first climb.  At the top of this climb the view down the valley was pretty special

It was like being on the death road in La Paz once again as the road was now a single lane gravel track which hung precariously to the edge of the cliff

The view from the edge of the road down into the bottom of the valley below was not for the faint hearted

I continued to climb for the next hour or so and although it was tough going the incline was never huge

In the distance I could see that the road was leveling out and I was now near to the top of my final mountain in Bolivia.  As a rounded one final bend the road started to drop away in front of me.  It was such a great feeling to reach the summit and I stopped and sat for 5 minutes to appreciate the view around me. 

It really was stunning and I was so glad that I had left the railway track as I came to Bolivia to climb the mountains and to enjoy the vistas from the summits and that is what I had done today and it felt great. 

It was now time for the payback for the last 4 hours of climbing as I descended down out of the mountains:

The ‘wildlife’ was also changing as I descended – no longer were there herds of llama grazing by the side of the road but cattle. 

Not quite as exotic maybe but it would make a good feast later on.

As I descended down towards River Tupiza I could feel the air warming up.  As I came over the top of the last summit I was at about 14,000 ft and would descend down to 10000 ft when I crossed the river in the valley below.

It was not only the wildlife that was changing but also the vegetation

It had been a great morning climbing up and over the last summit and as I cycled into the river valley the view back towards the mountain that I had just crossed looked amazing

It was now nearly lunchtime and it was time to go and find a place to eat as I was hungry having eaten hardly anything for the past two days.

As I entered the village at the base of the mountain I passed a woman grilling chicken by the side of the road and it smelled amazing so I pulled in and took a seat while the chicken was grilled to perfection

I don’t think that there is any better plate of food than meat off the barbecue and when I got back on my bike I was one happy camper.

To celebrate my final day in the Bolivian mountains here is a 4 minute video:

It was now time to finish this section of the ride to the town of Tupiza which lay 20 km down the track and as I was following the River Tupiza downstream it was an easy couple of hours cycling.

The landscape was like riding through the set of a wildwest movie and I half expected to see a shoot out somewhere along the trail.

The wind and rain had eroded the sandstone to leave some amazing columns precariously still standing.

Local legend is that this part of Bolivia is where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Robert Leroy Parker and Harry Alonzo Longabaugh ) were eventually tracked down and killed.  

On November 3, 1908, near San Vincente in southern Bolivia, a courier for the Aramayo Franke and Cia Silver Mine was conveying his company’s payroll, worth about 15,000 Bolivian pesos, when he was attacked and robbed by Parker and Longabaugh. The bandits then proceeded to the small mining town of San Vicente where they lodged in a boarding house owned by a local miner named Bonifacio Casasola.

Casasola became suspicious of his two foreign lodgers. A mule they had in their possession was from the Aramayo Mine, identifiable from the mine company brand on the mule’s left flank.  Casasola notified a nearby telegraph officer who notified a small Bolivian Army cavalry unit stationed nearby, the Abaroa Regiment. The unit dispatched three soldiers to San Vicente and on the evening of November 6, the lodging house was surrounded by the three soldiers, the police chief, the local mayor and some of his officials, who intended to arrest the Aramayo robbers.

When the three soldiers approached the house the bandits opened fire, killing one of the soldiers and wounding another. A gunfight then ensued. At around 2 a.m., during a lull in the firing, the police and soldiers heard a man screaming from inside the house. Soon, a single shot was heard from inside the house, whereupon the screaming stopped. Minutes later, another shot was heard.

The standoff continued as locals kept the place surrounded until the next morning when, cautiously entering, they found two dead bodies, both with numerous bullet wounds to the arms and legs. One of the men had a bullet wound in the forehead and the other had a bullet hole in the temple. The local police report speculated that, judging from the positions of the bodies, one bandit had probably shot his fatally wounded partner-in-crime to put him out of his misery, just before killing himself with his final bullet. In the following investigation by the Tupiza police, the bandits were identified as the men who robbed the Aramayo payroll transport, but the Bolivian authorities didn’t know their real names, nor could they positively identify them.

The bodies were buried at the small San Vicente cemetery.  Although attempts have been made to find their unmarked graves no remains with DNA matching the living relatives of Parker and Longabaugh have yet been discovered so it remains to be seen whether this story is another local legend or true fact.

As I cycled my bike into Tupiza once again the big winner of the day had been the landscapes that I had passed through and it was such a privilege to be able to cycle through them before inevitable development started to take hold once they had completed putting the sealed road through.

The town of Tupiza turned out to be a nice surprise as it had a very colonial feel to it with cobbled streets, colonial buildings and it even had traffic lights directing the traffic

The first hotel that I tried was full but one of the staff walked me around the corner to their friend’s place, Hostal Vargas, and for 80 BOL including breakfast it was a winner.

The owner gave me a choice of rooms so I opted for a double on the top floor for the same price as a single. Here in Tupiza there was none of that tourism game that they had played with me in the hotels in Uyuni.

 

The other surprise in the town was that the taxis were tuc tucs which was something that I hadn’t seen in any other city in Bolivia. 

I asked the owners of the hotel about this but I didn’t have enough Spanish to understand their reasons.

Even though it was early evening the first thing I did once I had showered was head off to find a beautiful cup of coffee and after sticking my head into a few cafes without success I finally saw what I was looking for.

I was now only 90 km from the border crossing with Argentina and as I knew that the road was sealed getting there in one day would not be an issue.  As I still had two days left on my visa I decided to stick around Tupiza for an extra night as there were lots of little cafes to keep my coffee habit fed.

My stomach had now sorted it’s self out which was such a relief as I don’t think there is anything worse than having a dodgy stomach when cycling a bike all day.  I have no idea whether it ws something I ate or just eating lots of rich food in Uyuni.  Still, onwards and upwards as they say.

I had been told that the road to the border was downhill and so after a very leisurely breakfast I set off thinking that it would take me around 4 hours to the border and man was I wrong.

The first part of the ride went to plan as I sailed down the sealed road at over 30kmph without really ever needing to touch the pedals.

The road was a toll road and there was a toll booth just as I left Tupiza

As I cycled through the toll station they just waved me on my way so no charge for bicycles.

The road was once again following the River Tupiza downstream and all along the valley floor farmers were using the rich fertile soils to grow crops.

Another feature on the landscape that you take for granted until you don’t see them for weeks on end was trees

The Altiplano and mountains that I had crossed were bereft of trees and it was slightly comforting to have them back again as they made the perfect rest stop to have a drink or a bite to eat under their shady leaves.

The villages that I was passing through were still constructed of mud bricks

And the nearer I got towards the border the more the housing resembled what you find in shanty towns

Even the nice engineers who had built the road had ‘blasted’ out gaps in the mountain ridges to fit the road through instead of having climb over them

]I had been cycling for a couple of hours when my lovely easy day came to an abrupt end as I came upon a huge hill where the road just kept climbing and climbing up out of the valley that I had just cycled down.

I had been climbing for about an hour when in front of me the sky darkened and I could see a veil of rain falling on the leading edge of the cloud.  This veil of rain was accompanied by the loudest claps of thunder and a line of lightening. 

Once again, I was caught out in the middle of nowhere with an electrical storm fast approaching.  There really was nowhere to shelter and the only thing I could do was to cycle on in the hope of finding a house to stop at before the storm reached me.

As I crested a rise I saw a building about 500m away to my right and headed there to sit out the storm.  The building turned out to be a type of eatery which had been divided into 10 concrete stalls with different women renting each one to serve food.

As I cycled up I was mobbed by the women all telling me what their almuerzo (set lunch) option was.  I settled on vegetable soup followed by grilled Llama with rice for 12 BOL.

As I sat safely eating my lunch the electrical storm passed over head with an amazing ferocity that made me glad that I was not once again out in the open lay face down in the sand.

After eating lunch it looked like the storm had passed so I set off to continue my ride up the hill.  I had gotten about 1km when over the top of the hill in front of me I could see another electrical storm heading my way at a fast pace.

Like a sketch out of a comedy show I turned around and cycled as fast as I could back down the hill to the safety of the building that I had just left.  When I got back to the place the women looked surprised to see me thinking that I had forgotten something to which I just pointed to the sky behind me and they all laughed and gave me a chair to sit on. 5 minutes later the second electrical storm of the day pushed through with the same ferocity as the first one.

It was now well into the afternoon and when I had set off that morning I had expected to have arrived in Villazon by now but I was still 40km away and had not got to the top of the unexpected hill yet.

Once the storm pushed through I again set off in the direction of Villazon and thankfully after another 5km or so I finally reached the summit of the hill that I had been climbing for the last couple of hours.

On this side of the hill the wind was now blowing from behind me which pushed me along at a lovely pace of over 20kmph which meant that I could make some time up on what I had lost earlier.

I was now tantalizingly close to Villazon when the third electrical storm of the day started to develop ahead of me and the only way to get to the border was to cycle straight through the middle of it.

Electrical storms are weird as they grow and grow without doing very much and then like flicking a switch they are all action with hailstones, strong winds, hundreds of lightning bolts and the loudest rolls of thunder imaginable.

Having to cylce through the centre of one waiting for it to ‘kick off’ really gets the nerves going and I thought that I had reached the edge when somebody through the ‘switch’.  This time instead of hailstones though it was snowing. I had come to Bolivia expecting to get rained on every day and here I was cycling through the leading edge of an electrical storm in the snow.  A great memory to look back upon but not a great experience at the time.

I was just on the outskirts of Villazon now and there was an army checkpoint come toll station.  I didn’t particularly want to have to slow down as I was still trying to outrun the storm which was chasing me.  One of the soldiers saw my predicament and I swear he laughed but waved me through.

Then the storm completely changed direction and headed off to the east while I continued south.  2km later I arrived in Villazon in bright sunshine.

I now had a decision to make – I could stay the night on the Bolivian side of the border or head across to Argentina.  A place to stay in Bolivia would be much cheaper but in the morning the queues at the border crossing would undoubtedly be longer.  In the end I decided to head for the border that night so that I would have a much easier start to the day in the morning.

I cycled through the centre of town following my nose to the border crossing and took my place in the foot passenger line.

The line wasn’t too long at that time of the evening and within 30 minutes I had been stamped out of Bolivia and into Argentina.  After nearly 30 days of some of the most amazing cycling that I had completed in the last 6 months it was now time to bid Bolivia a sad farewell and push my bike across the border to Argentina to adventures new.

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The Border Run, Bolivia

3 thoughts on “The Border Run, Bolivia

  • February 9, 2017 at 3:31 pm
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    Hey Stewart. I am in Santiago at present and will be so until the weekend. I think I will miss your passing through here by a week or so – too bad. I’ll get you next time. Cheers. Chirs

    Reply
    • February 12, 2017 at 6:01 am
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      Hi Chris,
      I’m not going to be there for about another month as still in Northern Argentina and about 1500km away.

      Reply
  • February 7, 2017 at 9:29 am
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    Stewart, there might have been dozens of cyclist that may have done similar routes, but I could bet that you are the one that had the most fun! Cycle on and keep us posted!

    Reply

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