Uyuni to Iquiqui
Added on Monday, September 1st, 2008 by Carole Nash Editor
Road so long I cannnot see the end
Today I ride across the Andes, that mighty Cordillera which divides South America unevenly from the Southern latitudes of Chile to Ecuador and Western Colombia. These are the mountains that tower over countries separating peoples. The Chileans don’t like the Argentines, the Argentines don’t like the Chileans and both are suspicious of the Bolivians and the Peruvians.
In Uyuni, the market filled the main street a block away from the hotel. There were few plastic goods and most of the wares for sale were woollens, blankets and small domestic pieces for the kitchen. After changing some money I found four 2 litre soft drink bottles and then rode to the gas station to have them filled. There was fuel at San Cristobel, 90kms from Uyuni, I was unsure when the next fill up could be. All the vehicles on this route would be driven by diesel engines so to run short of petrol would be foolish. The route to San Cristobel was route corrugations and when I arrived the one gas station was shut for lunch, so I went to the nearest restaurant on this wind swept landscape and sat in what must have once been an old water tank. Its industrialness reminded me of sitting on an alien colony waiting wistfully for my home leave back on earth.
I leave the market square and head off. I am tempted to think of bringing the R1 into Bolivia as a big mistake. It is a phenomenally beautiful country and the people are very friendly, but the roads compare with Northern Kenya and the Didu Gagalu Desert. Riding times were down to 20mph for most of the day. The route from the Argentine / Bolivian border at Turpiza to Calama in Chile will take 3 days. 600kms of appalling roads.
At San Cristobel I have my meal and then fuel up. The exhaust is so loose I pull it off the bike. A lorry river helps me re-fasten it and I tie the rear of the exhaust to the bike with metal wire. I carry 8 litres of extra fuel. Where I am going there are no fuel stations, no habitation nothing for 450 kms apart from a small settlement without fuel at Ollegue at the Bolivian / Chilean border.
A breakdown in these conditions at the wrong time of day will mean a night stranded at 14 000 feet. No trucks pass in the night. It would be easy to become hypothermic and die. I race across the plateau to get to the border before the sun sets and manage to just.
Crossing the Andes off-road is a surreal experience. The R1 is just part of that process. It neither hinders nor assists the journey, but it is a bike and it does it well. No engine failure. No tyre failure. No clothing failure. Thank God.
I see mountains that look as if they have been kissed by clouds, I see pink flamingos on salt flats, I see roads so long I cannot see the end, I see blue skies so sharp they could cut steel.
After riding for 15 hours I make it the Bolivian border, check in and through and then into Chile at Ollegue. There is a small hostel where a kindly old lady serves food and has dormitory accommodation. Across the way by a small municipal building in a cold desert setting there is wireless Internet and I sit on a bench in the freezing night cold sending my story.
The next day I ride for 15 more hours and eventually hit the tarmac. I am exhausted. At Calama I go to a shopping mall and buy essential items, chain spray, a plug adapter and foot pump and then ride another 300kms to Iquiqui. It is midnight and I look for an hour for a hotel. My credit card fails at a gas station and I have had no time to change money but they eventually accept dollars. By 2am I am in bed. I cannot speak for tiredness but it was one of the best rides of my life. Work that one out!
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