A ride along one of the most spectacular borders in the world, along a line of volcanoes in an extremely remote and harsh world with freezing temperatures.

29.05.'06: We had rather a long break in La Paz due to Gabriel and I being ill to such an extent that we ended up in a clinic in La Paz, probably due to unclean water! Anyway we got going again after a couple of days sleep and recovery and set off on our way to the Chilean border. After 10km out of the city we bumped into Stefan and Laurence (2 Canadian long distance cyclists). The 4 of us cycled together for about 4 days before splitting again in the high Chilean altiplano.

31.05.'05: Gabriel cycling along on the dry Bolivian altiplano (3900m). Note how good the road is! It is Bolivia's main route into Chile and the only tar road which accesses a harbour (in Arica). The harbour in Arica (Chile) is a free access zone for the landlocked country of Bolivia and therefore this road is in excellent condition. We were aware at the time that it would soon be the end of a tar road for hundreds of kilometres and so we enjoyed the easy going!

The rock formations in the Andes often have 'windows' to take pictures from. Gabriel with the twin border volcanoes: 'Parinacota' in the background.

01.06.'06: Myself approaching the border area with the twin border volcanoes: Parinacota (over 6300m high). This area of the world gets extremely cold at night. Even though it is warm during the day, it drops to minus 20 degrees Celsius at night!

02.06.'06: We had pitched our tent in the Sajama valley of Bolivia (4200m), it lies between 'Sajama' (6542m) and 'Parinacota'  (6342m), a wonderful and remote area, accessed by a terribly sandy road but definitely worth the visit. We had our personal natural hot pool right next to the tent. There is nothing better than getting out of the tent at minus 7 degrees C in the morning and jumping into the hot pool only 2 metres away, waiting for the sun to rise! The only problem is to get out of the pool again! The body would prefer to stay in the warm pool. The night before we relaxed in the pool for nearly 3 hours enjoying some beers that we bought in the nearby village!

right: The Bolivian village of Sajama is surrounded by huge volcanoes. It was also the last set of clouds that passed us for days!

02.06.'06: After a very hard afternoon of cycling in extreme head-wind and freezing temperatures we ascended from 4100m up to the border (Bolivia/ Chile) at over 4600m. One can only imagine how slow we were at this altitude with extreme head-wind! In this region one should not wander off the road too far. The region is still 'loaded' with landmines from the 'Pinochet era' and so we decided to ride on and camp near the border office down at the lake (Lago Chungara) . We both had to sit down and 'defrost' our fingers after the cold descent. An extreme pain shot through our numb fingers and toes as they got warmer in the customs office at 4500m.a.s.l. After 20 minutes we regained feeling in our fingers and we were able to fill out the tourist forms.

The police were not impressed about our idea of camping in the area at all: "¡Tu eres un poco loco!" (you are a bit crazy!) "¡La temperatura aqua... 20 grado bajo zero en la noche!" (the temperature here... minus 20 degrees C at night). "Get out of here and ride on to lower ground, 40 km away!" Very funny! It was already getting dark and there was no way that we could ride that far during the night. Indeed the temperature dropped to a painfull minus 10 degrees C while we cycled on. Around a couple of bends we eventually pitching the tent next to the 'lago Chungara' (Lake Chungara lies over 4500m and is one of the largest lakes in the world at this altitude, and it is indeed freezing cold at night). That night it was wonderful to sip our milo (malt drink) in the tent while the temperature dropped close to minus 20 degrees, not just one or 2 mugs of the healthy nestle drink, but about 4 mugs each! (we consumed 2 kg of milo in 2 weeks!), so we lay in our sleeping bags, satisfied and warm. THE PROBLEM was that 2 hours later we needed a pee and we both were not eager to get out of our sleeping bags. This is when the 'expedition pee bottle' becomes handy! After use one can use it to warm the feet! Very practical, even though non-outdoor people always find it disgusting, it is not disgusting at all!!!

03.06.'06: We cycled on past the lovely, perfectly coned volcano 'Parinacota' in the 'P. N. Lauca' with all the llamas grazing next to the frozen water puddles which would soon defrost when the midday temperature rises to a comfortable 15 to 20 degrees...

...and it was time to hit the long, lonely dirt road leading through the 'Reserva National Las Vicuñas' along the border. This is what we were waiting for, a road leading through a vast, lonely and harsh region very rarely visited due to it's difficult access! Just the perfect road for us. Adventure was waiting for us!!!

Myself, in the 'P.N. Las Vicuñas'. A wonderful national park! Really wild with many vicuñas (these animals are adapted to the bitter cold and desert-like environment). In the background one can still see the lovely coned 'Parinacota', truly one of the nicest volcanoes in the world.

Further in the park, one passes streams coming down from the high Andean summits. These areas are green and dotted with llamas and alpacas of all different colours and sizes, grazing in the midday sun. They have extremely thick wool used by the local people to make lovely, warm thick alpaca socks, caps, jersey's etc. These animals obviously cope very well with the freezing temperatures!

A day later we reached our first salt lake, 'Salar de Surire'. These salt lakes at this high altitude are usually dried out at this time of the year and it is possible to take short cuts by passing directly over them through the middle. 'Salar de Surire' however was not completely dried out and flamingo's were peacefully eating their meal of red plankton, giving them the nice red colour that the flamingo's have.

04.06.'06: The sun had set and there was no better place to pitch the tent than on the surface of the salt lake. The temperature was again dropping rapidly and an hour later it was back down on minus 10 degrees C.

05.06.'06: Gabriel slowly making his first move out of the tent an hour after sunrise. The night had been extremely cold, close to minus 20 degrees C. It takes the sun all morning to heat up the land. Nearly 2 hours after sunrise it is still minus 8 degrees!!! So we usually got going rather late, around 9:30 am.

05.06.'06: It took us most of the day to cycle out of the 'Salar de Surire' area on a wash-boarded and very sandy road. In the late afternoon we made it to the top of the highest road leading through the park, close to 4800m.a.s.l. The going had been really slow but someone else was travelling even slower...

...yes, none other than Sarah Marquis (SUI), the solo woman world walker, walking around the harshest parts of the globe, solo. Sarah had been walking for 5 months from Santiago de Chile, thousands of km away on her walk to Machu Pichuu. She had been pulling her heavy loaded cart and backpack all day up the hill. It was amazing to meet someone like this in such a remote part of the world where hardly a car passes through and this at 4700m.a.s.l. Sarah was excited to meet us, obviously she had been walking for days with little contact to other humans, just like us, so we ended up talking for a long time, exchanging information in regard to food and water sources before departing, joking we might meet up again someday, maybe in Tibet or Mongolia...who knows, it is a small world! See her fantastic website: www.sarahmarquis.ch 

The following night had again been very cold and the warm sun heating the tent was a great welcome before setting off again.

Days of riding through sand and along terribly wash-boarded roads without a wash gives one a 'worn-out' look!

...and Gabriel as well, (starting to look just like a Scandinavian viking!), but being out here in this part of the world keeps us smiling and happy!

left: Birds walking on the frozen river in the 'P. N. Volcan Isluga'

06.06.'06: After over 200km of wilderness and sandy and wash-boarded roads we passed the lovely Andean village of Isluga. Soon after that we again crossed the border back into Bolivia.

07.06.'06: After restocking with basic supplies in Pisiga, we set off to cross Bolivia's second largest salt lake 'Salar de Coipasa'. There was still water (5cm) on the salar for the first 10km (not ideal for our bicycles), but it was absolutely fun...

...and time for some trick photography. (Here I managed to squeeze Gabriel into our spare rim/tire!)

A day later we cycled off the salt lake and took a connecting road over the hill (about 30km), which was more like riding in soft beach sand than anything else! riding? no pushing!

09.06.'06: At last we hit the world's largest salt lake with it's 12000 square km! It was time for action! For the following 2 days we crossed the 'Salar de Uyuni' from the remote north-west to the south-east by using GPS navigation and watching the position of the sun. Maaaaaaan, was it fun!

left: The cracks in the salt lake with their beautiful patterns...just amazing. We were each loaded with 12 litres of water and food for 5 days.

right: Gabriel rolling along on the 'Salar de Uyuni'

left: sunset behind 'Salar de Uyuni'. The massive salt lake looks like an arctic icefield and the temperature at night is exactly like an arctic icefield!

10.06.'06, picture taken an hour after sunrise! Camping on the 'Salar de Uyuni' is a wonderful but very cold experience. All waterbottles started freezing upon sunset and they need to be kept in or next to the sleepingbags to prevent freezing! It takes a bottle only a few hours to freeze completely and by midnight it is a solid block of ice!

After 70km of cycling across the remotest section of the Salar, we got to 'Isla Pescado' (Fish Island) with it's wonderful cactus'! An amazing place, one could think one is on a different planet.

right: Shortly before sunset, the full moon in the background! It would be another cold night on the 'salar'.

...just happy to be in such a wonderful place!

We left the 'Salar de Uyuni' and cycled towards the Chilean border. We needed to get more food and the little village on the way had nothing more than tins and biscuits. By this time we were craving for fruit and vegetables, which is so hard to obtain in this part of the world where the villages have electricity for 3 hours a day and where the nights are so cold that the fresh products freeze and go bad quickly! So we headed towards Ollagúe on the Chilean side of the border. It was however another 100km trip along another sand road which then led across Salar de Chiguana to the border. Yes this is the main road leading into Chile, south of the 'Salar de Uyuni'.

13.06.'06, right: Gabriel holding our 10 litre MSR waterbag, helplessly waiting for the sun to heat up the watertank so that we could get water from the dripping ice. We got up early after a very cold night in the tent to get water in Ollagúe. (our water supply had run very low). Upon arrival we had problems to get water because all the water tanks and pipes were still frozen from the night before.

After crossing the border into Chile we cycled along another 2 Salt lakes and then gradually dropped down to the mining city of Calama in the Atacama desert. We were happy to reach this city. For well over a month we had never dropped below 3300m.a.s.l. Calama was the right place for us to rest, there are plenty of stores and a huge shopping mall with cinemas. We dropped our stuff and immediately went to a nearby restaurant for a huge plate of salad and to watch our first world cup football match, Sweden/ Paraguay, obviously not without a huge beer! Back in civilisation! BUT not for long...we left after a day of rest and cycled on to San Pedro de Atacama (the tourist place), see next stage. 

For previous stage see: Central Bolivia (stage 27) , for next stage see: Chilean Altiplano (stage 29)