Salar de Uyuni

This place was one of the reasons I wanted to come to South America. Emily wasn't sure why a 12000 square kilometre, dead-flat world of salt should hold such attraction, and I couldn't explain it either, but it did. When we got there, we found out. On our first night in Uyuni, we went to the edge of the salt, near the town of Colchani.

We had heard (and seen) the salt flats were at least partly covered with (salt) water, so we were not keen to take our precious and trustworthy bike out there without knowing how much water, and how deep. To check out the conditions, and also for the experience of a guided tour with other tourists, we took a one-day tour onto the Salar. Ordinary tour, though the place itself is a total blowout and the mob we were with were good value. We took advantage of the total flatness to do some photographic shenanigans together.

The tour got us back to town in the early evening, but we had decided that a night out on the flats themselves was not to be missed. In a massive hurry to catch the last light, we packed our steed and headed out, excited like kids about spending the night in another world. Made time to buy food supplies and some boxed wine, though this latter tasted rather odd come dinner time.

The trip out to the Salar, started in the dark, was short but about the most manic and beautiful of any in this epic year of motorcycle travel. At least llamas have decent road sense; more of a concern were the cars and trucks without lights, the choking dust, and the (by now normal) horrendous corrugations, bulldust and sand drifts. The shortcut around the somewhat hostile little town at the edge of the salar was exciting - across railway tracks, then fields, then salt, following telephone poles or just aiming for the lights of the buildings at the very edge of the salt.

Crossing the waterlogged part of the salt was a nervous challenge - dropping the bike into a puddle of salt water at night was to be avoided. Emily walked ahead into the darkness, avoiding the deep pools to choose a path for me to pick along with the bike. She got us there, through about 300m of very dodgy terrain, without wetting a tyre!

Cruising across this white, featureless plain at night on a motorcycle is recommended adventuring! Wow! I just rode, keeping an eye out for depressions, holes or soft patches in the salt, while Emily navigated by the stars. With landmarks totally absent, we headed slight left of the sword of Orion until the hunter was obliterated by cloud, then just kept the beautiful Southern Cross at our left shoulders. The dark, cold air of high altitude touched our faces, chilled our hands and thrilled our souls. The hard salt crunched beneath our wheels, and we rode on, on towards the edge of the world. Stars shone above, salt below, and we flew on.

Thirty or so kilometres, we don't really know how far. As on most days we ride, we just rode until we felt like camping up. We stopped, first running around like kids, exhilarated by the stars, the white salt, the feel of it beneath our feet, our distance from the rest of the world. Then we bathed in what felt like utter silence until the chill of the night and the ride reminded us to get cracking with tent and dinner.

We got a bit of a start when we heard odd noises, just after dinner and the odd wine, but sitting in silence for a few minutes convinced us that what we could hear were birds. Both their voices and the flapping of their wings.

The morning gave us the salt flat, its enormity and beauty...

and another reminder of our own teency, tiny scale!

And though in some respects it lacked the excitement of the night before, the ride off the Salar de Uyuni was pretty good too!

Villazon to Uyuni

On our map this just looks like the shortest way from the Argentine border to Uyuni, but it is a great road for an adventure.

It's dirt all the way, goes over 4000m and stays up there, gives every surface from good gravel to clay, bulldust, some deep sand (and plenty of other sand) river crossings, llamas, mining traffic, a welcoming town (Atocha) at the 200km mark, and best of all, about 15 or 20km of sandy riverbed, with flowing water (actually much more than the photo shows - we were on the deep part at night!) First you go downstream, then upstream! Mad scenery all the way. This was to have been just a transport section on our trip, excited as we were to get to the Salar de Uyuni, but we had lots of fun!

At Atocha, we were up early and saw the town wake, then breakfasted on the street, as you do, squeezing into a little stall that served coffee and sweet bread. A couple of police checks later (just paperwork, but we will have to get used to these, methinks), and we were on the road for another 100km of adventure-riding. Sand dunes, high-plains villages, then endless and gnarly corrugations. Let's not forget that the shock absorber is living on borrowed time...

Welcome to Bolivia. Chau Argentina.

Having decided to chance it on our leaky shock (and with the wooden block trick up our sleeves), we went up, up and out, across the high plains of northern Argentina. A sign at the border town reminded us of how much of Argentina we had come to know.

We crossed the border between La Quiaca, Argentina and Villazon, Bolivia, at about sunset time. The Bolivian customs official smiled broadly, addressed us by the names he'd read from our passports, and shook our hands as he bid us "bienvenidos a Bolivia!". Seconds after that, the Argentine customs official stomped into the same office and demanded the paperwork for our bike, which I had recently handed to his colleague on the other side of the river separating the two countries. I politely explained to the uppity man that he was wrong. Of course, he contradicted me, so I invited him to check with said colleague. He flapped out of the office, not to return. Chau, Argentina. Don't cry for us.

We sorted some accommodation, hot shower and all, some tucker (chicken and chips - welcome to Bolivia!)

and started to feel as though we were in a different country. Nice one. Argentina was good to us, but never would we have considered spending nearly four months there.

The streets of Villazon are packed with markets - lots of cheap Chinese imports - and made for an interesting introduction to the country when we went downtown in the morning. We also got an idea of the Bolivian work ethic as we watched people carrying truckloads of imports across the bridge from Argentina on their backs.

Despite warnings that the police would object, we managed this very necessary photo in the very first metres of Bolivia! Cheers!

Back to Humahuaca

We have got used to lay-offs lately, so the fourth time the shock absorber gave out we took it pretty easy. What else to do, especially given that it was the day before Good Friday? John and Marcia escorted us back to the funny little town of Abra Pampa, where we knew we could make phoncalls and that kind of thing, then they went on north. We headed south again, back to charming Humahuaca, a colonial town with a strong indigenous flavour, in the high depths of the colourful Quebrada de Humahuaca.

Set up in the campground, it seemed the best we could do was get to know the town and make it our home for the next week or so. I got about researching and eventually ordering a new shock absorber - lots of internetting, emailing and phone calls - while Emily recovered from the sniffly effects of a week in the moist campground at Salta and took the place in.


We got ourselves a local restaurant, and tried a couple of other ones along with all the versions of local beer. We were both glad to be in a place where the Indigenous culture was strong. Finally, we saw menus which differed from the usual argentine selection, offering a range of traditional foods of the region. Llama for the meat-eater, quinoa for the more vegie-oriented (quinoa is a grain which was cultivated and spiritually revered by the Incas and their predecessors in the Andes). We sussed out the museum to learn of the pre-Incan and Incan history of Jujuy in a personalised guided tour.

Bush food in Coctaca

Elvio, our guide at the museum, mentioned pre-Incan ruins a few miles from Humahuaca at an indigenous community called Coctaca, so I went out there earlyish one morning. Feeling a little conspicuous in this tiny outpost town, I parked the big motorbike on the deserted town square and walked around looking for someone to whom I could announce my presence, and whose permission I could ask to visit the ruins. Eventually I was directed to the house of a very small and gentle old woman, who invited me into her courtyard. We had a short conversation about ourselves and the place, then she urged me to stay put as she went to find me some tour guides.

Ariel and Dario, about eight and six, came bolting up the lane. With their grandmother's blessing, the three of us got on the bike and went up to the ruins.

The agricultural terraces themselves are interesting enough, built as a central production facility for quinoa, the sacred grain of the pre-Incans, and for this reason destroyed by the invading Spanish. Ariel gave an explanation of the cultivation and export of grains from here, and also told me that people in the old days only lived this high up in the mountains in the summer. He also told me about local rock art sites, and offered to take me there the next day, as long as I could get him out of school!

What they were most into though was pegging rocks at the cactus fruit, hanging from the plants a couple of metres out of reach. We had a laugh getting some down, then eating the sweet fruit, called pasacama.

I dropped them at their gran's place, promising them copies of the photos I'd taken, then went back to town. Late in the afternoon Em and I both went back to Coctaca, both to deliver the photos and to spend the early evening in the ruins, throwing rocks and eating pasacama.

Municipal camping

It's not always fun and games out here, living the adventure we are living.

This morning we awoke in a dusty, grey campground, surrounded by noisily holidaying Argentines and motorhomes from "Alemania" - "Germany" in Spanish. The dunnies in the campground are both filthy and busted. As I perched on the porcelain, I wondered whether a small investment in the provision of bog paper might result in a reduction in the very, very yucky finger-shaped stains on the toilet wall, and thus pay off for the owners. As i reached into the cistern to operate the flush, I reflected that they don't do much cleaning anyhow.

Heading downtown, I knew that I would find toasted ham and cheese sandwiches and sweet croissants for breakfast. I hoped that the coffee would be half decent and therefore exceed the national standard; thanks to my expectation management skills, I was not disappointed.

In the town square of Humahuaca, a large crowd had gathered to see San Francisco Solano - or at least, a replica of him - appear from behind a bronze gate. He does this at around midday each day, but today's appearance included a bonus. His crucifix, usually used to ward off feelings of self-reliance amongst his followers, got caught in the closing doors. Despite the palpable suspense, we left before it was liberated, confident that a mechanical miracle would soon rectify the situation and leave the paper-mache saint to snooze another day.

We are here because, despite the fact that I was carrying a picture of The Virgin in my jacket pocket, our shock absorber has failed again. Regular readers will readily realise that this makes four times in a few months that this has stifled our lifestyle and disrupted our movements. As my beloved gran would put it, the shocky has gone "fut" again. I used language similar but not identical to this.

We were out in the sticks, at about 4000m above sea level, camping with our new mates John and Marcia in the Laguna de los Pozuelos NP. We had gone there hoping to see big birds, and the preceding night I had been heard to sing, to the tune of the Aeroplane Jelly theme-song that people as young as I seldom know, "I love motorbike camping, motorbike camping for me..."

When rain threatens at the time of day we are looking for a place to camp, we usually look to avoid setting up the tent. It's not that we are wimps, but that a damp tent can be a pain in the bum for many days. This night we had a choice between a semi-constructed national park visitors' centre, and a concrete bridge built over the top of an older floodway. We went for the little-used bridge, on dry and smooth concrete, cooked up John's beef stew recipe, drank some wine (which by the morning, given the altitude, had changed into whine), camped up and loved it.

In the morning there was porridge and tea, a lazy packing-up session as we all anticipated our first days in Bolivia. Then John and I started our bikes and got them back up onto the road. I did my daily tyre-pressure check, and while down there noticed that the shock absorber was again allowing its contents - oil - to leave the premises. Sure enough, the shock absorber was fut.

For those not familiar with the anatomy of motorcycles, the shock absorber is the bit that keeps the rest of the bike and the gear and people from rubbing on the back wheel, which itself is the part that rolls along the ground and up and down bumps. The shock absorber has a hard job to do, especially with us two and our stuff above and very bumpy roads below. But this is the job it is designed to do, and the job we have had it repaired to keep doing. But no, it's gone fut again.


So here we are, somewhat unwillingly in Humahuaca. Thankfully, it's a beautiful place to hang out, with far more to recommend it than a disabled saint and a half-hearted Easter parade. And we did find time for a haircut.

Out of Salta

... not a moment too soon, and for the first time in ages, travelling with biker mates. John and Marcia, also heading to Bolivia on the way to Marcia's home country of British Guyana. Nice to be riding together, they also two-up on a BMW, and again we had the feeling of new liberty after our forced layoff.

Little hills, lakes and a subtropical landscape similar to the north coast of New South Wales had Emily feeling at home. Later, as we climbed through a couple of thousand metres, this gave way to desert country more reminiscent of my former home in Central Australia.

We suggested to John and Marcia a spot of bush camping - it was really the only option for us, having been cooped up so long in Salta's less than salubrious municipal campground. They were up for it, so we stocked up on food and wine. Again choosing a series of more minor roads, we set up camp at the end of a track in our own private valley.

The morning brought a sunrise walk

then lazy visits to languid villages in this harsh and spectacular Jujuy region of Argentina.

Lunch in Humahuaca - later to become Em's and my home town - set us up for the afternoon's ride. Through 3000m, stock up at dusty Abra Pampa on the Puna, or high plains of Jujuy. Aiming for the Laguna de los Pozuelos in the hope of spying pink flamingos, we left the asphalt and went up again, gradually, to over 4000m.

Though all four of us had misgivings about the colour of the sky - more purple than black - we wanted to find a camp on a par with the one of the previous night, so kept on. Sand, river crossings, then slippery clay in bossy little squalls, but just as the ride started to become a bit of a slog, we spotted a rainbow and a sunny patch across the valley. The sunshine came to meet us as we scouted out our camp - for the weather's sake under a bridge on a lonely road, protected and comfortable. It doesn't take much nowadays!

Limping north

Yep, on our wooden leg. We stayed a night at Cafayate, on the tourist trail but it failed to crank us up. I got a carpentry workshop to custom-make some cheap blocks of wood to jam the spring in our expensive Fox Racing Shox. Meanwhile, back at the camp, Em was stuffing the whole thing in our bags, ready for departure.

Not much to say. We limped up the ridiculously spectacular valley from Cafayate to Salta.

At one stage we were overtaken by a mob of blokes from New Zilland, travelling on bikes and in a hurry to stick to their schedule.

They seemed keen to spray us with their story when we stopped for a yarn, then they had to go. A couple of photo stops and a steak sandwich (A only!) later, and we bounced into Salta (whose name means "jump").

We moved into the dodgy-looking municipal campground, and dodged downpours for a week. I pulled the shock out and sent it for repairs, and we hung in town for the week. Not much to report, except that the dog on wheels team caught us up, and late in the week John and Marcia pulled in on another BMW bike. Cups of tea, museums , internet cafes and dark beer filled the week, but despite repeated attempts, the Salta council failed to fill the swimming pool!

Happy to report that all our awaited parcels - finally resupplying our wallets with bank cards, and replacing the last of the gear stolen all that time ago in Chile - arrived at Salta post office while we were there. And we got that shock absorber in again.

Quilmes

With our wood-solid rear end, we had to avoid rough roads, but we couldn't go past the Quilmes ruins.We had wanted to get some idea of pre-conquest civilisations in South America, and the Quilmes people were the first we met.

Sure, we only spent a couple of hours there, poking around the ruins and then asking questions of the traditional owners sitting at the gate. They were picketing a hotel which had been built without consulting them, and to which they would not have consented. They intended that the hotel should remain closed until the results of their court action were known.

We also picked up a pamphlet which explained their situation. I'll give a little summary here, that the story of the Quilmes people become a little better known. To us, as Australians, the story was very familiar - just insert dam, farm, city or whatever in place of hotel.




After resisting first Inca then Spanish invasion for a couple of hundred years, the Quilmes people were deported from their land in the foothills of the Andes in the seventeenth century. Forced to march to Buenos Aires, many died on the way or in the camp in which they were detained. By the early 1800s, the camp was closed and the people was documented as extinct.

Later that century, however, descendents of the deported population made representations to the King of Spain for legal return of their land. his was granted, but the royal decree was not honoured by settler landholders in the Quilmes' lands. The ruins (and the llamas!) were impressive, but so was the apparent determination of the folk to have their land claim honoured.

Reminded us of Australian stories. We told them that, and offered donations and best wishes as we left.

Shock gone fut. third time

If you have been following our travels, you will know that our rear shock absorber has given us plenty of hassle. Here is a picture of me, contemplating the ugly, stupid, terrible, horrible very bad thing, just after if let us down for the third time.

Here's a picture of Emily cutting little tiny logs of wood to push into the spring of the expensive Fox Racing Shox Twin Clicker shock absorber, so that said spring can no longer compress when we go over bumps.

The plan here is to avoid consequential damage to the motorcycle while we ride somewhere other than where we were.I can hardly describe how pissed off I was. How disappointed we were that our plan of heading straight for the earthy, indigenous and beautiful north of Argentina had been foiled. The disgust at the idea of having to send the shock absorber away for an indeterminate period. So we jammed the wooden bits into the spring and limped on.

Hot water

We'll have to jump forward a day or two if this blog is ever going to catch up to our current location. Another couple of longish days and spectacular bush campsites under huge skies, through Villa Union, Chileceto, Londres (London!) and Belen, mostly on the amazingly varied Ruta 40.

More flood-damaged roads, unending floodways, an 11km-long section of remote roadside which resembled a tip, innumerable statutes of The Virgin by the roadsides. Another high pass or two (over 3000m),

more stunning red rock gorge country.


More time in our fabric home, more home-cooked meals on our petrol stove, and we loved every minute of it!

Somewhere out in the bush, between river crossings and at the right time of the evening, a sign points to thermal springs 2km off the road. A deepish river crossing later (and a wet foot), and there we are. A nameless and unattended though well-maintained campground with only a pair of campers (or is that three?), and some locals.

We said g'day all around, had to knock back a swig of moonshine from the lads hanging around the old Ford, and introduced ourselves at Kerry, Jochen and Tarmo's camp before setting up ourselves. Far from even the average long-distance bicycle travellers, these three are out on their own, ahead of the pack. Tarmo, you see, is a charming Labrador/Husky cross. On tour, he runs about 30km a day, and retires into his kennel / trailer any time he feels like it, letting Jochen do the legwork. These guys have travelled across Europe and many thousands of kilometres in the vastness of South America together. Check out www.dogonwheels.de.tl - in English too.

Nice, a camp without tent (threatening skies again), under a decent roof. Then a hot shower - as the sign promised, an endless supply of volcanically-heated water was spouting from pipes in the walls of the very clean bathrooms.

It quite did the trick - we had been on the road a good few days without seeing a tap at all, let alone one with hot water in it. Long, long showers both evening and morning were the go. No water restrictions here, no gas bill or carbon signature either.Finally out of the shower (and dressed!), we asked the three Germans over for coffee. Several cups and travel stories later, we all got on the road under a wetting drizzle.

Valle de la Luna

From our camp Near Las Flores, amongst the white cliffs, through red rock gorge country on another tight road to San Juan de Jachal. The town provided ingredients for a picnic lunch and an Australian feel - we are back in a climate that suits the big eucalypts, it seems. Provisioned, we pointed the starship towards a place called la Valle de la Luna, or the valley of the moon.




We never got to the moon, stopped in our tracks by a mushy, gooey river flowing about 100m wide. We had been following one of those dotted-line-on-a-map kind of roads, and it just sort of petered out.




Truckies working on roadworks told us there was no point crossing the river, so we didn't, instead happily heading back whence we had come.


Back past our picnic site under the prickle tree,







back across the recently broken bridges and floodways. We reckoned the place we had found ourselves was just as good as the valley of the moon itself. The journey, after all, is said to be more important than the destination.

Paso del Agua Negra

Given our delay and the burning desire to get north, we have had to ditch some of the stopovers and sidetrips we might otherwise have done. This is still happening three weeks later. Leaving the factory, though, there was one detour I really didn't want to let go of. The Paso del Agua Negra crosses the Andes between Argentina and Chile at an altitude of 4780 metres. That is higher than either of us had ever been, more than twice theheight of Australia's biggest bump. Besides the sheer height, the road passes close to glaciers. I also wanted to see how the bike would perform at such a height, given the deficit of oxygen.

We lunched - too heavily, it turned out - and fueled at Las Flores, then left our passports with the border guards before taking the climb. It's about 90km from Las Flores to the top of the pass, and of course the road climbs all the way.

We were both excited to head into such a dramatic and clearly unforgiving place. The views from the road were stunning, though riding the bike I didnt have much chance to look around. Off asphalt, onto dirt, first under rain and then with snowflakes swiirling around us, we kept it pointed uphill. Wind, cold and precipitius cliff kept us on edge. Somewhere around 4000m the road got even steeper and narrower. With the good old boy (the BMW, not me!) getting out of breath, I pulled out the air pre-filter so as to give a less-restricted flow of air to the motor.

By the time we got to the top, it waas clear we weren't going to stay long. It was bloody freezing - don't know what temperature, but 5 or 6 below zero, and a screaming wind. We banged out a couple of photos before mounting up and getting down off the saddle.

Once off the hightest part of the pass and out of the wind, we stopped for a couple more photos under an over-hanging icefield.

It really doesn't take much to get out of breath at that altitude, and after running around for photos, and the rushed effort of putting my jumper on under my jacket, we felt like we'd run up ten flights of stairs.

Altitude sickness is also a real risk for people who usually hang out somewhat lower down the hill. It has various effects, but perhaps most relevant for the motorcyclist is the potential for loss of concentration. I think I concentrated harder on the way down than I ever have before. Through snow then rain, wider roads and shallower grades.

We grabbed our passports from the Gendarmeria Nacional, and headed back to relative lowlands. One more bit of intense riding, on sand this time, got us to a wild camp amongst towering white sandstone gorges.

Wow, what a day. I'm tuckered ot just writing about it!

North from Mendoza - take two

When we got away from Mendoza for the third time, we were quite determined to make a decent mile toward the north. We were excited to get to Jujuy, the northernmost corner of Argentina, and thence toward Bolivia for that country's famous Salar de Uyuni and the Amazon basin.

We left at a nice early hour, having packed the bike the night before, and took the main road towards the Chilean border. A nice ride, despite rain and trucks. At Uspallata we stopped for coffee before heading out of town, fording the river, and pointing the bike north, away from main roads once again. Keeping the Andes on our left, we just rode for a couple of hours. There was drizzle, and the dirt road was muddy from a recent downpour. We talked on and off, but most of the communication was in the form of our shared excitement - and relief - that the adventure was finally ours again.

The road showed signs of a serious storm, and roadworks at times had us creeping along on slippery clay. Still under heavy skies, the road later turned to broken asphalt, then to a good surface. We loved every minute of it, wind and raindrops in our faces and progress under our wheels. I was well stoked, when the road surface called for it, to open our new storage tubes for the first time and use our new compressor to adjust the tyre pressures. New toys. Emily took the opportunity for a little snooze...

Off up the road, we stopped at Calingasta for dhal ingredients and a packet of chocolate biscuits. These latter we knocked over in minutes, having forgotten to eat lunch in the excitement of being back on the road. No packed lunch this time either!

After Calingasta, we picked our way along a badly flood-affected road, over and around washouts and debris, then started lookign for a place to camp. We stopped once, on the banks of the San Juan river, but a violent lilttle squall sent us on our way.

We were quickly rewarded in our search for a dry camp, though in what we see as a prime camping opportunity others may fear to tread. Whatever this disused factory had produced, it had not done so for at least a decade.

There were what looked like kilns and workshops, a few boiler- or tank-looking things, and an office building up front. This latter, covered in political advertising/grafitti, was our initial choice for accomodation until we spied the ruined former manager's residence down near the river. It looked good, so we camped in the clean, dry kitchen. Em did some sweeping while I moved the bike down to the house and parked in another room. Undercover parking a bonus!

Dhal was delicious - we had looked forward to a vege-only meal for a while. Next morning saw me making a cup of tea while Em still slumbered, and before we set off up the valley.

north from Mendoza - take one

Our friends in Mendoza were full of recommendations as to our route north from their town. Glad to be back on the road after nearly a month in or near Mendoza, we climbed the back of the Uspallata Range, keeping off the main road to Chile, and intending to follow the roads closest to the Andes for an unspecified distance to the north. God knows, we had had long enough to pore over the map. So, after a lumpy-throated farewell, and in the spectacular light of an approaching storm, we got on the road. Oh, and Paola sent us of with packed lunch, complete with chilled fruit salad, too! How sweet.

The road goes up to 3100m altitude, and was a mad ride, possibly the curviest road we'd been on yet. A photo stop about 3/4 of the way up, though, brought bad news. That rear shock absorber, recently repaired after its failure on Ruta 40, was bleeding again. (When they leak, shock absorbers lose pressure, stop doing what they are meant to do, and need repair.)

This brought a bitter flavour to our excursion, though we tried not to let it affect our enjoyment of our lunch, eaten at 3100m asl. The promised view of Aconcagua, the highest mountain on this continent, may or may not have been granted us - Emily could just make it out, I couldn't. That may have had something to do with the clouds covering both our viewpoint and the montain!

Back down into sunnier and warmer climes, we had no choice but to go to the nearest phone and call Ariel.

He and the fam welcomed us back again, though it is probably fair to say neither party was overly happy with our returning just a few hours after having left (except Ariadna, who was overjoyed!) . The friendship pulled through though.

So back we went. I pulled out the shock, we repaired it, and were back on the road in a short couple of days.