Zeev told me he was going to climb Huayna Potesi mountain, so I decided to go as well. Zeev is an Israeli and he knew of another Israeli contact who put us onto an agency who organise these climbs. Three other Israelis joined our group: Yaniv; Udi and Dudi. The climb was a 2 day job with a mini bus ride up out of La Paz, then a 3 hour hike up to the base camp where a glacier could be seen. The usual Bolivian inefficiency meant that we got there at 6:00 instead of 3:00, then about 2 hours were spent trying to make the crampons fit the special crampon boots. After this we had all of 5 minutes training walking up a 30 degree slope of snow and back down. We were supposed to get up at 1:00 in the morning and set off by 2:00 in order to reach the peak by sunrise. we were given food at 2:30 and then the rest of the time was again spent fucking about with the crampons. The stupid bastards had not brought any tools other than a Swiss army knife, when a proper spanner and screwdriver were needed. There were several other groups at the base camp. I told the guide to borrow some tools, but he insisted on just swapping crampons from one boot to the next when only one pair were not fitting. By 3:30 all the other groups had left and so he could not borrow any tools. Twat! By 4:30 the guide (Agustin) had still not fixed the crampons and the rest of the group decided that they would wait until the next day before going up. Their concern was that the reason for the early start was so that they could go up and come down before 11:00 when the snow and ice melts in the sun. I thought "fuck that" and asked to go up on my own with Agustin, which he agreed to. Then Zeev decided he wanted to come as well, but Agustin would not let him as Zeev had been the last to get up to the base camp. So I went up with Agustin. The temperature was -15 C, so I wore one normal pair of socks and a pair of big mohair socks,, and several layers of clothing with my Gore-Tex trousers and top. The special equipment used were boots, crampons, harness, ice axe and a rope tied between us. It took 3.5 hours to get up and on the way we crossed several deep crevasses, one which was about 6 feet wide had to be crossed by climbing a normal wobbly aluminium ladder with a 20m drop under it and a 45 degree steep 100m long wall of snow on the other side. It was hard work. There was a 250m long stretch of ice and snow at between 45 and 60 degrees steepness just before the summit which was fucking scary. The way it was done was that the guide would go up 50 m, attach himself to a steak which was hammered into the ice, and then thread the length of rope to which I was attached around a shackle and take up the slack in the rope as I climbed up. He kept on telling me to hurry up as it did not matter if I slipped. I was not into the idea of trusting him or some dodgy bit of metal hammered into the snow, so I took it easy and made sure the crampons and ice axe were dug in properly for each step. If he took his hand off the rope to itch his arse or something and I slipped I would have plummeted down the slope and taken out several people beneath me. About a quarter of the way up this slope I had some severe stomach cramps and needed the toilet badly (not the time or the place). All the way up there are little patches of yellow or orange snow from those who had to go. The sun rose just as we got to the base of the final climb, but there was a fantastic view of the sunrise from here anyway. I got to the top at 6088m (just under 20,000ft) had a brief look around and then collapsed in a heap for 5 minutes, after which I was offered some whisky by another climber, which went down well. Then I had a cigarette, for which there was hardly enough oxygen to burn. I watched a couple reach the top, the bloke was overcome with passion at reaching the summit but she did not seem to be so enthusiastic. By her expression would have been content to have a few gulps of air and then curl up and die. Not many people actually make it to the top. Probably 60% turn back as a result of exhaustion, altitude sickness or cold. I met up with Zeev and the others yesterday and found out that only Zeev made it to the top, Yaniv and Udi turned back at the sight of the ladder crossing the crevasse, and Dudi expired 300 m after the top of the first snow wall. Zeev had to go back down to the base of the climb, where he arranged to join another group for an extra 25 dollars. I thought they would all make it as they had just finished doing their 3 year national service in the Israeli army. I got up and down in 6.5 hours where normally it takes 8, so I am feeling triumphant, indestructible and a little big headed at the moment. Seriously it was a fantastic excursion, and I think I would like to do a longer and higher trip.
Tomorrow I plan to head off for Coroico, then Sucre, Potosi, Uyuni.
The journey from La Paz to here has been incredibly tough going. On the first day I planned to go to Coroico on the famous "death road". The first part of this road is tarmac, but I thought that was boring, so I took the old dirt road from the highest point of the road at La Cumbre. This was a good move as the road is badly eroded and completely washed out in places. Nothing but a motorbike or MTB could do it. One big bridge was gone as well. Unfortunately it was misty so I could not see much, but I still had a fantastic time. Eventually I came to a used road. I assumed that it was the second half of the death road to Coroico. I also checked with several people that I was on the road to Coroico. Those bastards, they were not lying as it is true that any road can eventually lead you anywhere and in this case the road was about twice as long as the death road. I did not end up going to Coroico. I stayed the night in what I think was a drug barons weekend retreat. I was heading for Coripata, but It had got dark and I was exhausted when I got to a small village. The locals directed me to what they said was a hotel. It looked like an exclusive resort, with a swimming pool, massive dining room and many guest houses. I spoke to a white couple who spoke little English who said that it was a private residence, but the owner was not there. I said it was a nice place and they said that the owner had several more similar places. I thought the owner must be loaded, so I asked what he did. The guests said they did not know, and seemed generally very cagey. The Yungas is a coca growing region, so I put 2 and 2 together. The house keeper let me have a guest house, gave me loads of soup and loads of freshly crushed orange juice, which tasted amazing in my state of exhaustion. The Yungas region is at an altitude of around 1,500m or less and has a very different climate to the rest of the areas I have been. It is hot and humid. It rained most days I was there. In it are grown things like bananas, oranges, coca leaves and tea leaves. I assumed it would be fairly flat, but it is far from it, the mud made it difficult as well. I stayed at the villages of Irupana, Circuata and Licoma. As I arrived in Irupana I had a bit of a confrontation with a drunken Indian, but it came to nothing. I stayed in a nice hostal. The owner was a Mestizo woman who cooked me a massive supper and breakfast with steak, rice, chips and eggs. All the other towns up until Cochabamba have been very basic. Circuata had no electricity, but I had a good time there getting drunk on some local 40% vol drink called San Pedro with 3 young guys aged between 19 and 23: Limbert, Tupac and Turco. They wanted to know all about my sister Liz, and I told them they were welcome to have her. In Licoma I met a Dutch couple who had been living there for 1 year, working in connection with a University in Holland and the local council to educate the locals on water supplies, specifically trying to persuade them not to cut down the native cloud forest as this prevents erosion and stores moisture in the ground for consistent water supplies in the dry season. Apparently the wet season had just begun as I arrived. Bastard! The climb up to Quime was tortuous. On the way up I met a German couple who were both had 250 enduro bikes, who were touring from Santa Cruz to Sorata. In general Bolivian roads are much steeper than Peruvian roads. I was riding for hours on end in 3rd low, sometimes going into 2nd low, a gradient where I could pull 4th low was a luxury. I had 2 days rest in Quime, which had a nice hotel, but very basic restaurants, where there was no menu because there was only one standard meal available with some small grisly bits of meat of some kind. The Indian waitress (dressed in traditional clothing) seemed to have a lot of difficultly understanding me and would either stare blankly at me or burst into laughter when I would ask for a coffee. I would have to repeat "quiero una cafe por favor" maybe 6 times before it would arrive. Everybody else understands this phrase. Quime is just out of the Yungas at an altitude of 2900m and it is in a valley with fantastic mountain scenery. Everybody said that it was "plano" (flat) for the road to Cruce Ayzakkollo. Plano, my rosy red arse! this was the most difficult climb of the trip. It took me 5.5 hours to get up to the top of the pass and it was only 15 miles. It was downhill or flat most the rest of the way luckily, but I rode in the dark for a couple of hours. I had a taste of washboard road surface for a few miles which consists of a rippled surface where it is about 24" between peaks of up to 3" height. It is unbelievably nasty to ride on. No more than 6mph is bearable sitting on the saddle or 10mph standing. The German couple warned me of this and told me there is a lot more to come, especially after Uyuni. Cruce Ayzakkollo is on the main road from La Paz to Cochabamba, so I thought there would be nice accommodation. I stayed in a little room with a bed 5´8" long and a stack of stinking sacks of sugar. The place had no toilet. On top of all this, the owner was unfriendly and suspicious. The next day was good as it was all on tarmac. I did 87 miles to a village called Pongo where I stayed in a guest house which was next to and belonged to a church. Next day I dropped from 4000m to 2500m to Cochabamba in 58 miles. Cochabamba is a bit of a surprise, it seems to be the city with the least contrast between rich and poor, and with generally a more western atmosphere than any other city I have been to in South America. Most people seem to be Mestizo and there are quite a few white people here as well. There are not very many tourists here, but more than in the central highlands of Peru (practically only me there).
I am going to go and get a massive pizza now.
I saw a terrible sight today. A woman was sitting on the pavement who must have suffered the most terrible facial injury. She had no eyes, eyelids or nose, and must have had a skin graft over both eye sockets which and a plaster over where her nose once was.
The journey from Cochabamba to here has been nice enough. The first day’s riding was started on nice flat tarmac which continued for 50 miles, then it turned to a steep cobbled surface. I did another 17 miles but could find no accommodation. It was difficult to find a camping spot as most of the land was cultivated and there were lots of houses around. Also quite flat and no trees. It is safest to camp out of sight of the road and houses, and the solution came in the form of a dry river bed which was about 15 feet deep. I went some way up the river and it was amazing. It was like the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the moon) near La Paz, with bizarre shapes formed in the sandstone type rock by erosion. I think it is the best camp site I have found yet. The day had been very clear, but just after I finished setting up, black storm clouds came into sight and then when I was on the verge of sleep it started thundering and lightening. I went to sleep with the thought of waking up floating down a river in the middle of nowhere or at least of finding a stream running though the tent by morning. Luckily it was still dry as a bone in the morning. The next day I rode cobbled road all day, but it was relatively flat. I saw some spectacular cacti. There was one which for the fist 6 feet was a single stem which looked just like a tree trunk, and then above were masses of long vertical stems, but no spikes. It stood about 40 feet tall. I stopped in the town of Mizque, where I chatted for a while with a guy from New York who had been doing voluntary work there for 2 years in an effort to promote tourism in the town. I felt a bit bad about not taking up his invitation to be shown around the sites and to go to a bull fight the next day, but I just wanted to get on. He told me it was a cobbled road nearly all the way to Sucre. I only did 27 miles to Aiquile the next day as I knew there was no accommodation within rideable distance after Aiquile. Lots more bone dry land, river beds and cacti. I was delighted to find that there were no more cobbles after Aiquile, it was dirt, which is what I like most. I planned to stop in Puente Arce at about 55 miles, as I was told there was an hostal, but when I got there, there was no accommodation, it seems that some of these Indians have confused the meanings of alojamiento's and hostales, for restaurants, and many do not know what a residencial or hotel is. Very annoying. I was told there was accommodation in Surima, but it turned out to not to be the case. The valley I was cycling was quite spectacular in places. I ended up riding for 2 hours after dark to get to La Palma where I stayed at hotel Coritambo. I did 76 miles. The hotel had only been open for 3 months and it was nice, with a big dining hall with stained glass windows and I had some nice steak. Only about 30 miles the next day, but it was a bastard of hill up to Sucre. I had 1 day off in Sucre which is a nice place. I cycled from Sucre to Betanzos which was tarmac, but the scenery was nothing special. In the morning I found that none of the restaurants were offering any breakfast although the staff were there. I was directed to the market, for desayuno which means breakfast, but to these people it means only tea or coffee. Breakfast is just comida (food). I was directed to comida stall which had a table and bench. I was surprised to find there was actually a choice, as in most small towns, the restaurants serve only 1 set meal and 1 type of soup which will change from day to day. I chose the dish that did not have the complete chicken foot or half a sheep's head. It was a gentle incline most of the next day to Potosi. Sucre is at about 2700m, but I dropped to less than 1500m into a valley before climbing to Potosi at 4000m. Most of that climb was done on the first day.
I went on a guided tour yesterday into the Cerro Rico mines which are in a big hill at whose foot is the city of Potosi. The Spaniards started mining silver there in the 16th century, apparently forcing thousands of Indians to do all the work. As a result of the mining, Potosi was once the largest city in South America, which is hard to believe as it seems only about the size of Carmarthen. There are some nice colonial buildings here, but it is generally more run down and less modern than La Paz, Cochabamba and Sucre. Also surrounding the city there is very little farming activity, I do not know why. Perhaps there is not enough water. In the S.A. handbook it says that Potosi is the largest city above 4000m. The mine we went to was at about 4300m. Before going there, we were taken to the miners market, where we were encouraged to buy gifts for the miners such as 2 litre bottles of Coca cola, cigarettes, coca leaves and dynamite. Yes that’s right, anyone can go there and buy as much dynamite as they want, no questions asked! A kit of one stick of dynamite, three feet of fuse, detonator and a small bag of fertiliser can be yours for 15 Bolivianos (1.25 pounds sterling). I did not buy any myself, but there are at least 3 Australian nutters roaming about Bolivia with sticks of dynamite in their backpacks, provided that they have not blown themselves to pieces. I thought about buying some, but what would I do with it? The mines were state run until 1980 when they were shut down. The mines were re-opened by the miners forming a cooperative. However they do not actually work as a cooperative, but in groups of about 20. Each group selling their rocks and dust individually. The product of the mines is called "complejo" and contains all sorts including: gold, silver, lead, tin, copper, iron and as we found out once inside the mine and chocking on the dust, arsenic and asbestos. The quality of the complejo is inconsistent and as a result disputes sometimes break out amongst the groups of miners as to who mines the best seams. The miners’ other use for their dynamite is to throw it at each other during such disputes. I feel that these guys are not using their heads, they are using the same mining methods as used by the Spaniards 500 years ago. They have three foot long steel chisels and sledge hammers with shortened handles which are used to make 2 foot deep holes in the rock. Several holes are made, then stuffed with fertiliser and dynamite. The holes take anything from a few hours to a full day to drill by hand. I asked how long it took with a jack hammer: 15minutess. These guys know about jack hammers and have used them. There are numerous large diesel driven air compressors outside the mine, none of which were being used. There is also piping running into the mines from the compressors. The jack hammers cost 800 dollars and the complejo sells for about $20 per tonne, and each group takes out about 40 tonnes per day, so that is $800 dollars per day gross for each group, so they should be able to afford some jack hammers. We were told that a typical miner gets about $25 dollars per week which is still twice the minimum wage. Perhaps they are being strangled by taxation.
The tour of the mine took about 3 hours and it was seriously hot in there. It was not touristy, in that we saw the miners working, and we had to crawl along some of the passageways. The miners set off some dynamite while we were in there, which distressed some of the members of the group. Talking about the group, they were all British and a bloody miserable representation of Britishness (apart from myself of course, and one other bloke). I think that if I was working in those mines it would make an already incredibly tough day unbearable with tourist monkeys taking photos and saying how horrible it all was, how sorry they feel for the miners and how they will never complain about their own jobs again. The guides are all ex miners. Anyway I enjoyed it and those Australian guys in the other group enjoyed it. Most found it quite hard going and claustrophobic(one girl was pucking up - nice!), but after what Sam and Cheddar (army mates) put me through in that Cave near Cross Hands, it felt like a nice easy day off for me.
I plan to head off to Uyuni tomorrow. The Australians told me that the road is severely corrugated dirt and sand all the way to Uyuni and that their bus managed no more than 20mph the whole way as a result. However it is relatively level. They said that on the 4 x 4 tour to Uyni and Lago Verde they passed 2 villages in the whole 4 days.
The bike ride from Potosi to Uyuni was one of the most scenic of the trip because of the unusual shaped and coloured rock formations. The landscape is certainly changing now. It is high semi desert, with little vegetation, lots of sand and few people. The roads are difficult because long stretches are very straight which means that motor vehicles can travel at speed which causes the phenomenon of corrugations on the road. It is very slow going on a bike and uncomfortable. However riding across the salar should be fast if the wind is favourable. It took me three days to get here from Potosi. All the good scenery was on the first two days. On the second day I met a Japanese lad riding in the opposite direction. He did not speak much English, but it was good to meet him anyway. On the third day I met a Canadian and German couple travelling together in different vehicles., The Canadians had a Mercedes van, but the Germans had a Toyota Landcruiser 4x4 with a specially built body designed by him and he had made the interior. It was a very nice conversion, with extra long range fuel tanks and a 300 litre drinking water tank. They had been travelling around Europe and South America for about 2 years. Previously they had done a lot of cycle touring and they admitted that it was much more fun and adventurous with a bike, but they wanted to take things a bit easier now. He had brought his mountain bike. I think what was going on was that if there was a good downhill stretch he would ride while his wife drove the Landcruiser. I think he has it made! I met them again here in Uyuni, along with a German cyclist and his Argentinean girlfriend. This guy was a serious cycle tourist by the sound of it, having ridden 100's of thousands of miles through most countries. I also talked with a young Swiss couple who were touring, but it sounded as though they spent more time on buses than cycling.
This is my third day resting here now and I plan to set off for Isla Pescado in the salar tomorrow. After Isla Pescado I plan to go to the town of San Juan, then Chiguana, then some mining settlement between Chiguana and Laguna Colorada, then Laguna Verde and then over the Chilean border into San Pedro de Atacama. Everybody I have spoken to says that there is accommodation, food and water available in all these places except for Chiguana and the mining settlement. Some people say that Chiguana is nothing more than a military base and nothing is available there. Some people also say there is nothing available in the mining settlement. I am going to take 14 litres of water and plenty of food. I think this leg to San Pedro will be the most adventurous of my trip. Luckily the temperature during the day is very good for cycling, so I should not loose so much fluids by sweating. There seem to be about 15 4x4's leaving every day from here taking the backpackers along this route, so I can always get help from them if I need to. The German cyclist said that on Isla Pescado there is a special hostal for cyclists which has a book where cyclists have written information about there travels, so that should be useful.
The guide book described Uyuni as an ugly town with unfriendly hostales, so I had low expectations. It flat and the outskirts of the town are strewn with rubbish. They do not have flowers here, but they do have lots of low thorny bushes with little plastic bags entangled in them, blowing about in the breeze. I was directed to an hostal by a French lad who was talking with the campervanners. I knocked on the door several times and waited for 10 minutes before an Indian girl in her mid twenties came out, coughed up a greeny and flobbed it on the pavement before showing me a room. She seems to be the manager and is actually a nice girl apart from her manners. Yesterday I went to the outskirts to have a look at the road leading to the salar and sat for a while on a lump of concrete contemplating the sparse surroundings, when I caught a whiff of decomposing flesh and noticed there was a dead dog next to me. It is not all bad though, there is a restaurant with reasonable food which plays British and North American music. Yesterday I ate my dinner to the sound of Black Sabbath. It seemed fitting somehow. A group backpackers consisting of a North American lad, girl and an Australian girl invited me to eat with them last night and I went for a spliff with them afterwards. They were friendly and very lively.
I have been resting up here in San Pedro for three days now after that exhausting leg of the journey. I set off from Uyuni on the 25th September after 3 days of mostly lying in bed with the flu. I stayed 6 days there and I was so bored, as there were no bookshops with English books, so I bought a personal CD player for $45US. I was still not well when I left with a really sore throat, but I felt strong. I cycled north of Uyuni for about 15 miles to Colchani and then I headed West out into the Salar de Uyuni. Its surface is rock hard and seemingly made up of polygonal tiles, mostly hexagons, with crusty rims which protrude upwards by about 10 mm. There are rubber marks from vehicles going off in various directions so I set Isla Pescado as a landmark on the GPS and just went where it told me. It was a novelty at first but after half an hour of white and blue and a few mountains which seemingly did not get any closer it was boring and I resorted to trying to find a triangular tile and then to wandering why the surface formed into tiles of more or less the same size, then I had to get the radio out. I noticed that now and again there were deep holes in the surface which were filled with water. After about 5 hours of cycling one of the islands was definitely getting closer. It was Isla Incahuasi which is only about half a mile in diameter and I was surprised to find two locals with bikes there. I chatted with them a bit and then cycled a bit further around and came upon a German bloke who had also cycled out there and said he was staying on the island. He thought it was Isla Pescado. I followed him to where I assumed he was camping and found that there was a small community living there with a shop, restaurant and hostal. It seems that there is none of this on Isla Pescado and that people including the tour operators have confused the names of the islands. So I decided to stay there. The room we had was the best I have stayed in on my trip so far. It was built around the natural rock and coral formations of the island, with these forming parts of two walls, and big windows overlooking the salar. In fact the whole island was pretty amazing with corral and loads of cacti. This German is a photography student of my age and was interesting to talk to. He has spent 2 years cycling in India, but did not feel up to cycling down to San Pedro through the desert, so he was going to stay on the island for a few days and then take a 4 x 4 down to Laguna Verde. We had massive "Mongo burgers" with chips in the restaurant, which were made of llama meat.
The next morning I was packing up when I heard a noise like a bus pulling up outside and when I looked around it was a light aircraft with some rich tourists. I spoke to Alfredo on the island who keeps a book maintained by cyclists who write messages, draw pictures and glue in photos. Unfortunately the content of the messages was lacking any useful information about the route to San Pedro. Alfredo himself said that it would take 1 day to get to San Juan (which has hostales and shops) and then 5 days between there and Laguna Colorada with nothing in between. I set off at 10:30 and used the GPS to get to the place on the mainland south of the island where a track begins. This stretch was not quite to bad as the day before as I was close to the shore with things to look at and there was no headwind. I got up to 20 mph and it took 2 hours to get onto the track. The track was corrugated and a bit sandy and I passed through cultivated areas with people working by hand in the fields. The track went back out onto mud flats and then cut inland again. This is where severe problems started. The road was fucked: it was like trying to ride across a sandy beach up a steep hill. On top of this there was a gale force wind blowing which caused a dust storm and yes it was a headwind. It was also getting dark. I could only cycle for about 50 m at a time before losing my balance or becoming bogged down. There were multiple vehicle tracks and it is cruel that the sand is most compacted in narrow ruts which have 3 to 4 inch deep corrugations. If the bike tyres steered into the soft sides of the rut the bike would stop and I would often have to jump off and let the bike fall over. It was often the case that my current rut would become totally unrideable and I would scan the other tracks for the one that looked most bumpy and try that or push the bike. When it became pitch black the road reached the peak of its crapness and I could not see which track was best so I had to push. Fortunately at this point I could make out the faint lights of San Juan ahead. When I finally got there it seemed deserted and the wind was howling through the streets carrying sand with it. I got some accommodation and stayed the next day there to build up energy. The hostales there are used almost exclusively by the 4x4 tour groups.
I worked out that I should have enough water for 3 litres per day while cycling and 1.5 litres in the evening and morning. For 5 days and 4 nights this adds up to 21 litres! I bought spring water in 2 litre bottles. I put 3 on the front rack, 2 in the army sausage bag on the rear rack and 5 and a half in a backpack. The first part of the first day was relatively easy as it was flat going mostly across another salar. I came to the last area of habitation called Chiguana which is no more than a small military camp where they gave me a cup of boiled water. It was an interesting place as the buildings were like squashed spheres, which were made of concrete of about 15 feet diameter painted in tar on the top and the rest in camouflage. It seemed somehow like a militarised Tellytubby land. Unfortunately I was not allowed to photograph it. The track got a bit tougher from here on with similar sand problems to those described earlier but without the wind. I climbed about 400m then it levelled off a bit and I camped out next to some nice rock formations. I managed 55 miles this day, but the two days after, about 27. It was high desert with almost no vegetation just the odd tuft of dried out sharp grass or some kind of rock hard green lichen. I did not see any fresh water at all, only that in salty lakes yet I saw the odd herd of deer type things - viscunas. I have come to the conclusion that they must live on sand and salt water. I passed a number of these lakes on the second day and they contained lots of flamingos, which I suppose must be able to handle drinking the salt water. The second, third and fourth days were as I described on the approach to San Juan and sometimes worse. It was basically a struggle for 80% of the time with tracks which were only just rideable with great concentration. It was not exactly enjoyable riding in the sand, but there were a few rocky patches, some extremely rocky which were fantastic fun to ride both up and down. These bits were proper hard core mountain biking and would have been amazing without luggage. On one of the rocky descents I was hammering it and there was a 4x4 full of backpacker monkeys coming the other way. I saw a spot to pass on the other side of the track so swerved over towards it but as the 4x4 was passing I hit some sand and got deflected back toward the car and narrowly avoided crashing into the side of it: excellent fun. In the evenings at around 5:30 the wind would tend to pick up to about 40 mph which made putting the tent up difficult, but as the sun set at around 7:00 it would calm down completely. The nights were pretty cold. I would guess about -10 to -15C. I enjoyed the feeling of isolation along this stretch during the evening, but during certain times of day the 4x4’s would come past in their clouds of dust. I probably saw about 20 per day. I was very glad on the third night to have made good enough progress to make it to Laguna Colorada the next day. On the fourth day I passed some spectacular rock formations, one of which was particularly impressive. Its overall shape was similar to that of mushroom, but it stood about 20 feet tall and had an intricately eroded surface. After this the Laguna Colorada soon came into sight downhill of me. I had a celebratory snickers bar. However this stretch was the worse sand of all. I blew my top a few times at having to push the bike downhill. The lake did not seem particularly impressive to me. Its main point of interest was that it was red with some kind of algae. When I got to the hostal I met a Swiss guy Michel who is also cycling. He had given up on the approach to San Juan and taken a lift with a tour group, but was intending to ride the rest of the way as he had been told the road was better from now on. The two cooks at first refused to make any for us which was fucking not on, after what I had been through. One of the men in the shop told them to get on with it and they did. I stayed the next day to recover while Michel got going
It looked possible to get to Laguna Verde in 2 more days especially if the roads were as good as everybody was saying. The road was fucked for 10 miles then it came to a pretty good road. This road was not marked on my map and the one on my map did not exist in reality. I headed off up the good road which went up to over 4900m. I managed to find the geysers at sol de Manyana with the GPS and it was well worth the 2 mile detour which dropped 200m or so off the main track. There were many of these things which varied in character and size enormously. The smallest were like little worm holes with a jet of steam hissing out. The largest were 10 foot deep craters with bubbling and spitting stinking mud. There was one which was a 10 foot diameter hole of indeterminate depth because of the quantity and density of the steam coming out of it. It made a colossal noise like a steam engine. I think that falling in would have resulted in instant death. A few miles after the geysers the track headed off in the direction of Laguna Salada where the road on my map passed. It was a fantastic view of the lake and a fast downhill run. I hit 37 mph at one point. It was fun because of the loose surface. I hit some deep sand at about 35 mph at one point and nearly lost it swerving all over the road. At the lake a Land-Rover caught up with me. It was driven by a nice Swiss couple. They had a crap map and had got to where they were by following my tyre marks on the basis that a cyclist in this place was likely to be very careful not to go the wrong way. They had gone across Asia, through Australia and were now doing South America. They had been going for 2 years. The bloke was a welder and had made a camper conversion with elevating roof of a 110 Land-Rover. I found a spot for the tent against a cliff face which had been enclosed by a 2 foot high rock wall. I was a bit reluctant about it because it had loads of what looked like rat shit all over the place which I though might not be so healthy. I decided to go for it because of the wind. The next day was relatively easy and I met the Swiss Land-Rover couple again and we talked for half an hour. They said the Land-Rover weighed in at over 3 tons which is more than twice the weight of my old 1970 IIA Land-Rover. It’s amazing how much crap people will take if they have the space for it. The hostal at Laguna Verde was another shit hole. When I got there I knocked on the door to the kitchen and spoke to a woman who told me to wait a minute and shut the door in my face. I waited 5 minutes and then tried another door. Accommodation in Uyuni was 13 Bolivianos a night with a private room and hot showers. Here they wanted 30 Bolivianos for a crappy dorm room with bunk beds and there were no washing facilities at all. I considered setting up my tent or heading off for Chile but gave in due to exhaustion and another dust storm. I shared a room with a middle aged French couple who were friendly enough but I felt as though I was intruding. I had a good chat with 3 north American perpetual travellers who had bought 4x4 in Chile, but did not have the appropriate paperwork so had got a lift up here and were going to climb the 5500m volcano which overlooks Laguna Verde. Next day I climbed away from Laguna Verde and crossed the Chilean border, then descended down the first tarmac road I have seen since Potosi for about 2000m to San Pedro. The road went more or less straight down with no zigzags and it would have been possible to reach a ridiculous speed had it not been for the strong headwind. I still managed 45 mph though. San Pedro is an oasis town in the northern Atacama desert. It is like a different world down here with loads of trees with birds singing in the branches. I have not seen trees since before Potosi. It is a nice looking town. The church has a mud roof as do several other buildings (I suppose it does not rain here too often), but there is a more Western feel to the place. The locals are mostly Mestizos, who have European shaped faces but darker skin, and quite a few white people as well. It is however very touristy. Loads of tourist craft shops, restaurants and tour agencies. I thought “fuck it I don’t care I bet the food in those restaurants is damn good”. I had a spaghetti Bolognese and it was big and fucking nice after the shitty tins of tuna I have been living on. I also had a whisky and 5 beers in celebration of surviving the last 11 days. The next day the anticlimax of having finished the toughest part of the tour hit as did exhaustion. I met up with German I had met on Isla Incahassi and the Swiss guy on the bike. They left yesterday towards Salta so I might catch them up there later on.
The last few days I have just been eating breakfast, reading all day and then getting a meal in the evening. Yesterday I read a book called “The man who mistook his wife for a hat” which is written by a neurologist and discusses people with various types of brain damage or brain diseases and tells stories about their lives. The information is used to gain understanding of the nature of a normal human brain. Good book: funny tragic and interesting.
