Puerto Chuvica to La Paz - The Salar de Uyuni and the non-touristic southern part of Bolivia

Together with all the others we got up really early and had a pretty poor breakfast before all the others left in the Jeeps for the Salar, while Stefan and I climbed a close rock to enjoy the sunrise from there.

Sunrise at Puerto Chuvica

Puerto Chuvica

Once the sun started to warm up the air, we also left Puerto Chuvica and soon we found ourselves on this huge salt lake where we were really happy to have a GPS, as our goal, the cactus island “Isla Incahuasi”, stayed out of sight for quite a while and in the beginning we didn’t follow the main Jeep tracks, so we had to trust modern satellite technology…

Which way should we go???

There it is: Isla Incahuasi in the far distance...

To ride over such a huge area of salt is pretty impressive!

The gorgeous pattern of the Salar...

Soon we reached Isla Incahuasi, where wee first eat a tasty quinoa soup and then enjoyed the sun and the view for a while before setting up our night camp.

Isla Incahuasi

Then we hiked up to the highest point of the island in order to observe the sunset and moonrise. We were unbelievably lucky, as it was full moon and the moonrise coincided exactly with the sunset in just opposite directions on the sky. To observe the moon so big and bright at dusk from this cactus island was definitely a highlight for me!!

There we are: On top of Isla Incahuasi

The rising moon at sunset - just amazing!

And the cacti make it even better...

Just gorgeous!!

Back down we cooked in the dark and then prepared for another night under the free sky… In the morning we got up in the dark and hiked up to the top of the island again, as we wanted to see the sunrise as well. It was definitely worth it to get up early, as now the sunrise coincided with the moonset, which again was just amazing!!

Getting up early to witness the sunrise was definitely worth it!!

Back down the first inhabitant of the island came to talk to us for a while and gave us some “Flor de Amor” to make “mate” (herbal tea) for breakfast. Soon we were on our bikes again cycling across the endless seeming salt lake. Eventually we stopped for a photo session in order to take the obligatory fun pictures…

Some fun pictures were just mandatory...

I'd say we have a pretty good balance, don't you think so???

After a while we got to a Jeep where the guide and all tourists were sitting on the floor, so I stopped to ask what they were doing and the guide told me that they were looking for salt crystals on the lower side of the salt crust and as he found a really big and nice one he gave it to me as a present! :-) After a short lunch break we could soon guess where we’d leave the Salar and after another while we made it to Colchani, a little town at the shore of the Salar, where we stayed at a very basic hostal where they only had fluent water during a few hours per day…

Salt cones close to the shore of the Salar

The night was freezing cold and the blankets in the hostel not too warm, I should have used my sleeping bag instead! When I got up I figured that at night a dog broke into the common area of the hostal and stole our sandwiches from the table! So we’ll have to get something else for lunch today… After breakfast we cleaned all the salt off our bikes before we headed north again. I’m surely not exaggerating if I’m saying that the road was in a pretty bad condition.

Riding on the Salar was definitely a lot more comfortable...

But we got lucky: Soon we crossed a new road that was still in construction and officially closed, but it’s condition was so much better than the one of the old road, that we immediately decided to ride that road instead, even if we had to push our biked across some earth wells preventing cars from using the new road from time to time… However, from time to time we either ended up pushing our bikes through mud on the new road or had to turn around as there simply was a huge gap in the road.

Looks like part of the street is still missing...

Eventually the new road ended and we permanently had to use the old, bad, sandy road again… We fought our way along this road for another while before we set up our tent next to the road.

Sandy roads are horrible - paired with an uphill it's even worse!

It seemed to have been another cold night, as when we woke up in the morning, we had lots of frost in our tent...

Looks like it was a cold night...

Luckily the warming sun was soon shining strongly, drying our tent and sleeping bags. As everything was dry again, we continued our way, the road was terrible, actually this should not even be called road, it was more a mixture of beach volley field and corrugated metal. Soon a train appeared in the middle of this vast emptiness, it was terribly slow but really interesting to observe!

A train in the middle of nothing...! :-)

Then we came across the rescuing new road again, so we made it to Río Mulatos pretty soon. However, a few km after this little town the new road disappeared again and we had to fight our way through the sand again…

Sandy, bumpy roads - I love it...

Eventually we came to a bridge over a real river; the sound of the water was like music in my ears, it was so nice to see freshwater again after weeks in the desert where every bit of water was salt water!!

Finally, a river!!! :-)

After another while we got to Sevarujo, however, to enter the village we first had to cross a pretty big river in an adventurous manner, as there was no bridge but just the train rails, so we balanced our bikes across the rails. :-)

An interesting river crossing... Bridges seem to be a scarce good...

The next day there was no new road to use anymore, so we fought our way through the sand again, until in the far I could spot cars without a huge cloud of dust around them, which meant that the asphalt wasn’t too far away anymore! Once we reached the asphalt, we got to Huari pretty soon, a real village with a plaza, market, and even a brewery ;-). As soon as we got to the center of this village, a very nice women led us to a restaurant for lunch and even brought us some fresh apples of her garden, that tasted way better than the once we bought the day before in Río Mulatos. From Huari it was then a lot less far to Challapata than indicated on our map, so we had some time to walk around the village, eat ice-cream on the plaza, to take a long desired shower and then we both ate 2 menus for dinner… By now we were already used to the fact that the water pipes were always frozen during the colder hours of the days, so I was really surprised when there was water when I got up the next morning. Soon we got to Pazña, a small village with some hot springs, which were really interesting: We got a really small pool for ourselves, but the water was very nice and hot and it was just amazing to once relax for a while! Afterwards we continued our way toward Oruro, passing many small villages and slowly the landscape seemed to be a little less dry, as there were cows all over… When we reached Poopó in the afternoon, we took a room in the only hotel of the town that had 7 beds but no working shower; however, the hotel also had a swimming pool filled with water coming from some nearby hot springs; so we took a thermal bath for the second time that day…

Oh yeah; accidents happen from time to time...
Luckily we're travelling by bike - makes it easier to get through...

The next day we got to Oruro, the first city we passed in Bolivia! However, tourists usually don’t seem to stop in this city, as it was pretty difficult to get our laundry done and Wi-Fi also doesn’t seem to be asked for here… Nevertheless, we stayed a day more in this city, went for breakfast at the Mercado Campero where we got traditional api (a hot drink made of corn) and a lot more. Obviously Stefan wanted to climb the closest hill again, so we climbed an uncountable number of stairs to get to the monument of the holy virgin of the city. However, my body still had some troubles with the altitude, so that I had to take a rest every once in a while… From the top we had a gorgeous view over the city and just spent some hours lying in the sun reading. For dinner we returned to the Mercado, it’s always really cheap there and you get local food… When we left Oruro, we advanced pretty fast until noon. After lunch, however, it got more and more exhausting: The road got pretty hilly (although altiplano would suggest it to be flat…), there were lots of construction sites we had to bypass on ripio, and the headwind grew steadily stronger… Once we reached Panduro, we asked for a hospedaje, but we were told that we should continue to the next village, that it was at most 10 km away and all downhill. The distance was surprisingly exact, it was also mostly downhill and as we were told we found several hospedajes there. Still we were unlucky, as all the hospedajes we could found were either closed, full, or the owner wasn’t there. By that time I was already terribly tired, but well, we still decided to continue to Lahuachaca, as we knew from other cyclists that there is a hospedaje there. But it was a lot farther to get there than we thought and the hospedaje we finally found there was cheap, but also more than just basic: no water, a half-working toilet outdoors, and the beds were simply straw mats on some wooden planks… Accordingly, we didn’t pass the most comfortable night. The next morning, Stefan felt sick; however, we didn’t want to stay in that little town, so we still packed our stuff and continued to the next bigger town, Patacamaya. There we found a better place to stay and while Stefan spent most of the day sleeping, I went to explore the town a bit and had lunch with a local farmers’ couple that was just on their way to buy cattle. It’s always really interesting to hear how the people here live and what their concerns are all about! The next day Stefan still felt sick, but he decided that he felt good enough to go on at least a bit. The road was pretty hilly and we got over 4000 masl again. In the early afternoon we reached Calamarca, but against what our bike book said, there was no hostel there. However, as Stefan still didn’t feel well, we did not want to continue any further, and after convincing the local priest that we’d leave early the next morning, he let us stay at his place! :-) The next morning it was still pretty cold when we left, but soon the sun started to warm us and as we were getting closer to La Paz, the scenery got better and better: The snowed peaks of the Cordillera Real suddenly appeared in the distance… And then, after rolling over a small hill, we were immediately surrounded but thousands of houses; welcome to El Alto…

Our first view of El Alto

It still took us a felt eternity to get to the other end of El Alto and the beginning of the “highway” leading down to La Paz, but when we got there, the view over La Paz was unforgettable!

La Paz! :-)

After a long downhill into the city, we soon found Christians Casa de Ciclista, were we met two other cyclists who joined us for a huge Pizza in the evening…

San Pedro de Atacama to Puerto Chuvica - Banning our bike onto the roof of a 4x4

The 10^th of June it was time to say goodbye to Chile as we’d definitely leave for Bolivia. As agreed on, at half past seven a van came to pick us up at the hostel. However, the driver knew nothing about our bikes, so after some phone calls a pickup was organized that would take the bikes to the border… After a pretty good breakfast and all the paperwork at the Chilean border we were driven to the border, where we accommodated our entire luggage as well as our bikes on top of a Jeep.

Loading our bikes onto the Jeep...

Our Jeep taking us through the desert

After a short drive we reached Laguna Blanca, where we took a short walk on the ice before we continued to Laguna Verde.

Frozen Laguna Blanca

Laguna Verde

Our Jeep group: Two Chileans, a South Korean, Stefan and I

A few km further, we passed all the cyclists we knew from the hostel in San Pedro and who decided to cycle to the Salar (however, seeing them assured me that it wouldn’t have been a good idea…). Soon we reached some hot springs which we enjoyed for quite a while: It was just great to sit in a pool with water heated to 38° C by nature if it’s freezing cold outside! After that we continued to the geyser field Sol de mañana, which to me looked a bit like a destroyed industry neighborhood…

Blubbering mud at the geysers

Yeah, from time to time it even spits mud...

And lots and lots of vapor...

From there it wasn’t far (at least in a Jeep) to the Laguna Colorada anymore, a red colored lagoon where we watched the sunset and observed lamas and flamingos.

Wildlife at Laguna Colorada

Laguna Colorada

Looks like we trained them... ;-)

Back at the refugio we got some hot tea and later on we were served Spaghetti, and as some of our group got acute mountain sickness, there was even too much food for Stefan… ;-) The night was a lot warmer (okay, less cold would probably be more appropriate) than expected and in the morning our whole group was ready at the time agreed on, but our driver wasn’t anywhere around… It turned out that he simply slept in, and after waking him up he was ready pretty soon. Our first stop that day was the Arbol de la Piedra, a rock in the middle of the Siloli desert that has an astonishing similarity to a tree.

Arbol de Piedra in the Siloli desert

I had to play a bit... :-)

When we then crossed the Siloli desert, I was more than glad that I was in a Jeep and not on my bike, as I would definitely not have enjoyed it!

Siloli desert - No streets, no water, no nothing...

When we then drove through a narrow valley, we could observe several Vizcachas, some kind of mixture between a rabbit and a kangaroo.

A vizcacha!! :-)

Passing some more lagoons, we made our way to Villa Alota for lunch and then drove through many tiny Bolivian mountain villages until we got to Puerto Chuvica short before sunset.

And another lagoon...

There we stayed at a salt hotel where we even got a hot shower and a pretty good dinner.

The salt hotel we stayed at in Puerto Chuvica

San Pedro de Atacama - Recovering and exploring its surroundings

After our first night back in civilization, we first enjoyed a huge breakfast, before we took a bus to Calama, the next bigger city, in order to get some stuff done that we needed a city for… On the way back to the bus terminal, someone tried to steal Flo’s (one of the French guys) backpack, so we spent the rest of the evening at the Police station, which in fact was quite funny (at least for me, as I was the only one who really spoke Spanish…), as the police officers seemed to be more interested in the soccer game than in working and that didn’t even care that I constantly made fun of them... However, eventually I had to tell these police officers that they definitely should hurry up a bit, as we had to catch the last bus back to San Pedro… The next day we didn’t do a lot, I was still physically and mentally completely wasted from the last few days and after long discussions we decided to find a way to get to Bolivia without cycling, as I was just not up for another week fighting against the wind… The next afternoon we and most other cyclists staying at the hostel (we were almost 10!) wanted to cycle to the Valle de la Luna (moon valley) to watch the sunset. However, already at the first crossing we did not agree on what direction we should go, and obviously we didn’t end up in the Valle de la Luna, but at a nice viewpoint over the Cordillera de la Sal, a mountain ridge covered by a layer of salt, so it looked like snowed mountains in the middle of the desert…

Cordillera de la sal

It really looks like these mountains were covered by snow...

However, we were not alone up there, hundreds of tourists joined to witness a beautiful sunset with amazingly colored clouds.

Beautiful sunset!

I could look at this sky forever!! :-)

After everyone left, Stefan and I set up our sleeping bags below the sky and hoped that the clouds would vanish eventually to let us enjoy the stars… It became a cold but great night: The first time I woke up, there were no clouds anymore, but a huge moon shining brightly. The second time I woke up, the moon was gone behind the mountains and the starts were incredibly impressive!! I just stared up at the sky enjoying its beauty and thereby I was able to observe several shooting stars, it was just amazing!! :-) In the morning we observed the sunrise from our sleeping bags, went back to sleep until the sun warmed our bags and then we cycled towards the Valle de la Luna. The Caves in the moon valley were extremely impressive; it was so easy to imagine how a long time ago vivid water made this stony formations look so surreal!

Interesting stone formations next to the caves in the Valle de la Luna

Also the Major Sand Dune was really great to see, the view from the top was just amazing.

Stefan on top of the Duna Mayor - He's soooo tiny :-)

Surreal formations of stone and sand...

But soon the wind was growing so strong that we found ourselves in the middle of a sandstorm, so we decided to head back to San Pedro. In the afternoon we surprisingly met Beat and Luzia in town, the two Swiss cyclists we travelled with on the southern Carretera Austral, so we had to drink something with them as there was a lot to tell each other! The next day we didn’t do anything fancy, just got lots of stuff done in the village. The following morning we got up pretty early in order to make a day trip to Laguna Cejar together with Guilherme, the Warmshowers guy in town, and his dog Sariri. As soon as we left San Pedro we found ourselves in the middle of the desert; and once again I figured that the desert is not my thing… However, when we got there I was completely fascinated: Several lagoons in the middle of the desert, some almost a perfect mirror and others very deep, reflecting the sunlight in all kinds of colors and so clear, that one could see every single stone on the ground…

I still think Laguna Cejar is a magical place...

The almost perfect mirror of Laguna Cejar

Just amazing this place!!!

After the mandatory photo session, Guilherme and Stefan both went floating in the salty lagoons; for me, however, it was too cold. In the afternoon we just enjoyed the sun for a while, before Stefan and I continued to the Ojos del Salar, two almost perfectly round holes in the desert filled with freshwater!

Ojos del Salar - Freshwater in the middle of the desert...

Back at the lagoons, I was able to observe two flamingos before we started our way back to San Pedro. It took us quite a while to get back, as Sariri’s paws seemed to be hurt and he didn’t want to run anymore… As we’d leave San Pedro the next day, we went for a beer with Guilherme in the evening to say good-bye and then fell to bed really tiredly.