Bolivia
December
9, 2012 - We left La Paz and fought traffic for a good
twenty five kilometers before we could get into third gear. Our
first stop was Oruro, a necessary evil on the way to Uyuni.
We found a dumpy hotel for way too much money, but it served the purpose. In the evening, we went for pizza and stumbled upon a place that only did pizza the right way. There was happiness in Oruro after all.
The next morning we were rolling before sunrise as we feared the road to Uyuni from all reports we had read was a nasty one. To our surprise, we found a brand new perfectly paved road and made it to Uyuni early in the afternoon. For the first time in our so far eight month trip, we ended up in a town where there was no wifi service anywhere, so we were relegated to using Spanish keyboards on faded CRT monitors. Uyuni is a dump of a town, filled with tour operators, white tourists and very grumpy and unfriendly locals. The 2012 Uyuni smile contest produced no winners, only whiners.
The local train graveyard is quite famous and we wandered over to shoot some pictures. There are a boatload more under the "Slideshows" tab.
The tour we booked was a three day jaunt into the Salar de Uyuni, massive salt flats and other unearthly terrain.
Some of the Salar is covered in water this time of year.
We didn't spend three days on a bunch of salt flats but visited a few other sites in the same area. The camera got a workout.
All in all the tour was a grand success and we didn't have to subject our bikes to a bunch of salt water. Instead, we got carted around in a Lexus 450 4x4 which certainly was very comfortable. Given some of the terrain, I have more respect for these things now as I always thought they were wannabe off-road machines. We climbed some hills I would not want to tackle with a Land Rover LT110.
A few hundred kilometers of fantastic off-road riding put me at a very small border crossing a day or two later.
Before I cleared the border, I had to pay a two dollar bribe at the police station before I got my exit stamp. I asked for a receipt first and the only answer I got was that everyone paid it. I am done with Bolivia and its people. On to Chile.