Ahoyhoy one and ... well three of you now!
I am alive, mostly well and in the highest capital city in the world, La Paz. The city is high on being over 4000m altitude, I´m high on a lack of quality sleep, exhaustion, dehydrations, hungar and oxygen starvation.
I left San Pedro de Atacama, having just remembered to get myself stamoped out of Chile and head off up into the mountain for the 100mile ride to the Argentinian border. It looked something like this:
But after not too long it look like this:
And then low and behold FLAMINGOES! I could get very close to them alas:
There were also loads of lamas & vicunas and possibly the other one that kinda looks them those two. But it wasn´t all fauna, there was some pretty cool flora too:
After quite a while I had thought to have missed some of the salinas or salt flats on the map but I had forgotten Salina Grande. OMG! It was huge and very salty. Unusually there was a line layer of water on it about 1-2" thick with cunks of crystalised salt floating in it. VERY COOL spot. If dry you can ride on it apparently and the road used to be made from blocks of it.
As if all of this didn´t make it a great day when this appeared: What a road and it wasn´t even the best of the day!
On leaving this pass called Jamo pass it was time to head north for the border town of La Quiaca. Alas not a single petrol station up to and including La Quiaca had any petrol. To all of those of poked fun at the 45L fuel tanks I bought at great expense for Sir Humphrey, HAHAHAHA. They are essential and I wouldn´t undertake a trip like this without them; you´d be camped at peterol stations all the time or stranded. I rolled into La Quiaca having done over 300miles with another 100 left in the tank. We rule!
As it was La Quiaca was dump but a popular one as every hostel and hotel was full but after a lot of asking and riding down a half dry river bed I made it to the municipal campsite which was more just an abandoned lido so I broke out the hammock and slept amongst the trees with my new pack of doggy gaurdians.Nice view though.
In the morning, feeling surprising well I headed straight for the border after quing for 40mins for the fuel that arrived overnight. This was the worst border crossing so far but nada compared to some. Two hours it took to get out of Argentina and then this was the que for a Bolivian passport stamp:
It was 200yards long. I asked three times if this was the right que. An hour and 20feet further on a japanese girl girl asked the French guy I was talking to if it was the right que and we then learnt it was not and the right que had 3 people in it. Thanks my French, fag choring, chum.
From here I didn´t quite know what to do so I bought some empandas from a classical Bolivian old lady i.e. blue dress, multicoloured shawl, bowler hat 3 sizes too small. After this I took Ruta 1 and headed north. It was mostly just more scrub but after a while I took a break and got chatting to the guy in the picture below. His name was Marcello (as many are around here) and he was a pucker Lama Farmer. God´s know what this involves as they seem to just mooch about eating the scrub but I thought it was cool as we bonded over a cigarette (particually good things at 4000m).
I reached Potosi and got totally lost in its steep narrow streets but eventually I managed to spend all my Bolivars on fuel and decided to head on. This was not much of a plan as I had no chance to making it to Oduro in day light. Neverthless I ploughed on until a black sheep decided it had had enough of life chewing scrub at 4000m so it decided to try and end it all by throwing itself under Sir Humphrey after it and all its friends had crossed the road. I must be getting a bit better on two wheels as I kept us shiny side up but in the rear view mirror the suicidal black sheep was pulling itself across the road with only its front legs; I had broken its spine. I thought about stopping and putting it out of its misery but as I wasn´t 100% confident to doing it painlessly and quickly I thought it best to let nature do its job. Og course I might have got the sheep´s motivation all wrong i.e. "Baa baa black sheep have you any wool? Yes Sir. Yes Sir. Three bags full. They´re on the other side of the road. I´ll just go get them....oh shit!". Who knows. After this I´d had enough and pulled over for some guerilla camping.
Today, very cold and very wet as it rained so hard it stung my face and it could be felt through my bike gear, I made it to La Paz:
Eventually I found a hotel with secure parking and had my first shower in far too long. I am very very tired and slightly brown. I would like to take an extra dat here but its not far until I reach Cusco near Machu Pichu and I´ll defo have a day off to see that.
Thanks for all your comments. I´m sorry if the lambacide story upset anyone.
TTFN,
Tigger Tigger the sheep killer.
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