Bolivia & Chile - La Paz to Uyuni

After almost three months in Peru, we cross the border into Bolivia. Whenever we enter a new country, we are very attentive and pay attention to what catches our eye first, what is different "here". In Bolivia, mattresses are definitely "high" in the course.

We come to La Paz, the highest city in the world. It is located in a huge valley surrounded by steep slopes. As a result, there are steep roads everywhere and a lot of traffic chaos. The public transport is not like in many cities the bus or the subway, in La Paz there is an ingenious network of gondolas with which you can travel through the whole city.

When we push our bikes into the cabin it feels like a weekend at the Bikepark Saalbach.

We ordered some spare parts from a bike shop, after 17,000 kilometers the large chainring has become quite round. We try to change our chains every 3,000 kilometers. After that, they have also grown a good bit in length.

In La Paz there is also a witch market that we look at. It's scary what Buffy gets here for her rituals.

We are looking forward to the "Ruta de las Vicuñas" by Cass Gilbert. This runs along the border between Bolivia and Chile, we will often have to cross the country borders. There are several nature reserves here on the Altiplano plateau.

The first impression of the mountain formations is overwhelming and the colors are simply surreal.

As you can see from the name of the route, we see countless Vicuñas.

We ride the first two days around the Vulcan Guallatiri (6,071 m). It is very worth seeing from all sides and from its chimney it smokes continuously.

In the meantime, we have also found out where the Andean woodpecker nests in the treeless regions. On steep slopes or in dried-up riverbeds, it digs deep holes for a sheltered nest.

From afar we can see the "Salar de Surire". You are really blinded and if you take off your sunglasses even briefly, it kills your eyes. We ride most of the time hooded and despite the fact that we are very careful to drink enough, we get the feeling that we are drying out.

The valley of the salt desert is somewhat comparable to the Ngorongoro crater in Tanzania. There are countless animals here. The area is quite remote, we only saw a handful of inhabitants on the entire route and a small salt mine where we could refuel water.

We are so impressed and touched by the scenery. So many animals, our hearts really open here.

At the few water points along the shore we see flamingos for the first time and quite a lot.

They are quite shy and not so easy to photograph. We see the James's flamingo

And the Andean flamingo. They can be easily distinguished by the size of their beak and the color of their legs.

As soon as one of the animals goes to the runway for departure, the whole swarm usually follows.

The "Suri" also lives in this region. It looks similar to the African ostrich, but is only about 1.50m tall. They are unfortunately super shy and as soon as you see them in the distance, they run away as if stung by the tarantula. The heat flickering on the desert floor makes a photo even more difficult. We will continue to try to get a beautiful portrait.

In the middle of nowhere we see a small hut at the lake, we meet Elisa there who is visiting her father Doroteo. Doroteo lives up here all year round without cell phone reception, running water or electricity. He guards his llama herd here. In the city of Putre, they make blankets from wool and sell them. We are allowed to set up our tent in the wind shelter next to the stone hut.

At night there is no light pollution here except for Venus. We've never seen so many stars in the sky. We were even lucky enough to see the comet "Tsuchinshan ATLAS" with the naked eye.

In the morning Doroteo wanted to drive Elisa back to the city, but the car did not start. The desperate push attempts in the sandy ground were pointless. It didn't help, Felix threw all the weight off his bike and started the marathon around the lake to the mine to get help. Here "outside" you are pretty screwed up in an emergency situation, we are happy about our satellite SOS transmitters. Btw, our mothers too, because the device also has an "All good" button.

After the engine is running again and we said goodbye, we saw how the llamas came back from the mountains. We were lucky enough to see a very fresh newborn. It could just walk like that and it narrowed its eyes from the bright morning sun all the time - super cute.

We decided again for the extra wide 2.6" (6.60 cm) tires and that was definitely the right choice. We ride these days with very low air pressure, otherwise some sand passages would not be manageable and with the many washboard roads the teeth would start to rattle.

To save a few meters of altitude over a pass, we opt for a shortcut. We doubt that the few kilometers across the border and through Bolivia without border control and stamps were so legal. However, the border official "Officer Vicuña" had nothing against it and ignored us. Elisa had told us that the road is used a lot by smugglers and we should definitely not ride at night. In the evening we already saw the first truck and in the night we heard some convoys.

The animals are really exposed to the most extreme conditions in the region. It's so dry that even our lips and fingers burst. The wind always blows from the front from noon and through the swirled sand it grinds between the teeth all day. It's also very frightening what we can picking out of our noses in the evening.

We find shelter from the wind in an abandoned stone house settlement. Since it always freezes very much at night, Michelle spoons the peanut butter in her sleeping bag and Felix the camera batteries.

A few kilometers further on the next morning we see another abandoned village with a beautiful mission church. We were later told that the settlement "did not survive" the corona pandemic. We didn't ask further what was meant by that. Everything in the houses is still in its place.

The downhill to the next official border crossing (this time with a stamp), reminded us of the south of California.

We turn to our first smaller salt desert, the Lago Coipada. It feels like riding on a frozen, snow-covered lake. Even the potholes filled with salt water look like they're frozen. When changing tracks, it crackles markedly under the tires.

In the evening we pedal quite a bit to escape the approaching thunderstorm. Fortunately, we were spared.

The foothills of the salt desert are often quite sandy. A curious herd of llamas likes that more than we do.

Before we start cross the largest of all salt deserts, we find a room in an empty "shopping mall". Very "lovingly" the shop window and the glass door were taped. Of course, no water came from the advertised "ducha caliente".

The "Salar Uyuni" the largest salt desert in the world. We start early, since it is usually windless until 11:00 a.m. and what happens after that, no wind app can reasonably predict here.

Almost 200 kilometers we have to cross on the approx. 30 meter thick layer of salt to the other side and to the small town of the same name Uyuni. Below the salt crust are another approx. 70 meter deep layer of salt sole. For lunch we had boiled egg with probably the „freshest“ salt in the world.

Suddenly our bicycles went on strike and turned the tables. They were already offended by what we had done to them the last 16 months over sticks and stones and now a salt desert? Michelle found the cake of Alice in Wonderland with the inscription "eat me" before Felix did. She let him beg to get a piece.

For the night we chose the farthest point from all mountains. The most important thing when camping in the salt desert is to take a stone with you, otherwise you have no chance getting the pegs into the rock-hard ground.

With a lot of luck, you can admire a crazy natural spectacle in the evening. On a cloudless day, the salt polygons start with the last rays of sunshine for approx. 5 seconds to glow in fiery red - the camera was ready hours before.

The night was bitterly cold, but the Milky Way slowly announced itself - spectacular!

All cyclists who cross the salt desert post photos in their social media accounts of how they sit naked on the bike here (the naked always censored). We won't leave anything so boring to our "fans" - take a look until the next blog post on our onlyfans account ;-)