9-2
Sucre to Uyuni by bus – 372 km.
Bike to the bus terminal for the 8:30 bus. What will they do with Bici? Judee discussed it with the young ticket agents but they don’t really understand. So we take the loaded bike to the ticket counter. Their eyes get big. “Grande” they say! Bici and our packs found their way to the top of the bus and were covered with a tarp and strapped down.
The road to Uyuni is dirt: corrugated washboard, sand and deep dust. The bus was packed, not a seat to be had after we left Sucre, so new boarders got to stand in the aisle. From Potosi on, a young native mother with a 4 month old sat in the aisle next to us. That baby drew lots of attention with her smile.
The road took us up through the high plateau, cactus, scrub bushes and grass, frozen streams and puddles in this very dry desert environment in the high Andes; through herds of sheep, vicuña, alpaca with very few pueblos. We are very glad we are in the bus and not on Bici!
We arrived in Uyuni around 6:30 pm and in the dark and rode off to find lodgings. Luckily a nice room for $30 US in the Toñito Hotel welcomed us and in the rear of the hotel the Minuteman Pizza Parlor was jammed with all nationalities of gringos. Warm and cozy, we ordered and ate a very large pizza with the works, homemade cookies and a liter of beer. We had very little breakfast, no lunch, only snacks on the 10-hour bus ride, so we were in heaven with dinner. We read for a half hour, bundled under three blankets and lights off at 9pm.
Morning is bright and cold, sweater and jacket weather as we wander Uyuni’s dirt street. Bicycles and street markets in the middle of nowhere, 360 degrees of high desert with mountain peaks on the horizon. This looks like “forty mule team” country - flat! We went to the train station to purchase our tickets south to Argentina (9-10 hour trip), leaving at 2:50am on Wednesday. And we bought our tickets for the Salar de Uyuni tour – two nights and three-day jeep tour from Oasis Tours. We hope these guys will take care of us. There are lots of stories of jeep breakdowns and poor support floating all around Uyuni. Tomorrow morning we pack our gear on top a Toyota land cruiser and join four other travelers, a driver and a cook to explore the salt flats, green and red lakes, volcanoes and pink flamingos.
Tonight, our hotel restaurant was closed. Chris, the great pizza chef took a day off, but his wife and our hotel proprietress, Sussy, did not want us stranded without great food, so they fed us and another couple a lovely dinner of salad and lasagna. All we paid for was the wine! We exchanged travel stories and learned from Doug and Edith so much about places we hope to visit.
9-6
If you ever find yourself in southwest Bolivia, in the outback around Uyuni, do not pass up the opportunity of taking a Toyota Land Cruiser tour – either a three or four day tour will do. In Uyuni there are upwards of 30 tour operators, some so poor you need to watch out. We used Oasis Odyssey Tours with Dominguez as driver. They were very good. Another agency is Toñita Tours out of the hotel of the same name. Friends used them and they were good also. We took the three-day for $70 p/p.
At about 11am, the jeep is loaded with everyone’s gear and we head out to the Salar de Uyuni (the salt flats). Along with the other 20+ jeeps, we were out there alone! The stop at Fish Island, a large island outcropping covered with huge cactus, some over 1200 years old. This island was actually a coral reef, and all of this 12,000 square kilometer area was an ocean bottom. When you walk out on the blindingly bright salt, the shimmering horizon is dotted with snow covered mountain peaks in all directions. You feel like a dot on the surface of a billiard ball.
1, 2 & 3 Fish Island Scenes
4. Salt tracks
5. Crystalized salt
6. Burial ground
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We leave the island following a slight marked track across the crystal-patterned salt heading toward shore, passing bays where ancient waves broke leaving their marks. The next stop was Devil’s Cave, another coral reef frozen in time with no water over it any longer. One could imagine snorkeling through the coral “trees” that stand about 2-3 meters high. This was a magical spot where the Galaxy Caves is also located. The main cave found in 2003 was a burial ground for ancient nobility, but holds another secret: a cave behind the main cave that contains lacy, algae-looking, box-work-like fossilized formations unlike anything discovered world-wide! As we moved from scenic place to place the scenery was otherworldly: snow spotted, mineral created, rainbow colored mountains, vast empty landscapes, rock-strewn moonscapes. Amazing how large an area, feels at once so empty and yet so riveting and fulfilling.
Our first night’s stay was in a small pueblo, San Pedro. After a filling meal we were entertained by a talented piper (who also had assembled a small museum) a drummer (probably his daughter) and an assortment of children. The music was native, the dancing was native, and we all became natives for a least an hour or two of dancing and laughter.
The next morning we arose to a lovely breakfast, climbed back into the jeep. The first sight was the stone army, rock formations created by wind and water erosion. Then onto the multi-colored lagoons where we observed three species of flamingos: white and black, white and reddish with black wing markings, one variety with yellow beaks. These huge flocks whistled while they ate, heads bobbing in unison – up, down, up, down. The last lagoon of the day was a red lagoon due to the algae bloom, dotted with flocks of flamingos dancing in the setting sun. As the sun disappeared and the cold set in, we dashed for our dormitory accommodations: six to a room, no heat and lots of wind. The electric generator for the light bulb went off at 9pm and we are in our rented sleeping bags, covered with blankets, snoring by 9:15!
7. Pueblo San Pedro
8. Piper and Children
9. Rock formations
10. Flamingos in the Red lagoon
11. Geysers in the morning
12. steam baths
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Day 3: A loud knock on the door: everyone up at 5am and off by 5:30! COLD – in the teens - no light; this crowd is almost awake. We headed for the geysers to see them at sunrise; hot, steamy, bubbly mud. It seemed only appropriate after mud and a couple days without showers to arrive at Agua Calientes: steamy, sulfur baths. In Judee climbed to get a nice, hot soak before breakfast! Eggs, coffee, juice and flamingos – what more could you ask? Then a very bumpy, bone jarring road through high mountain passes. Powdered sugar dotted peaks, volcanoes dyed with yellow, red, orange and green pass before our eyes and down to the turquoise and green lagoons with volcanoes reflected across its ever changing surface. We heard that three scuba divers died recently due to the lagoons' poisons.
Next, rock valley with silhouettes of all kinds: animals, people, cartoons – very much like cloud observations. Down the washboard gravel and dusty road through small communities, some mining towns and back to Uyuni at 6:30 pm as the sun sets across the vast plateau.
9-7
We returned at 7:30pm Wednesday, wolfed down pizza and beer and settled ourselves into the Departure Lounge waiting for the 2:50am train. No shower. No sleep, as we rode Bici in the dark bitter cold a few blocks to board the train to Villazon, Bolivia. We reflect upon the past three days adventures glad to have experienced and seen so much. The 600 miles would have been impossible for us on the bike. We met an English couple in a small village near the end of our jeep tour who had pushed their bikes over 50% of the distance across the sand and bad roads of the Uyuni high mountain passes – some over 5000m. They had trouble finding food and water and had been camping in weather dropping to the low teens. They were trying to find someone to change $5 US to Bolivianos since they didn’t like to change more than that at a time.
These are mud villages, subsisting on Alpaca and burning brush to cook. And the villages were 100’s of kilometers apart. Not our cup of tea for riding! This British couple was sturdy stock!
The train loads on time and takes off as we squirm in our seats, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep. Not a lot of luck – but we did manage to sleep a little before our 1pm arrival time. The scenery passed by the window; so similar to the altiplano scenery we have been riding for the past several weeks.
After unloading Bici, we rode to the immigration office to leave Bolivia and the paperwork was handled in a quick, efficient manner. We rode across the bridge to enter Argentina and saw masses of people waiting!
We were told to enter a line, the wait only to be 2 to 4 days for a visa! Art pointed to another line of gringos, all handing their passports to a guard who slipped inside the building and returned with stamped passports for 90-day entry. Couldn’t have been easier!
We found the hostel our guidebook recommended and was told that they would only accept Argentine Pesos, not Bolivianos, only changeable on the Bolivian side of the border! So, back we walked past all the guards changed our Bolivianos into Argentine pesos and began to learn another new currency. We’re in business and hoping for warmer weather!
9-9
Our first day riding in Argentina demonstrate differences immediately: the altiplano: still high (3500+m) had none of the spiky grass we had seen in Bolivia and Peru. The vegetation displayed many varieties of plants, hopefully edible unlike that spiky grass! Everything is fenced in Argentina with barbed wire. Things seemed much more prosperous, especially when we stopped at a gas station to ask for a restaurant and found they had one. The owners were very accommodating (unlike the surly Bolivianos) and served us steak! YES! Real, thick, juicy Argentine beef. Ever since Mexico, except for very few exceptions, beef meant a thin, chewy piece of meat meant for shoe soles, not eating. Culinary choices are looking up.
We rode out of our dinner stop, hoping to ride until about 6pm, since the time changed when we entered Argentina and it stays light until about 7pm. But, the wind we had been riding into all day, gusted up and we were barely peddling at 10km p/h. A cloud front was rolling in and we were getting cold. We spotted a place close to the highway, pitched our tent and climbed in for a game of cards.
The next morning we prepared breakfast and got on the road at 9:30. UP we rode for most of the morning, passing an altitude sign of 3780m as the highest spot in the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a beautiful gorge with some interesting geologic formations. As we have traveled through these rustic landscapes, I have wished for Sue [Richards], Akron Bicycle Club’s own geologist, to describe in her sparkly, animated way, just what we are seeing – how these formations were created.
After the sign, we began to descend. We were stopped at a passport check station and were directed to a restaurant for more breakfast: steak and eggs. This country is wonderful after all the rice and potatoes of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia! We rolled easily into the town to Humahuaca to discover a delightful, cobble stoned, Spanish, colonial pueblo. After we settled into a hotel and showered and laundered, we walked around to see the sights.
Argentina is a wealthy country with a strong middle class. So, we saw kids on motorcycles and in fancy cars racing about. Loud music played from big modern stereo systems. Children rode good bicycles, ate ice cream and chatted in the park – not in sandals with bare, dirty, cracked feet like in Bolivia. There are trash barrels and the citizens use them. Even the roadsides are fairly clean! We were sorry to see some things, like the loud music and smoking cigarettes that come with the wealth of a country. But, unlike Bolivia, so poverty-stricken and some citizens of Peru – the middle class here travel to see the sights in their country, displaying potbellies in both men and women, much like in America. Prices are higher, unlike bargain basement prices in Bolivia. Hopefully, we will get a little more for our money, like hot showers and more nutritious foods. There is heat in restaurants and hostels, a rarity in Ecuador, Bolivia or Peru!
9-10
Another day of downhill. Beautiful, colored mountains with extraordinary formations. Trees and greenery began to appear in this glorious canyon/gorge. This is another UNESCO site – the Quebrada de Humahuaca. Our fiend, Betsy Jones, gave us a list of UNESCO sites a year or so ago. On this trip we just keep riding through one UNESCO site after another.
Tilcara
4. Horse in campground
5. Pre-Incan ruins
6. View from ruins |
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The day was blissful. We even rode in our shorts and short-sleeved shirts in the warm sunshine. Our day ended in Tilcara, a delightful little pueblo with superb tourist accommodations. After the devaluation of the peso about 4 years ago, the Argentine economy was sorely damaged, but it is coming back; many Argentineans are traveling. Tilcara had lovely shops, beautiful new hotels and yummy restaurants. We had a lunch salad of arugula lettuce and spinach with great spices and veggies topped with virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Second course was vegetarian lasagna with eggplant, squash and wonderful cheeses. This is like fusion cooking. We walked up to see some pre-Incan ruins, a city built out of rock with views up four canyons. On the way back to town we passed many lovely villas and second homes belonging to the Argentineans. I would come back here in a flash. We slept in a campground that had hot showers and shade trees plus tables.
Today we face an 80km downhill, wind at our back, more beautiful scenery. After 50+km we began to hear a clunk in the rear wheel. The new rim, rebuilt in Cusco, is splitting. A LOT! We stop riding and hold out our thumb. We wait about 1-½ hours for a kind man with a big truck to load us up and take us the 25-30km into JuJuy.
Now that the tire is totally flat also, we walk the bike blocks and blocks to a hotel listed in our Rough Guide. For the huge sum of about $27 US we have hot water, fan, heat, TV, plus we can drink the tap water. After we have settled in, we caught a cab to a bike shop. The mechanic is rebuilding our rear hub on the front rim and building a new wheel for the front hub (40 hole) on a 36-hole rim. This is only a quick fix – probably won’t get us through Argentina. We have written Velocity and several other tandem manufacturers for recommendations on new rims. There has to be a rim strong enough to carry us through a few more countries. This last rim didn’t last 850 miles. And we didn’t ride any dirt roads with this wheel. Are we going to have to pull a bob trailer?
9-12
Argentina has different timing: breakfast is coffee and bread at 9ish; lunch can be a full meal or sandwiches between 1-3pm. Everything closes about 3-5 and doesn’t reopen until about 8:30, dinner spots as late as 9pm. This is tough for us, who wake before 7ish and want to eat a big breakfast; then have large lunches of sandwiches, fruit, etc.; dine in the evening on as much food as available about 5-6pm. But here in Argentina, dinner is around 8:30-9. We are falling asleep in our soup.
