Uyuni is the town at the edge of the Salar. We spend a day here to recover from the ever lasting headwinds and then set off into the Salar. Salt, salt, salt a desert of salt - aiming west to the island of Inca Huasi where they let you rest and sleep, give you water too, if you make it there unmotorized you can spend the night. We visited the Salt hotels - each one of them claims to be the original one. Who cares? We visited two out of three -they both are all very unique and left us in awe about the construction/architecture and the atmosphere in the halls and rooms - the whole arrangement!
One cheaper version of a salt hotel met us further out into this huge Uyuni salt lake and we decided to camp next to it instead to keep going into the headwinds which picks up every afternoon and blast us almost off our bikes getting even stronger as the sun sets. At night it gets cold enough to mistake the salt for ice and the sky is huge and the stars are brighter than I have ever seen...
We broke camp early to beat the afternoon headwinds - hoping to be at the island before it starts blasting again. We got far into the vastness off it all, following the dirty tires tracks of the Jeeps, when James basically fell off his bike from a kidney stone pain attack. His usual tricks didn't work (he has been dealing with them for most of his life) and we had to take the next chance to hitchhike back to Uyuni. He got checked out at the hospital after he thought he had passed a stone in the Salar on the way back when the bus had stopped and he went out to pee after which the pain subsided significantly. In Uyuni, we decided to take another route along the edge of the Salt - West to Chile and so we headed out the next day into the dirt which is not as pleasant to ride as on the salt. The going got tough every afternoon dealing with the wind and the rough roads which seem to get rougher as we went. There wasn't much climbing and descending involved, but the washboard patterns can drive a bicyclist NUTS - plus the headwinds and you really feel you go insane! We found a private school in Rio Grande at the end of a pretty rough day and spend quite the relaxing evening inside one of the cleanest classrooms I have seen in Latin America. We made a gourmet dinner with green beans and carrots, pasta and garlic - chocolate for dessert and plenty to drink.
The night was spent in luxury, it still felt like we were at "the ass of the world" (German saying....pretty clear what it means, no?)
Little did we now it will get even more remote and windy....We reached the village of Julaca the next day and wanted to check the nearby caves - headed into - yet a different direction into the Salar only to return in defeat: the washboard, sandy road made us push the bikes at the end of a 15km ride across the salt and we just thought we will never make it. No one around to ask direction.....
We had done a 30km detour which took as almost all day. I wanted to go the the island of Inca Huasi, James wanted to see the caves and we both had to be ok with not being able to do either one - such is life!
We passed Julaca - an almost ghostly desert village with a train station. We headed further west to the Chilean border and to another little village, but we had to give up before reaching either one, fighting the damn headwinds which included sand at this point and found shelter behind a big bolder, in deep powdery sand, having a hell of a time setting up the tent.
In fact the wind was so impossible, we couldn't even cook dinner and had to resort to sardines and crackers. The poor tent got sand blasted and we still don't know at this point if the rain fly will be intact for the next rain! The winds usually calm down around midnight and in the morning all will be well - and it was ...kind of..
We were only a few km away from the village and we stopped there to get something to drink and a few cookies and off we went - hoping to get to the border and into Chile the same day. Right........
far from it!!!! We saw a street sign (and we haven't seen one for ions) announcing the border town of Avaroa - we turned off, away from the slightly better looking dirt road - and in the direction it pointed. There was no one around to ask- not even cars, motorcycles or anything....We hadn't seen life in that form for hours....
The compass said we were on our way to Chile, but the road got worse, the rocks bigger, the washboard pattern more obnoxious and guess what else....?.....YES, the f........ing WIND!! How can it be - that- when ever we turn and which direction we happen to turn the wind is always coming the way we are going???? Straight on and strong?
Wind, road, exhaustion.....I was SO DONE, at some point I threw my bike down and screamed back to the wind.....storming passed James, walking. I thought I just walk to the damn border and go home - be done with it! One of those days.....nights....
There was no way I/we would make it walking, riding, or any old way- we didn't even know if we were still on the right road...there still was no one around to ask. James convinced me that we had to set up camp in a kind of a hole in the sand
to get a little shelter from the freaking wind and go to sleep listening to our teeth crunch on sand and salt. Ok, we did manage to make some rice with sauce and canned fish after building the tent (we did better this time - practice makes a master!) and I felt better....we couldn't be too far now from the border, but the headwind made it all too far.
Again the wind had calmed down in the am the next day and we got to ask a motorcyclist if we were on the right track - thank goodness...YES!
We looked across the Salar - saw a train and some Jeeps in the distance ...
there is another, much easier way/road to drive/ride on the salt, but we wouldn't know how to get there. Our map showed a village we had missed to stock up on water ...we are getting low in supplies and water. We are getting the full desert experience here!!! I got so stressed out, it was hard for me to enjoy the surroundings: We are encircled by volcanos and dried out salt lakes which were already present before the Andes were formed, I learned - the most unusual part of the earth I have ever seen. Fact is that the road right in front of me eats up all of my attention. (Of course and the chit chatter in my head)
Finally we encountered a little more traffic and yes, we've been on the right road all along.....feeling so lost on the way to Chile.
