If you can't go over it, go through it.

Uyuni to Tupiza - jan 29th

We planned on an early start and by tourist estimations 9am is fairly early, the Bolivian service in restaurants is anything but fast. The bikes were all filled with gas so after breakfast it was just a matter of hitting the dusty trail, and it was actually dusty instead of the mud that was reported and expected. 

This was our first crossing, not one of the big ones rumored to be on route.

We were told all kinds of horror stories of buses waiting for the river to calm so that they could cross only to get stuck in the mud climbing the bank back up to the road. There were two of these type of crossings, the first was only 40km from Uyuni so the possibility of turning around and finding an alternate route would be easy at that point. When we made it to the crossing we could see where the buses had gotten stuck but after walking out into the river it seemed it was only about shin deep with a solid bottom. 

The bikes made it through this with ease and I didn't even get wet feet. The road was washboard most of the way to the next crossing which was considerably wider, this is where the buses had to wait for the water to subside, again we were lucky that there was very little water flowing and that the river bottom was firm. Easy peasy.

Just when we thought we were in the middle of nothing/nowhere we meet a lady on a bicycle, she was from Ontario and has been pedaling around the world for 4 years. She had done Africa, Asia, Europe, and was now on her way North back to Canada. I thought this was quite an accomplishment considering she was travelling alone. The rest of the journey was smooth sailing, well at least until it started to rain...heavy rain, the kind of rain that you wish you had a snorkel or gills. Unfortunately we were riding through some very cool landscapes of hoodoos and red rock canyons and the rain made it near impossible to see let alone take any decent pictures.

Canyon just before the rain started.

 

Once in Tupiza we could see that a smaller tributary creek was ready to burst its banks, the water level was very high and almost touching the bottom of the bridge. The three of us found a nice hotel and after sorting out all the wet luggage we enjoyed a nice meal together. Phil was heading in a different direction in the morning so this was also a goodbye meal.

Tupiza to Tarija Jan30th

The hotel put on a nice buffet breakfast and we may have over did it a little. The coffee was fresh ground so it was hard to resist. We said our good-byes but somehow know that our paths will cross again down the road maybe in Canada maybe in New Zealand.

Once again we are gifted with a fantastic route through the mountains. It had been raining throughout the region but we managed to miss some of it at least, we could see rain in the distance and that was a good place for it. The pavement out of town was short lived and some 40km later we were turning onto a somewhat muddy secondary road that cut the landscape in half. 

 

Literally the road was more or less straight out in front of us to the horizon. The ride to the horizon was bordered by shrubs, sand, cows, and not a single person. Once we reached the end of the straight section we were happy that the terrain changed and so did the altitude. Another high plain of unending grassland with intermittent mountains to navigate over with switchbacks going up and down, enjoyable riding and because we were not going that far today it was nice to take in the vast scenery. We could see for miles and although somewhat barren the views were absolutely spectacular. 

The route would gain altitude up a mountain side then reward us with more long sweeping curves across the plateau, then repeat the process, sometimes going down rather than up. This repeated most of the morning until we found ourselves in a small village that was not on the map, as we had dropped elevation quite a bit and with this came much higher temperatures. We had stopped to take off our rain jackets and take some photos of the village when I noticed a few people sneaking looks out partially opened doors. I suspect they have never had tourists in town let alone ones on motorbikes. One brave lady started a conversation from her doorway, and when I explained what we were doing she lit up like a lightbulb. Big smiles and giggles, and astonishment when she realized that there was a woman under all that weird motorcycle garb. Brenda usually causes this reaction, the ladies down here are limited to scooters, very few even drive cars by our observations.

Not long after the village a decision had to be made at a fork in the road, the classic decision, left or right. The less traveled road seems like the obvious choice in these situations so I guesstimate that the locals have made some sort of road instead of taking the much longer loop that is shown on the GPS. 

Common sense prevails and with the help of the GPS I could tell we were getting close to the other side of the loop, much to our surprise we came out of the desert at a mine site of some kind, and the road was paved. The rest of the route into Tarija was just as spectacular as the road cut through some canyons then up and over one last mountain pass, well almost over, they must have got tired of going up and decided to go through the mountain instead. The tunnel was the longest we have seen thus far, it was about 4km long with a bend in the middle and a different weather system at the other end. We emerged out of the tunnel into a cloud bank so thick that we could hardly see the road, we had to slow right down until our eyes adjusted from the dark tunnel to the fog like clouds. 

Down and down we go until we see a much needed gas station and the town of Tarija in the background. Another great day of riding almost complete.