Southern Exposure

Sunday, February 22

There were not enough hours in the night to allow us to rest from the previous days in Bolivia. Checkout was at 10 am and we slept as late as possible and the hour time change made it really 9 am body clock time. We struggled out of bed and went to get breakfast. The hotel cafe was also a bakery, but hotel guests were not worthy of fresh baked goods and we were given old pastries for breakfast.

We were not fans of San Pedro de Atacama. It was a full on gringo tourist town, the kind of place we try to avoid when possible. It was also vastly overpriced, so despite our original plan of staying put for a few days we were on a mission to get out of there as soon as possible. As we were packing the bikes I took stock of the blue bike after yesterday’s crash. The upper right fairing and the upper center fairing were cracked. The corner welds on my right pannier I had redone in Panama were cracked again. It depressed me.

We found an ATM after some misdirection, and headed out to find a gas station. Lauren and Martin had mentioned how surprisingly hard to find it was in this town, so we looked carefully. It was amazingly well hidden in between two streets, behind a wall. There was no sign indicating it was there so I’m not sure how anyone was supposed to find it. Without the help of a local motorcycle we would have been looking for hours. Our desperation to leave was evident when we were chastised for making a pass on a police vehicle that was driving along at 2 km/h.

We had heard great things about the Paso de Sico to Argentina, and it sounded more interesting than grinding through the Atacama Desert of Chile. We went back to the Chilean immigration and checked out of Chile. I think we were officially in the country for 14 hours and doing the entry/exit paperwork was a real waste of time. It was an indicator that we didn’t pick up on of how isolated our chosen border crossing was that we were checking out over 100 km from the border.

The first 70 km or so going south to Socaire was a very pleasant ride on smooth pavement. After Bolivia ee were deeply appreciative of any form of pavement so those were happy kilometers for us. After [Socaire], the pavement ended and we were back on the dirt. The road wasn’t too bad. There was some corrugation and loose gravel, but generally it was far better than the Bolivian roads.

The scenery was similar in some way, wide open desert vistas with smooth mountains and sparse vegetation. We weren’t enthused about being back on dirt the day after we’d gotten out of Bolivia, but we were making good time and the distance to go looked small on the map.

The landscape surprised us with its beauty. The road stretched out for miles ahead of us and each new valley brought new, stunning mountains and open plains. The vegetation was too arid for llamas, but small family groups of vicuñas still roamed the land, scattering when we grew close. The sense of isolation was even stronger than in Bolivia and we didn’t see another vehicle for hours at a time.

We descended into a salar valley, delighted to discover another blue-green laguna, this one even better than Laguna Verde. We left the road and rode down to the soft salty shore. It reminded us of a tropical beach, except we were surrounded by gray mountains and volcanic cones.

We lingered as long as we dared, and then rode back to the dirt track and moved on. The silence and isolation was profoundly peaceful and the sun shining brightly down and leaving no shadows in the landscape. We rode through this landscape for the entire afternoon, finally reaching a Chilean border outpost. The road had a few sandy patches, but overall wasn’t too bad. The official there crushed our spirits by telling us the roads were worse on the Argentinean side.

We reached the Argentinean border outpost and had to knock loudly on the door to stir the officials inside. I don’t think they were expecting anyone. The officials did the paperwork as if we’d awoken them from a peaceful slumber, every form being filled out languidly and without a care in the world.

It was here that reality came crashing down on us. It was 6 pm by the time we had our entry stamps and papers. We had been foolish in leaving San Pedro de Atacama so late, blithely assuming the scale of the Chile/Argentina maps was similar to our Bolivia map. Bolivia is a small country, and Chile and Argentina are not. We’d ridden about an inch on the map today, which would have been only a few hours in Bolivia.

This revelation, piled on top of the struggles of the previous days and our state of exhaustion, was too much for Inna to bear. Upon realizing that it was already 6 pm and we had another 120 dirt road kilometers to go to the next town, she burst into tears. I felt terrible and tried to comfort her, noting that we still had hours of daylight left and that the road hadn’t been too bad so far. I did my best to take care of her and make her smile. The border guards took pity on us and told us they had bedrooms available if we wanted to stay the night, but tears aside, Inna was determined to press on.

Unfortunately for us, the Chilean border guard was dead on and the Argentinean road was crappy from the very beginning. It was extremely corrugated, the vibration jarring us and aggravating our nerves even further. The sections of corrugation was broken up by our favorite surface, sand. Progress was slow but we were stubbornly grinding over the corrugation. Note that there are absolutely no photographs of the Argentinean side as we weren’t stopping for anything.

We finally reached the halfway point of the Argentinean road in a town called Olacapato. It looked like a reasonably sized town on the map, and we were hoping to get some gas. The map was deceiving and the town was just a few deserted streets. It was eery to ride through and we finally encountered a woman watching us from a doorway. I asked if the town had gas or a hotel, and she pointed us down the street.

We rode into the courtyard of the building indicated and talked to the lady proprietor. She said she had no gas, but had rooms. I looked at the room and it was surprisingly nice considering our surroundings. We were relieved to be done with the day and then the question of payment came up. We had no Argentinean pesos, only Chilean and American. There was no ATM to be found, let alone even a store. The lady wasn’t interested in taking foreign currency, so we were back on the bikes.

The sun was setting as we rode back to the center of town. The power station, a large diesel generator, was located in the center. The solitary engineer in his hard hat inside came out to investigate the two strange motorcycles parked out front. He was a friendly young man and I explained our situation. He said he had a few liters of “nafta” he could spare, if our bikes could run on it.

I had no clue what “nafta” was, other than a treaty, but he assured me it was “super” and he ran his little bike on it. I was a little leery, but when he brought the bright blue liquid out in a 3 liter Coca-Cola bottle, it smelled like gas. Our bikes were questionably low, so I decided to go for it and talked him into giving us an additional 4 liters. I would later discover that in Argentina they call gasoline “nafta”. Why they don’t call it “gasolina” like every single other Latin American country is beyond me and this conversation was a real waste of time. I’m also not sure why if he knew it was super grade gasoline he raised doubts about our bikes being able to run on it. Annoying but he did hook us up.

We couldn’t pay him of course, so a long conversation ensued about how to make good, with us finally agreeing he would meet us in the hotel we hoped to stay in San Antonio de Cobres at midnight after he got off work. He commuted home to there every night. We asked him how long it would take and he said 1.5 to hours.

The sun had set by the time we were back on the road, and a fantastic lightning storm was brewing over the mountain above the town. I was no longer feeling my exhaustion and was actually almost cheerful. Inna’s despair had left me with no room for any negative feelings as I needed to keep her spirits up and get us to a hotel for the night. I had done everything that could be done in our current situation, so there was nothing left for me to worry about besides Inna.

The lightning storm was dramatically beautiful. As we rode along with only half of our headlights, highbeams only, the flashes of lightning would light up the entire valley. The small cones of light in front of us would momentarily disappear in an instant of near full daylight. The Wanderlust GPS maps I had downloaded in Peru worked well in Argentina, unlike Bolivia, so I had a good sense of the turns I couldn’t see on the road ahead and I could see us make measureable progress.

I tried to encourage Inna a bit, but she wasn’t answering her starcom. I stopped to talk to her and she was in tears. She was so tired that she vented her frustration in tears, looking for me to comfort her and make her feel better. I felt so terrible for allowing us to get into this situation, and I told her what a strong woman she was and how proud of her I was, trying to buoy her spirits. We normally ride with dark tinted shields, but in the dark we were riding with them flipped up. She was riding behind me, so was getting a fair share of dust. As we talked in the darkness I changed her helmet to a clear shield, hoping the additional comfort would make the next 50 km a little easier on her.

We continued our late night ride, and mercifully the road was better since Olacapato than it had been before it. We wound through several valleys and I was hyper alert and relatively cheerful. I encouraged Inna over the radio, telling her how close we were to San Antonio. We were treated to an encounter with the bright reflecting eyes of a curious fox in the road ahead of us.

When we were 15 km from town, I relayed the good news to Inna, and then the lightning storm I had been enjoying thus far decided we’d enjoyed it enough, and the rain began to pour down upon us. We had put our top rain liners in for warmth before leaving [O], but our legs were not protected. The rain poured and poured, with occasional disturbingly close lightning strikes as we reached the edge of town.

We found the hotel around 11 pm, surprisingly nice given the shabbiness of the town. I hurried Inna into the lobby, telling to leave all of the unpacking of the bikes to me. We had a confusing discussion with the receptionist about the price since our brains were addled and the Argentines used the same dollar symbol ($) as the US dollar, but we finally realized the room would not cost $185 US for the night and I sent Inna to the room for a hot shower.

When I went back outside to unpack the bikes and move them to sheltered parking, not a drop of rain was falling. Irritatingly cruel. When I came back into the lobby, I met an Italian rider named Stefano, who was on a several month long tour of Chile and Argentina. We chatted for a bit, and I said I’d share a tea with him if he was still up when I got back from running into town to find an ATM and get us some snacks and water, as we had skipped both lunch and dinner.

The town was up late and the main street was closed. It was still Carnival and the youth were dressed in wild costumes parading down the street in front of stands. I got some cash and bought some snacks, enjoying the circus atmosphere a bit before going back to the hotel. Stefano had already gone to bed, and I found Inna, much happier and relaxed after a hot shower. We had a snack and some tea and bread from room service. I cleaned myself up and were soon happily asleep, grateful for the happy ending to a trying day. The guy whose name I never learned showed up around midnight, and I was out of bed, paid him, and was back asleep in the blink of an eye.

2 falls Inna
3 falls Matt

2 license plates fell off (both)
1 subframe bolt (red)
1 turn signal fell off, destroyed (blue)
1 turn signal fell off but fixable (red)
2 cracked fairing pieces (blue)
2 lowbeam headlight bulbs (both)
1 fuse (red)
1 KLR toolkit fell off, recovered (blue)
3 license plate reflectors (both)
1 crushed/notched steering bearings (blue, red's already ruined)
1 Formotion thermometer, which leaked its oil, dissolving the glue that held on my battery gauge

Saturday, February 21 – Villa Mar to San Pedro de Atacama

We woke up at 7 am anticipating the day to be much longer and harder than yesterday. After a cup of instant coffee and a few power bars for breakfast we loaded the bikes, suited up and headed out. A lustrous morning light was illuminating the valley and spotlighting the nearby meadow where a large herd of different colored llamas was grazing. I’ve never seen so many llamas casually roaming around in one place. It was an enchanting sight.

Our destination was Laguna Colorada. The first part of the road took us through a mountain pass. Although the road was very rocky and bumpy and the bike was slipping off the large rocks, the scenery was amazingly rewarding, with smooth reddish-brown colored peaks in the distance, and semi dessert grassland with silky patches of bushes sprinkled all around.

We then passed a couple half frozen algae-rich salt lakes stained in a wide variety of hues by microorganisms and mineral deposts. We marveled at the range of colors from white to bright red, to green and deep brown.

After an hour of mountainous landscape we descended down to the altiplano flats and back to the sandy corrugated roads and dry grasslands with scant vegetation.

Matt was leading and had his first soft crash of the day in the unexpected deep sand. We lifted up the bike and kept on going.

To our surprise we reached Laguna Colorada by 12 noon, much earlier than we anticipated. We stopped at the entrance to the park for a quick snack and engaged in a conversation with two French bicyclists. They were coming from the south on the same roads we were going to take, and gave us invaluable advice on taking alternative roads to avoid deep sand.

We paid our park entrance fee and headed closer to the lake to check out the colonies of pink flamingos. This area has the largest population of the rare James flamingo in the world. There were hundreds of them picking their long necks in and out of the water, and covering the lake surface like a pink velvety blanket.

After marveling at the sight for a while we continued down the road. We knew that once we passed the laguna, there would be no places to stay for the night and we would have to cross into Chile that evening.

We did prior research on the aduana which for some strange reason was located in the park 25 miles north of the border crossing. We did the 5 km detour off the main road to the aduana, located at over 16,000 ft, and the process took less than 3 minutes. Happy to have dealt with that so painlessly we were back on the road heading to Laguna Verde.

This stretch of the road was probably the most startling scenery we have seen on this trip and maybe ever in our lives. Snowcapped volcanic peaks were looming in the distance as we were passing through brightly red and intensely brown colored high altitude desert fields and mountains.

We decided to stop for 10 minutes to admire the strange rock outcrops scoured by the unremitting wind into Dali-esque formations. It is hard to describe the otherworldy majestic beauty of this place, and photographs certainly can not relay the intensity of color and the grandeur of the landscape. We felt absolutely stunned, humbled and in awe of the surroundings. This is what we worked so hard for!

The landscape felt like an archetype, engraved in my memory, may be from the surrealist paintings of Dali, or possibly my dreams or visions, or the images of Mars… something about the experience of being there was very familiar, very human, but very raw and wild at the same time.

We felt attracted to that place like to a magnet and wanted to stay there longer but we knew we had only a few hours of light left and we still had a lot of ground to cover.

Our next destination was Laguna Verde. I have seen pictures of this beautiful turquoise lake and was excited to see it in person. It was not as impressive as I anticipated. I think may be because the sun was not in a good angle and the color of the lake was not as intense blue as on the pictures I have seen. Nevertheless, we enjoyed half an hour at the lake and headed south towards the border.

We exited the park and the immigration office was already in our sight when Matt had a pretty nasty crash. The road was freshly graded (the grading machine was ahead of us) and perfectly flat, but unexpectedly Matt’s front wheel dug into the sand and he was thrown into the shoulder. The bike’s upper fairing was cracked, the low beam bulb went out and the right box got smooshed.

To leave Bolivia we had to pay about $5 each (that’s on top of the $135 per person to enter!) and tired, exhausted and bit down we were finally on Chilean territory and on pavement. After 50 km on a smooth as a butter road and some stunning sunset scenery we reached San Pedro de Atacama. The aduana process was painless but by the time we were done with it it was 9 pm and pitch black.

We set out to find a hotel. Little did we know that it was the Carnaval weekend and everything in this stupid overpriced town was booked. We tried five hotels with no luck. One had a room for $200 a night (thanks, but no thanks!), but nothing else was available. We almost considered going to another town, but decided to give one last hostel a try. Yes, they had a “superior” room – for $90! Trust me, there was nothing superior about that room, not for that price. We had no other choice but to take it. We hurried up to take a shower before they shut off water and electricity at 11 pm. The shower lifted our spirits and calmed us down a bit after the strenuous day, but overall we felt physically and mentally spent and fell asleep instantly.

Friday, February 20 – Uyuni to Villa Mar

We woke up early today hoping to be on the road by 8 am. As always, the packing took a little longer, the breakfast service was extremely slow, and by the time we said goodbyes to Lauren, Martin and Pedro it was already 9 am. On the road out of town we met two BMW riders from Michigan heading south, they were taking a northern and slightly easier route to Chile. We exchanged contacts and were on our way.

We knew that the next few days would be the hardest riding days of our trip. We were heading south to Chile through the Reserva Nacional Eduardo Avaroa, a 7,200 sq. km remote region filled with mineral stained salt lakes, Martian landscapes, stunning volcanic peaks, pink flamingos, and more sandy dirt roads than we had ever planned on riding.

We had read accounts of other riders who have done this route and it looked very difficult but unearthly beautiful. The sand is so deep for such long stretches of the road that falls are unavoidable. Lauren and Martin just did this road a few days ago coming from the south and all they could say when we first told them of our plan was the loaded “good luck!” Lauren had to get off the bike and walk for 14 km, and Martin said that the road tested his mental limits to the maximum. However, the more information we gathered from them by looking at the maps together, the more they assured us that the road was “doable” we just needed to take it very slow.

So off we went on the most dangerous adventure of our trip. The road started out predictably corrugated, but firm. After a couple of hours, we reached San Cristobal, the last town with a gas station before over 300 miles of nothingness. The attendant at the gas station told us it has been two days since the last gas delivery and it was unknown when gas would be available. That was the first blow to our nervous system. We rode around the town streets asking locals for gas, to no avail. We spotted a local on a small bike who was filling up his tank. He didn’t have anything to offer us, but said that in the next town we should ask for Señor X (his name escapes me now) who might be able to sell us some gas.

We pulled into the next town, and decided that it would be better for me to go in first, as sometimes locals refuse to sell gas (even at gas stations) to gringos, but a girl on a bike can work her charms on them. I pulled up to a bunch of guys standing outside a tienda on the main street and asked them where I could get some gas. One of them cracked a joke in response and they all garishly laughed. A young girl came out of the tienda to my rescue and said that she has gas for sale. She turned out to be the daughter of Señor X. Matt pulled up and we filled up our tanks to the maximum.

Back on the road for another 40 miles we reached a one street village of Villa Alota. It felt absolutely deserted with the exception of a few kids playing on the main “plaza.” We asked them where we could get some water and they pointed to a house on the street. It turned out to be a small pharmacy/convenience store inside a private residence. An old man, the owner, also agreed to sell us some gas, which was really what we were after. Needless to say we always pay triple for the gas we buy from individuals, but that is how you roll in Bolivia if you want to keep on going.

It was 12:30 pm and as we looked at the map we realized we had 80 miles to go to the next town and the really bad roads were still ahead. Getting out of town was a bit tricky. We got a general direction from the old man of where we should be heading, but we could not see a road. After riding through a vast marshy and hilly meadow and crossing a few narrow but rocky river beds we finally spotted a road, and that is where the real fun began. The road was corrugated and covered in a layer of sand. Neither of us had any experience riding in the sand so we started out slow. There were long stretches of the road when it was appearing flat but under the graded road lay hidden sand so the bike would wobble suddenly and strongly, and all you could do was hold on to it and try to ride it out. Every time I hit the hidden sand I would get covered in sweat thinking I was going to crash but somehow able to straighten the bike.

My first crash of the day happened as our road was merging with another road and I was probably going just a little bit too fast when I hit an unexpected patch of deep sand and the bike started weaving left to right all over the road. As I was heading for the left berm of the road I figured the best thing to do would be to lie the bike softly on its side, and so I did, right into a small bush.

Matt came and helped me lift the bike, which is when we noticed that the infamous bolt that holds the lower subframe was gone again. Just yesterday Matt realized that he lost his bag of extra bolts, so we had no spare to hold the frame together. Moving forward without the bolt could damage the whole frame of the bike. We were a bit at loss for a second, and decided to try to secure the subframe with plastic zip ties. I saw a truck coming our way, the first car we encountered in the last hour, and flagged them. There were a few young guys, an old man and a lady with a little girl in the truck. We asked them if they had any spare bolts and showed them our problem. The old man got a few bolts out but none of them fit. He finally found a bolt that fit, but very loosely. That would had to be our solution until Villa Mar, where he said we could find a mechanic. We thanked them profusely and got back on the road with heavy feelings.

The next few hours was a grueling jaunt mainly in first gear, puffing and huffing trying to maneuver the bikes through the sand. The altiplano scenery was beautiful and we had to remind ourselves to look around once in a while to enjoy it. Before we reached Villa Mar we each had a few more soft crashes, and my subframe bolt was gone again. Lifting the bikes up was a bit of a physical challenge, which would cost Matt strained back muscles for days to come.

At 6 pm we finally reached Villa Mar, a tiny village of may be 20 homes in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains, river streams and endless altiplano terrain. We stopped at a small convenience store and while Matt was trying to see if the two men could find us a bolt, I went to look for a place to sleep.

The only two story building in the village turned out to be a hotel, and the owner was also a mechanic. Matt had no luck finding the bolt, so we were praying that the hotel owne/mechanic would be able to help us. After a few fittings he found the right bolt and cut it short to fit the bike. Eureka! We were so happy and relieved! Difficult roads, deep sand, that is all doable, but when the bike is sick, it looms over you like a dark heavy cloud. Fixing the bike made our night. We were content with our minimal accommodations. The owner’s wife even agreed to cook us some dinner.

We had a good laugh at our dinner menu: crema soup (some kind of a chicken broth), powdered mashed potatoes and fried but surprisingly mushy pieces of hot dogs. I wish I took a picture of it, it looked like dog food. In other circumstances I would not touch it, but at that time, the hot soup helped warm us up and we picked at the second dish cracking out jokes about the nutritiousness of our meal.

While we were having dinner at least three jeeps pulled up to the hotel and unloaded groups of tourists who were staying here over night. The señora cooked them a much more appetizing dinner, but I am sure they’d paid double for it.

Matt’s back was hurting, so he took a pain killer and I put some tiger balm on it and he went to sleep. Meanwhile I did a little bit of writing before retiring to sleep under 4 layers of blankets and wearing my alpaca gloves.

Saturday, February 20

We reluctantly pulled ourselves out of bed and went to search for a big breakfast. As we were heading out, we ran into Martin, Lauren and Pedro. We were all looking to ride the Salar de Uyuni today, so we agreed to meet up after breakfast and head out together. We managed to choose the place with the slowest service in the universe and it took us an hour to get back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, we chatted and swapped travel advice and war stories before realizing that we really ought to get heading out. It was very overcast this morning, but our chatting had given the sun some time to work and a few cracks were appearing in the clouds.

Our first destination was the train graveyard. For reasons unknown to me, Uyuni was the end of the line for scores of Bolivian locomotives. The tracks just end in the desert behind town. We rode over and parked amidst the rusting rail cars.

It was such a strange scene and no one had an idea for why these trains were just abandoned here. It seems like enough metal to be worth melting down at the very least. However, it made for great fun clambering all over them and taking photos.

A few tour groups soon showed up and that was our cue to depart. Pedro went back to the hotel as he had ridden the salar yesterday. The rest of us headed north to vibrate our way 25 km to the salar entrance. The salar had been flooded and few weeks before but it was now nearly dry. We had to be careful to avoid the puddles as they were saturated salt water and would splash into hard to clean places in the bikes and rust away.

We rode agonizingly slowly and picked our way through the puddles until we reached the firm white salt of the salar proper. When I had first started thinking about doing this trip years ago, the Salar de Uyuni had always been on the top of my list of must see places. It is the remains of a giant prehistoric lake that dried out and left two major salt deserts, one of which is Uyuni. It’s a perfectly flat, white expanse of salt that goes on for mile after mile. There is nothing to give any perspective, it’s an infinite vista of white beneath the vivid blue altiplano sky. It’s marvelous!

Once we were on the salar, we stopped to take the obligatory false perspective pictures. With nothing around to give any scale, it’s easy to trick the camera. Well, not so easy as getting things aligned perfectly turned out to be challenging and required a good deal of patience. It was nice being with Martin and Lauren as we could help each other take pictures.

After exhausting our ideas in photography, we rode out to the Salt Hotel. It’s a hotel build out in the salar out of blocks of salt. Despite reports of it being closed as a hotel, people were staying there and it had an interesting bar and lounge. We split up afterwards. Inna and I were going to ride out to the island in the middle of the salar while Martin and Lauren rode back to Uyuni.

Riding the salar is like nothing else. You can follow the tracks of the tourist expedition vehicles, but there are no obstacles and no speed limits. We set off in the general direction of the island and were soon zooming across the salt. It was surreal. The only reference points were the five or six sided 2 foot wide salt crystals of the salar surface. Zoom zoom zoom and ride anywhere you please as fast as you like. I was laughing aloud in my helmet, so happy to finally be here after dreaming about it for so long.

I took the liberty of filming a few videos while riding since there was nothing to run into out here. I was heartbroken to find that the videos had a strange purple tint in the right third. The camera had never done it before nor since. The videos are still cool, but it’s maddening. If anyone knows some photoshop type skills to fix the color please email me.

It took us forty minutes to reach the island. The island was made out of coral from when the salar had been a lake. Now it was covered in cactus, some over a thousand years old. The island was crowded with tourists who had arrived by 4×4, and we definitely stood out riding up on our own bikes and walking around in full riding gear. It was hot but we played cool.

We climbed to the top of the island, took some pictures, and then were off back to Uyuni. The ride back was as satisfying as the ride out. With no reference points, I roughly followed our GPS track back. We took a few pictures of the reflection of the clouds in the puddles and then were back on the rattling road to Uyuni. Since we knew the road by know, we flew along over the corrugation. If you go fast enough, you can skim the top of the ridges and it’s not so bad.

Our first stop in town was the car wash. As we watched the huge caked layers of salt wash off the bike, Inna noticed that her license plate had fallen off. Corrugation strikes again. We waited impatiently for a thorough cleaning, and then we went back to the main road. We rode tediously slowly back towards the salar with one of us on each side of the road, scanning the edges. After 10 km Inna spied her plate and we were greatly relieved. We decided we wouldn’t bother putting them back on.

Back at the hostel, we cleaned up and met Martin, Lauren, and Pedro for dinner. We went to Minuteman Pizza, run by an American ex-pat from Boston. The pizza was very good, and I think it was our first dinner of the trip with fellow travelers. Since they were going north and we were going south, we traded advice and stories.

Friday, February 18

We had one of our better breakfasts in a long time to start the day. Since entering Peru the typical breakfast everywhere was coffee, juice, and some rolls with butter and jelly. Today we had a vegetable omelette, which judging from the flavor, was cooked in pork lard. A strange but tasty combination.

We rode south under another amazing Altiplano sky. The blue is so deep and vivid, and the puffy white cumulous clouds float unusually low to the earth. I almost felt like I was in a room with a low ceiling and needed to duck my head.

We rode to the town of Oruru, a mining town that in its day was the most important source of tin in the world, where we were greeted by fantastic sculptures. The main entrance traffic circle had at its center a platform with a sculpture of the town’s patron virgin, but going in and out of the ground leading up to it was a huge serpentine dragon. Past the circle, the center median was lined with whimsical, out of this world metal sculptures. It was so unexpected in what was an otherwise drab and cheerless town. We topped off our tanks, picked up a quart of oil, and headed south.

We arrived in Huari, but the gas station said no gas until Tuesday. We had been expecting this to happen sooner or later, and now we were really going to have to work to stay fueled. After a bit of the usual misdirection in town, we were on the dirt road leading south out of town.

We were expecting not to see a paved road again for many days, and were surprised when we looked 5 ft to our right and saw a pristine blacktop. We were baffled as to why we weren’t on it and why it was empty. We maneuvered a bit through the dirt and soon had a road to ourselves. The joy of 60 mph didn’t last for long, as a huge pile of dirt lay across the width of the roadway a mile down the road. With more maneuvering, we got around it, but another mile later it was blocked again, more thoroughly. We gave up and got back onto the dumpy dirt road. It’s strange that they would pave a road and then block it. Even if it’s not finished why not use what’s already there?

We came to a small village, and found the only store. We asked for gas and paid an outrageous price for 20 liters to split between us. The managing lady did the suction to start the siphon while I held the gas can high above the bikes. A funnel would have been much easier.

The old man at the store had given us good advice on the river crossing, and we rode across a concrete spillway and back down the river to the main dirt road. At the road’s crossing, we could see a stuck car and truck, so thanks, señor. We were soon riding again in a straight line of a dirt road, south across the grasslands of the altiplano. Llamas were grazing along the side of the road and paid us little attention until the last moment. The vicuñas we saw were much more skittish and ran away quickly when they saw us. Temperamentally llamas are like domesticated cows and vicuñas are like deer, wild animals.

The road became worse as we went south. There were small patches of sand, but the main difficulty was in the corrugation of the road. Stretches of intense corrugation could vibrate the fillings out of your teeth. As much as it hurt the body, we felt great pity for our poor bikes. Everything was getting a good shaking and vibration. My license plate fell off at one point, but fortunately Inna saw it come off and stopped to pick it up. I noticed that the famously high quality Kawasaki rubber had failed and my right turn signal was dangling by the wire.

We had been skirting rain to the east of us all afternoon and were given the treat of seeing a double rainbow once the sun had poked through the cloud cover. We stopped for a moment to take in the rare site.

This was a different kind of riding than we were used to thus far. Our focus was on the next 50 ft of road for sand and other obstacles, and we had to make a conscious effort to look up every now and then at the scenery to our right and left. We rode and vibrated along for a few hours and realized there was no way we were going to make Uyuni before dark. The sun was setting so we stopped to enjoy it. The sun reflected intensely golden light off the clouds overhead as darkness fell around us. It was a magnificent site, but also sobering in that we had miles to go in the dark and we were in the middle of nowhere.

Fortunately for us, this last section of the road was in good shape for a Bolivian road. There was little sand to accompany all of the teeth rattling corrugation. We finally arrived in the somewhat dumpy town of Uyuni. Our first stop was the gas station to top off the tanks. We searched for a hotel, were refused service at our first choice, and ended up staying in the hostel.

The room was small and could barely fit our unpacked luggage, but it was a room and we were exhausted. Parked in the courtyard was a BMW 650, and a Honda Africa Twin. We soon ran into the owners, the Africa Twin belonging to a Swiss/South African couple, Martin and Lauren. Pedro, from Spain, had met them on the road south and they were travelling this segment together. We chatted for a bit and promised to meet in the morning. We’d skipped lunch today, and decided we’d rather sleep than go to dinner.

Tuesday, February 17

We were happy to get moving again, and were looking forward to Bolivia with a mixture of nerves and anticipation. We knew that in Bolivia we would be on the most remote roads of the trip. The road south from Puno was an easy ride along the west coast of Lake Titicaca.

Every 50 miles or so, we stopped to get gas. We were paranoid about long stretches without gas as we’d read that it could be tough, so we tried to top off our tanks as often as possible. It slowed progress down but gave great piece of mind.

We reached the border near Casablanca and exiting Peru was painless. The interesting part was the aduana official telling us we couldn’t come back because we didn’t have insurance for Peru. This is the 2nd time we’d been required to have insurance but no one at the entering border had mentioned the requirement to us. Money saved I suppose.

The Bolivian border worked the opposite of every other border. First we went to the aduana to check in the bikes, and only after that was complete did we go to immigration. Due to the war of words and insults between the US and Bolivia, Americans and Americans only are required to buy a $135 five year visa to enter the country. Inna was bummed she didn’t bring her Russian passport. After we were bled cash and stamped in, the border police held onto my customs documents, demanding a “voluntary” payment. I told them I volunteered nothing several times, but eventually gave them $1 just so we could get going.

Once on the road, the Bolivian people welcomed us with open arms by covering the road with rocks and tree branches. We were not quite sure why. Charming folks.

The ride from the border went through the town of Casablanca. It was a prettier town than Puno, with an interesting Moorish looking church. After a few pictures we were quickly through and on our way. The nicely paved road curved across the hilltops, yet was strangely unexciting.

We reached the ferry crossing across the narrow part of Lake Titicaca and were quickly on board. These ferries were much easier to deal with than the one in Monterrico as they were 4 or 5 planks wide, rather than only 2. We could rest our feet comfortably, and getting off on the other side wasn’t so hard. It was a strange site to see large trucks and buses floating across the lake.

From the ferry it was an easy ride to La Paz. Traffic in La Paz is crazy. Micro buses (basically vans) create parking lots of traffic on every street, and pedestrians fill in all gaps between them like mortar. The only relief was enjoying the view of the spectacular peak of Illimani, overlooking the city from 21,122 ft. We stopped to look at our map, but the city is huge and finding hotels with parking would be tough. It was a very stressful environment so we made a snap decision. It was only 5pm with two more hours of light left, so we decided to bail on La Paz and see if we could find a hotel in a small town south of the town. It would be a win-win, getting us further along while avoiding the stress of insane city riding.

We rode south for an hour, and stayed in the pueblo of Villa Loza, which seemed to consist of two hotel restaurant combos facing each other across the highway. I looked into both, and chose the one with the friendlier, English speaking staff. We parked the bikes around back and had an early dinner. By this point it had become standard for us to skip lunch and only have a light snack somewhere along the side of the road. While Inna worked on writing, I adjusted the headlight on my bike as it was still pointing too high after the last adjustment.

As the sun set, we were rewarded with our first glimpse of the amazing altiplano colors. The hues of blue and orange on the seemingly low sky were intensely vivid and seemed more like an artist’s representation of the ideal twilight sky.

Monday, February 16

Not in my wildest dreams could I imagine that my 30th birthday will be spent so far away from home – 3,812 m (12,500 ft) above sea level, on the remote and one of the highest in the world, Lake Titicaca in Peru…

Our choice of hotel Helena made me very happy last night. The rooms were cosy, modern and clean, we had cable TV with CNN, BBC, Discovery Channel and National Geographic in English, wi-fi in the room, bike parking and a hearty breakfast all included in the rate.

The plan for today was to visit the floating islands on Lake Titicaca that are made of reeds and are the homes of hundreds of Uros people who have inhabited them for over 900 years. The Uros people retreated into the lake to escape conquest by the Incas. The reeds grow plentifully in the lake, so they started weaving the reeds and roots into islands. There are over 40 small islands that comprise quite a large (for drifting on the lake) community that looks like one big floating piece of land.

We took it easy in the morning and got out of the hotel around 9:30 am heading straight to the tourist office to find out how to get to the islands. There were standards tours to the Uros and the nearby islands that started at 6:45 am and ended at 5 pm, with 2.5 hour ride to and from the “nearby” islands.

Five hours on the boat was not my idea of a relaxing day, so we opted instead to hire a boat ourselves from the pier and just visit the Uros islands on a 2 hour tour.

During the ride to the islands we passed hundreds of reed bushes growing out of the water. We could spot locals piling up the weeds high and wide onto their tiny boats, an amusing sight.

The boat dropped us off at one of the islands where a head of the family living on the island told us about the history of the Uros people, and the construction details of the islands.

We learned that they have to “repave” the islands every two weeks, there is a school and a hospital on the islands, and they get their electricity from solar panels. The one thing we wished we have asked is what they do for toilet.

We were also informed that the Uros people are self sustained and that their only source of income is from selling crafts to tourists, which led nicely into guilting to buy their tapestries, wooden boats, and other things we didn’t want.

We hesitated a bit feeling obligated to support the community and opted instead for a cheesy $7 ride in a local reed boat to the “hub” island.

Once on the hub island, it was more of the same crafts selling, which we were not at all interested in. One of the cutest things I’ve seen were the furry hair decorations that local women put on the ends of their braids.

We snapped some more photos, and felt like we had seen enough of the Uros islands and culture and went back to mainland.

From the pier we decided to ride one of the three-wheel bicycle taxis. Using the environmentally friendly transportation should have made us feel good about ourselves, but instead I felt so sorry for the poor driver who was working extra hard moving two lazy gringos up the hill.

So we cut the ride short (but paid in full) and walked the rest of the way to the main street.

Back at the hotel we, as now customary, used all of our free time to work on the blog. Well, Matt did, and I took a birthday nap. 🙂

We had dinner at a nice restaurant which, as also customary, lacked in the service department and did not impress much with its cuisine. I tried one of the local soups, chicha (or something like that), a beef stew with vegetables, and king fish, both were very mediocre. Oh well, we’ll have to save space in our stomachs until Chile and Argentina.

Overall, we were a bit disappointed with Puno and Lake Titicaca. We were expecting a stunningly beautiful lake, like Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, but Puno was a dull and unattractive town, and the lake for the most part looked like any other piece of water we have seen before.

Sunday, February 15

It was an early morning for me, getting up early to catch up on some emails before we headed out. We’d been in this hotel for a few days now, and the unpacking was nearly total. It took some time to reconfigure the scattered debris into our standard packed bags.

We cleaned and lubed the chains on the bikes before breakfast. While we were working, we finally met the owners of two BMWs that had appeared in the courtyard while we were in Machu Picchu. They were a couple from Belgium who had started in Buenos Aires and were working their way towards their end point in Colombia. They had been riding for 4 months already, but had lost some time due to a broken collarbone in Patagonia. We traded advice and stories and they seemed like a very nice couple.

Once we were finally packed and finished with our meager hotel breakfast, we were on the road south. It was surprisingly easy to get out of town. We soon found ourselves on the Peruvian altiplano. The sky was an overcast gray, but there were no signs of rain.

The altiplano ranged between 12 and 13,000 ft, with wide open plains and farmland, bordered and interspersed with mountains and low hills. Occasionally we caught site of a snow capped peak in the distance. The farmland we rode through consisted mostly of cattle ranching, with only the occasional herd llamas.

We stopped for a quick snack of a lunch in a small town with a forgettable name. We were quick because we’d had such a late start and were soon back on the road. We rode through a few sections of road bordered with beautiful prairies filled with yellow flowers.

For a ride with so many stretches of straight road, it was a surprisingly pleasant day’s ride. The KLRs cruise along comfortably in the thin altiplano air. The scenery changed often enough and the road had enough curves to keep it from becoming monotonous. Combined with the quality of the pavement, this made for a very easy and relaxing day’s ride.

We pulled into Puno around 5:30 and checked a few hotels. We settled on Hostel Helena and they arranged parking for us next door. The hostel was very nice and the top floor’s cafeteria had amazing views of the lake. It’s not a very charming town and feels too dense for its size. We went out for a nice dinner and tried to plan our lake excursion for the next day.

Saturday, February 14

We decided to skip the scarce breakfast at the hotel and go to Jack’s Cafe Bar for a Valentine Day’s brunch. This was our second time at the place and the food was once again outstanding.

After breakfast we did some more shopping at the weekend market and the main plaza stores, and wondered around town.

Cusco is a former Inca capital and despite great efforts by the Spaniards to wipe out all signs of the Inca civilization, the impressive stone foundations laid by the Incas are still visible throughout the city. The stones were just too large and too perfectly alined for the Spaniards to be able to move them.

We couldn’t get a hold of the mechanic that was recommended to us, so I will have to deal with my steering problem until probably Santiago. We did however go to the moto stores district and purchased five quarts of oil for our ever thirsty KLR’s. Even if my oil leak is fixed my bike still eats a lot of oil on straight roads and since we will be venturing into Bolivia shortly, we need to have as much oil with us as possible knowing that it will be impossible to get there.

We then visited the Inca Museum. The overall exhibition was not that exciting, but the museum had the largest collection of Inca wooden goblets in the world and a fascinating showcase of the Inca burial tradition. All Inca mummies were found well-preserved and buried in a fetal position surrounded by artifacts like textiles, pottery, jewelry and coca leaves.

After the museum we went back to the hotel, gathered all of our purchases and shipped them off via Peru Mail to the US. For dinner we went to the Papa Picchu restaurant, which served traditional cuisine with an international flair. While we were having our meal outside in the restaurant courtyard, we felt a short but shaky earthquake. Thankfully, there were no aftershocks, so we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner and pisco coctails.

In as much as we wanted to watch the last episode of Dexter after dinner, we had to spend most of the evening working on the blog and emails while we had wi-fi at the hotel.