April 1/2/3/4/5 - The High Andes

Just unbelievable.

This post is long on pictures.  San Pedro de Atacama is a wonderful place to relax for a few days, and this remote corner of Bolivia was an absolute highlight (as was our group!)

It was great to leave the motorcycle for a few days and meet up with other traveling folks.  It was a mix of people on short vacations (Chileans), long vacations (wouldn´t it be great if we had 4-7 weeks of vacation like they do in Europe?), and people on loooong trips (me, a British ex-corporate lawyer enjoying life before moving on to the next thing, and a Swiss architect on sabbatical).

Laguna Colorado and the area around Uyuni was a real treat.  If you ever make it to this part of the world, it is worth the effort to do the  trip.

Our Land Cruiser coming to pick us up`at the Bolivian border.

Our Bolivian drivers packing our baggage on top, with nearly 6000m tall volcanoes in the background.

Everywhere you point your camera -  oh look its a beautiful photo.

Ditto here.  All the salt in the water makes it very reflective - sunsets are especially spectacular!

It is nearly impossible to capture the sheer scale of the Altiplano... 

Everyone was taking pictures - this is Jose, our resident Chilean who was doubled (tripled?) as our resident Spanish tutor and live musician.  

Taking more pictures than a bus load of Japanese tourists.

Dissolved copper and arsenic give the lake that turquoise hue.

Dusty.  The Paris-Dakar rally was staged in Chile and Argentina in 2011.  The reason was political instability along the African route.  Easy to see how this would be perfect.  Challenging terrain and no need to worry about driving through towns where locals might get hurt.

Land Cruisers are the car of choice for the trip... they are rugged, reliable, and when they break down (which happens more than you´d like to think, given the conditions) they are easy to fix.  Spare parts are also easy to come by in Bolivia.

It would take incredible courage and endurance to do this on bikes!  We are well above 14,000 feet, there is no water, and the roads are really hard.  I hope these folks made it OK.

Another futile try at capturing the landscape... Jeeps are lower left.  All that white is salt and volcanic rock.

Jeep in the distance... are we on Mars?

This spectacle is named the Dali Rocks and, yup, it looks (and feels!) just like a surrealist painting.

Lucas checks photos in the middle of nowhere.  3 out of the 5 in our jeep were Swiss... and most of the others in the group of 12 were British or Irish.  Not a lot of Americans in this neck of the woods.

More...

...and more, in color.

Our drivers also realized that listening to a bagpipe in the desert was one of the most random experiences in a while- but Jose was great (at 15,000 feet!) and we loved it.

Our first night - beautiful and remote.

The Maestro.

Lago Colorado - bacteria give the lake that color.  All those little pink dots are flamingos, and the white areas are crystallized salt.  The lake is gigantic.

Close ups of the flamingos.

These birds are really impressive when they fly.

Much cooler out here than at the zoo.

Who knew they had those cool patterns on their wings?

More oohing and aaahing over the landscape.
Unfortunately the conservation is still in the works ... the vegetation gets a little bit trampled and there aren´t clear walking paths.

Hard to believe this is a real place.

Billions of gallons of tomato soup.

Traffic at the busier stops.

Good opportunities for some easy rock climbing.

Unclear why the ¨S¨... local dealer?

Folks contemplating the deeper parts of life.  There were entire fields full of giant boulders like this one, allegedly from volcanic eruptions.

Some local construction workers even stopped to have their photo taken!

Our three drivers... hope they get down safe!

Jose and Cecile, hangin´out.

The locals decorate their llamas with ribbons... party for fun, partly to signify ownership.

Babies.

True.

Flat tire!  Our driver changed it out in about 5 minutes.  

Caravaning through the Andes.

We loved enthusiastic group pictures.

It was contagious.

All these were once used to haul salt from the salt lake in Uyuni.  Now its a semi-museum of sorts... these hulks sit rusting in the desert.

Nothing, not even being in the middle of nowhere, could stop us from being fabulous.

Incredibly sophisticated graffiti.

Welcome to Calchani - the edge of the salt lake near Uyuni.  It´s a home for some miners and for a few shops catering to the tourists that visit.

The contrast of the artwork with the surrounding is incredible... also, yes that is one of our friends smoking a cigarette in the bottom left.  The rainbow colored flag is the national symbol of the Aymara people.

Uyuni is the world´s largest salt flat, and salt mining is a big business.

It is also very manual and must be excruciatingly exhausting....

Salt piles waiting to get picked up.

Taking turns at trying to build salt piles...

...and being fabulous.

More flamingos... the lighting is really unique.  The salt lake reflects light from below, and at this altitude the sky is just a pure blue.  It is some of the clearest air in the world.

Lots of countries represented at the salt hotel.

Walking on salt... not easy!

Too good to pass up... we had some good fun with the perspectives out there.

80s record album cover?

Hot springs at 15,000 feet!  Steamy in the chilly morning.

Sunrise on the altiplano.

March 31 - Towards the Atacama - 650km

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Riding a motorcycle at 15,000 feet is unique.

At that altitude, air density is nearly half that at sea level.  70 miles per hour feels like 35, and 35 doesn´t really feel like anything.   When you let up on the gas you coast and coast.  0-60 at sea level takes 7 seconds - at 15,000 feet it takes almost 20.  Unless you are going uphill, in which case you´ll never get to 60.

Altitude sickness starts to become a factor.  You will probably feel nauseous, achy and tired.  UV levels are 40-50% higher than at sea level and the sun burns.

A recurring theme is this unbelievable emptiness. Nothing has felt as in the middle of nowhere as this pass over the Andes.  It is 300km between gas stations on a landscape that looks less like Earth than Mars.  

Today was a long day - almost 8 hours on the bike plus border crossings.  It was another day of absolutely world class riding.  Beautiful roads twisting through mountains and coasted across salt flats.  

It would have been great to split over 2, or even 3 days, but there´s not many places to stay.  So I pushed and was relieved to finally make it to San Pedro de Atacama.

Lama sighting on the horizon.

Somehow, there´s life out here.

Susques.  10,000 feet above sea level.   One hundred residents.  There are two gas pumps - one doesn´t work.

Keep your fingers crossed...if this one breaks there might be a 500km stretch without gas...

Adobe houses and satellite dishes.

Getting around town and wondering what the gringo with the motorcycle is doing.

Why does this road exist?  Where does it go?

Taking a break.

Salt.

The sky really is that deep deep blue color.

The view from the cockpit.

20,000 foot peaks nearly a hundred miles away.

That would be very bad.

March 28/29/30 - Salta - 300km

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It´s hard to understate how dramatically the mountains impact the climate here.

Cafayate is a near desert - it feels like Nevada.  But drive an hour over a mountain pass and suddenly you´re in the Carolinas.  It´s warm, humid and cloudy.  The fields are full of tobacco and soybeans.  The mountains are a deep green and there are lakes and rivers everywhere.

This lush climate made Salta a regional hub during the Spanish era.  As long as the silver mine at Potosi dominated the development of the area, Salta was a regional agricultural and trade hub.  The region supplied food that couldn´t be grown in the high altiplano of Bolivia.  

Even today, though, you can still feel the influence of Bolivia, just few hours north.  There are Bolivian immigrants here, and more people of indigenous descent.  The shops sell coca leaf.  More folks listen to Bolivian folklore than tango.

The recent boom in food prices has helped Salta, but it still feels like a dusty regional hub.  Imagine Kansas City or Harrisburg, PA, except with massive churches from another, wealthier, era.

There were a few welcoming cafes with wi-fi, and it was a good place to catch up on e-mail and try to get that Bolivian visa.  

And a new motorcycle battery.

I discovered one morning that mine had completely died.  Luckily it happened here and not a day earlier, when it might have turned into a real problem.

It took a day to find a replacement, which worked perfectly.  So it´s onward, across the Andes, back to Chile, with a new motorcycle battery and instructions to look for a Bolivian visa in Arica, Chile.  

Steak, wine and music, Salta style.

March 26/27/28 - Cafayate

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I never thought I´d be so excited to run into tourists in rental cars.  But after almost a week on the edge of the map, Cafayate was a relief.

Getting off off the beaten path is exciting, but travelling alone, with limited Spanish, and with limited access to the outside world can be tough.  I didn´t realize how tense I had become until I landed in Cafayate.

It´s Argentina´s second wine region, far smaller than Mendoza and also much less discovered.  Most of the tourists are Argentinians looking for a relaxing weekend, or backpackers on long trips through South America.  A lot of bikers also stop in the area.

Some of the wineries are small, but there are also some big multinationals in Cafayate.  Diageo owns a big vineyard.  Pernot-Ricard owns another.  There are new vineyards on the outskirts of town - clearly investors are betting on Argentinian wine.  And with inexpensive labor and growing demand internationally (Diageo exports 70% of its production - much of it to Russia and the US), it could be a good bet.

Unfortunately all this investment hasn´t made a big impact for the locals yet.  Wine is all capital and no labor.  The investment in land, equipment and inventory are enormous.  Vines have to grow for more than a decade before producing decent wines.  Fermentation tanks are expensive but spend most of the year idle.  And top end wines are stored for almost 3 years before being sold.  Visiting a winery is like visiting a ghost town.  There were 2 employees at the Diageo operation when I visited - the tour guide and a security guard.  Most of the jobs are seasonal and unskilled.

I spent a few days visiting ruins and wineries before realizing I needed to keep trekking north.  Cafayate is the sort of friendly, cheerful and sunny place that is hard to say goodbye to.

Still dry, but with vineyards and tourists just over that fence.

More amazing drives... 200km through a winding canyon.  Great roads.  Almost no traffic.

At about 7,000 feet with 15,000 foot tall peaks in the background.  I also finally found cacti that look like the ones in cartoons - big day.