[019] Cycling the Altiplano (Part 2/2)
I'm travelling in South America. Here's what I'm up to, some photos and other bits
The thing about geothermal springs is they absolutely stink. I'm still trying to get the sulphur smell out of my clothes from the two nights we spent there. Targeted advertising has cottoned on too. All my ads are from Lenor and Persil, and their talk about 'boomerang' odours has got me worried.
Still, Termas Polloquere was an amazing place to rest halfway through our bike ride, and the spring provided some much needed defrosting facilities. We were told it got close to -10 in the night. Our water bottles froze inside our tent, and the wet shorts I hung on the washing line froze into cardboard pants.
It was day five and we were cracking on to the Bolivian border. We'd ran out of water and so were starting without breakfast (although we briefly contemplated using the mineral rich thermal water - hunger can alter judgement, and thankfully we slept on it). But as we were packing up, we heard the rumble of a truck, then spotted a CONAF truck appearing around the peninsula. Enrique was our hero baby. He'd driven 10km+ to deliver 10L of water after visiting the evening before and seeing our pitiful supplies.
It was an incredible show of kindness, and well received as the next three days of riding until the salt flats were some of the hardest. Distances and gradient profiles which you see on paper and think nothing of. But the altitude and road surfaces took everything out of us. Sand was the most physically demanding. In places wind had blown it into deep pockets, and combined with uphill sections it felt like leg-pressing 300kg just to keep momentum and not fall off the bike. Many times we gave up and pushed. At times it broke us, at times there were tears (a mix of physical exhaustion and our conversation topic).
We would eventually hit a flat road but the respite was short, as inevitably it turned into Rippio. We'd try keep spirits up, singing a few renditions of ‘Orange Juice - Rippio Start Again', but it would soon enough grind us down into a concentrated stupor. It was like cycling a fully loaded bike on a corrugated tin roof - bloody difficult.
But the scenery in these days was some of the best. We passed through dusty villages with beautiful adobe churches, descended through a verdant green valley filled with grazing Llamas and Andean Geese in a desert-world, and wound around steaming volcanoes. One night we made camp in an abandoned town off the trucker road as the sun set and the sky went through various cycles of pinks and purples. We slept well that night, choosing the best house in town fully equipped with 'en-suite', and were only briefly interrupted by the chatter of two truckers over a camp fire who’d had the same idea as us in a neighbouring house.
On our 7th day of cycling we set sail across the first of two salt flats: Coipasa, Uyuni's little sister at a mere 70km wide. It was an odd sensation leaving terra firma behind. Although our wheels were moving across solid land, there was a 2 inch film of water which reflected a beautiful image of the blue sky. Like we were utilising some Grand Theft Auto cheat code which gave us Jesus powers.
I felt something was going to give and we'd suddenly drop into an ocean, our bikes lost to the bottom forever. So as we moved further from the shore I glanced nervously over my shoulder, feeling that fear when you swim further and further from the beach, a fear that you are untethering yourself from safety and solidity.
Eventually the water dried up and we were cycling across bottom of an ancient dried up lake, the texture changing ever few kilometres: sometimes vast patchworks with a short raised perimeter of salt (easy), sometimes thousands of bobbles of hard dried salt (hard). Fear gave way for a feeling of calm melancholy. Not really freedom. More loneliness and detachment. But it probably didn't help that I'd stuck on a Colm Tóibín short story about a man flying back from New York to visit his dying mother in Ireland.
Eventually the heavy emotions settled and I was able to relax in the sublime environment. Blogs had talked about the boredom of riding the salt flat, but I really didn't find it like this. It was a delight to take in the clean nothingness of everything and watch the light change. We rolled into the ‘shores’ of Isla Incahuasi to make camp for the night - the last night of my twenties. Our shadows must have been 20 metres long as and the cacti inhabitants up on the island soaked up the last of the golden light.
The next day we rolled off the salt flat and that was that. A 600km ride across the Altiplano which delivered everything we could have hoped for. Stunning volcanic landscapes, barely any people, plenty of wildlife, and a bunch of incredible cycling.
What’s more, a wonderful new friend and cycling buddy in Izzy. We managed not to kill each other, even in the tough times. It was her laugh and positive attitude which carried me through many of them, and in the long kilometres it got me thinking about the wonderful laughs of my friends and family at home. What I’d do is go through them all, and imagine their laugh in my head. I was amazed at how quickly it came to me (quicker than their voice), and it made me feel very happy and loved. I really recommend giving it a go.
And so on my birthday weekend we arrived in the dusty town of Uyuni and enjoyed delicious Minuteman pizza (surrounded by pictures of celebs on the wall - well, two: Sam and Jo from Race Across The World and Anthony Bourdain). Our hotel felt like luxury purely from the fact it had a hot shower, and we fully utilised the TV on the wall, watching a string of films from our beds: Midnight in Paris (cheesy but good), Good Will Hunting (Robin Williams - class act), Lost in Translation (good karaoke), and Forgotten (a Korean psychothriller which you need to watch).
That was three weeks ago and right now I'm in the Bolivian jungle. Appears I've got a bit behind with the old blog but I've enjoyed some incredible things since - climbing Huayna Potosi, cycling down 'Death Road', winter solstice on Lake Titicaca. I’ll do an update soon enough, but I'm sure you are all moving comfortably from the edge of your seats.
Hope you’re all enjoying the English Summer and will be waking up what I can only imagine is a fabulously exciting new political dawn
Love
George