Saturday Nov. 10, 2007
After Sucre, Bolivia I headed south-west through Potosi towards the huge salt flats of Salar de Uyuni (have a look on Google Earth to see just how big). The gravel roads beyond Potosi (Bolivia is 80% gravel roads) went through some pretty desolate areas. But the most memorable moments on Bolivias roads were the annoying checkpoints every couple of hundred kilometers, where I was stopped and told I had to buy these little tickets to continue, but since I was on a moto, and motos weren't listed on any of the tickets or price sheets along with cars and trucks, I thought I shouldn't have to pay and questioned them about it, at which point they often reduced the price.
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The dusty, dirty desert town of Uyuni near the salar knew they were along ways from anywhere and charged tourists through the nose. Surprisingly, I bumped into David from England on his KLR again (who I'd met in Vilcabamba, Ecuador and La Paz, Bolivia). The next day we rode north along more washboard to another little town where we turned onto the salar and finally got to ride on this smooth, flat lake bed that I'd been thinking about for years.
Near the outside edge there were workers with trucks scraping up salt and tourists in Toyota 4x4s snapping pictures of the salt piles and hotel built from salt. After that it was just a blindingly white, perfectly horizontal, endless line between sky and salt - which turned out to be a great place to have a GPS. Distances here were deceiving and it would be easy to loose your way and consume lots of precious fuel trying to find your way again.
It felt strange to ride at any speed I wanted and without care for where the road's boundaries were - there were no boundaries out here!. Although, it was a very coarse textured surface made of salt (remember salt in a wound) and it was impossible for me to feel as secure as I did on good-old asphalt.
David isn't the kind of guy to worry about little things like maintenance, and it was obvious to me that he would be having some bike problems sooner or later, and when his chain broke I wasn't surprised. We parked his bike in a building on the coral island in the middle of the salar and he camped with me about 5 kms ( 3.1 mi) away. It was nice to have his company.
At 3,680 m (12,073 ft) when the sun was out it was hot, but the wind was cold. And as the sun set into the distant horizon and night crept in, the winds kept blowing, until sometime around midnight bringing the temperature down to around 0 C (32 F) degrees. It made for a chilly night, but I'll never forget the experience of being out there.
The next day I dropped David off on the island and rode to a volcanoe on a nearby shore, which ended up being 48 kms (30 mi) away, where flamingoes were eating in the shallow, salty water on the shore. I returned to make sure David was OK and luckily a friend of his from the day before sent out a new chain with somebody in one of the 4x4s.
The next day David and I went our separate ways again. I took the only way south to Argentina, a dirt road to Tupiza that turned out to be the worst road I've ever ridden on with 200 kms (124 mi) of washboard and sand. The day after was just about as bad, but only 100 kms (62 mi) long, with sections of dried riverbeds that were used as part of the main road. When I finally reached the Argentine border I felt like kissing the beautiful, smooth asphalt ahead.
Argentina was completely different. Not only were the roads paved, but there was real good beef and cheap wine everywhere! Rooms were considerably more expensive than my LonelyPlanet guidebook said they'd be though, and they spoke allot faster.
And on this day, October 6, 2007, as I crossed into Argentina I also crossed the Tropic of Capricorn: 343 days and 35,268 kms (21,915 mi) after crossing the Tropic of Cancer in Mexico.
On my way down to Salta the main highway was miniaturized and became about 1-1/2-lanes wide without a center line for over 100 kms (62 mi). It was a wonderfully twisty road with great pavement, but the speed limit was 40 kmph (25 mph) and every now and then someone would come around the corner going the other direction, and if it was 2 cars they would both have to put a tire off the road to pass.
Salta turned out to be a big, expensive city but it had some beautiful architecture and modern restaurants.
Driving the little 2-lane highway south from Salta I felt more like I was in the US on a secondary highway than anywhere in South America. And the small wine town of Cafayate was beautiful. There really wasn't much there besides wineries, but it was quiet, people were friendly and the prices for good food and decent rooms were reasonable.
As I continued south I entered a low-lying cloud in a valley that instantly dropped the temperature by 15 C (59 F) degrees for the next 2-hours. And surprisingly, I've seen more flocks of beautiful parrots while riding the highway through these deserty parts than I've seen anywhere else.
San Rafael turned out to be a nice, small, modern wine city in the heart of an irrigated desert. The weather was beautiful every day. And thanks to the help of a couple of friends from Australia also on a V-Strom (Grant and Julie) who gave me a place to stay and work on Buzz, as well as some much appreciated technical support, I did a complete service on Buzz.
Among other things, the chain guard on the rear swingarm was worn through and allowing the chain to contact the aluminum swingarm right at the pivot bearing housing, so I temporarily repaired it with some scrap metal, plastic pipe and silicone. I built a metal frame to go inside my front fairing that kept breaking from the vibrations of my larger, aftermarket windscreen on the washboard roads, and I spent allot of time catching up on things like banking, organizing photos, backups and of course this long overdue update.
I received my replacement Exped sleeping mat from Campers Village in Edmonton just in time to start using it - I'm finally in a country that actually knows what a campground is. I bought a nice little fishing kit with some birthday money from my brother Kevin and his wife Louise, anticipating fried trout for dinner while camping next to a river. And I'm back in a moto culture here where almost everyone has one and the drivers respect them. I've even seen a woman breast feeding her baby while driving a scooter with another child on the back.
Interestingly, guys here are often called 'Che', business hours are very relaxed (typically from 8-12 and then 4-8, with everything closed Sunday), people have an asado (BBQ) with huge slabs of beef for dinner every chance they get and very late at night, everyone seems nocturnal (probably because they can sleep in the afternoon), scooters are modified with aftermarket exhausts and sound like big loud bikes racing up and down the streets at 4 am, and everyone drinks mate - a small wooden cup filled with leaves and herbs (must be an acquired tatse) and boiling water with a metal straw that has a strainer at the bottom - and they're never far from a thermos of boiling water to refill it with.
But mostly, I'll remember San Rafael for its people. Friendly, helpful and relaxed.
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