First day of Uyuni Salt Flat

DAY-193-194

5/13-14/2012

        We were both very slow moving to say the least, packing up all of our gear and I locked up my bike in the court yard stored all of my gear in their luggage storage. We had decided we would head to the Salt Flats which is a 12hr bus ride, we decided on the night bus. Our bus was at 7pm we walked around and got dinner and snacks. We got on the bus, I watched a few movies on the lap top and Mike was asleep within minutes. We arrived the next morning 2.5hrs earlier than expected, we got there around 4:30am. We didn’t want to pay for a hostel so we found a nice park bench and wrapped up in our sleeping bags for a little shut eye. We were woken by a lady sweeping around our benches I heard Mike ask her for a cup of coffee she was not impressed I just laughed. We walked around getting attacked by tour companies, we decided on one and went and got some food and coffee. Our tour left at 9:30am, our land cruiser took us to pick up 4 others to join our group. There was us, a couple from Portland Oregon although she was from Holland originally and two girls from Germany.

        Our first stop was a train graveyard which was awesome with amazing back drop of desert/ mountains crazy. We took some funny pictures, mike kept trying to pick up old train parts I just laughed and took pictures of him. They took us to a few small stops and towns on the way out to the flats. Once we finally hit the flats there was a lot of water at times to get through I was glad that my bike was not riding through these rivers and small lakes of salt water.  We stopped for lunch and to have fun with pictures, because of the landscape you can take some hilarious pictures.  

We continued on and at one point our guide was lost in the middle of a huge shallow lake of salt water with no reference points. He finally found his way out but as soon as we hit dry land we got out for pics and we all notice we had a flat tire. He went to change the tire and snapped the tire iron trying to loosen the lug nuts. We waited for another vehicle to help us out and were back on the road again. We made it to a small shack where we would stay the night with a nice mountain/ hill in the back so we all decided to hike up it and watch the sunset. We had amazing views of the salt flats from up top with the sun setting we hiked back down for food and sleep. Spent the night playing cards and getting to know each other. Oh yeah the shack was made up of all salt, the beds, chairs, tables, walls everything made from salt brick it was awesome.

THE GRAVEYARD

IF YOU DON'T KNOW MIKE, THIS IS MIKEY B AT HIS BEST HAHA

NOT A CHANCE MUSCLE MAN

LOVING MY NEW CAMERA

LOCALS COLLECTING SALT

RAD OLD CAR IN ONE OF THE MINING TOWNS

WELCOME TO THE SALT FLATS

GOOD AMOUNT OF WATER AT THE START

SALT WORKER COLLECTING

PRACTICING OUR NINJA SKILLS, HAHAHA

LANDSCAPES MAKE FOR AWESOME PICTURES

SUPRISE

MIKE LIFTING CANS

HAHA

I TOLD YOU NO MORE MAMA JOKES MIKE!!!!

I WARNED YOU!!! HAHA

WE HAD A LITTLE TOO MUCH FUN

FOUND A BILLBOARD OF PAPA IN THE SALT FLATS

EVERYONE RUN FOR IT!!!

MIKEYS BAG OF HEAVEN

GOES ON FOR MILES AND MILES

THE ROAD

LAKES OF SALTWATER  LEFT OVER FROM  THE RAINY SEASON

SPLASHING THROUGH AND GETTING A LITTLE LOST

OUR RIG

SALT ANYONE?

GOING FLAT

NEW TIRE IRON, ABOUT READY TO GO

HIKING UP

5 BUCKS IF YOU HUG IT

AMAZING LANDSCAPE

FUN SHOT

HIKING UP TO THE TOP

MADE IT BEFORE THE SUNSET

AWESOME SURROUNDINGS

INCREDIBLE

THE ONLY ROAD WE SAW THE WHOLE TIME DEAD ENDING INTO THE LAKE

GOODNIGHT FROM THE FLATS OF BOLIVIA

DEATH ROAD

DAY-192

5/12/2012

        We head out of the hostel to get picked up at 7:30am, there are 11 of us in two vans and bikes are on top. The bikes are Kona’s and we have an hour ride. We have a mixed group from all over the world and all ages; ranging from 13 to 40 years old.

We get to the top of the road and get out, we eat breakfast and they pull the bikes down. One guide doesn’t talk at all the other guy is a pretty cocky not so friendly person. The bike we were shown was a lot nicer than the bikes that were laid out in front of us. We were told they were all brand new 2012 bikes, I’d say more like ’08 and well beaten up. We get our gear and they start matching us up with bikes, a few are pretty nice. I get my bike suspension clapped out but oh well I ride around my back brake doesn’t work. I ask for a different bike, the guide tells me that the brake does work it is just locking up and sliding, I look at him and tell him this isn’t my first time on a bike I know what it feels like to lock up the back and it is not doing that; it does not work. He doesn’t believe me, so I hand him the bike and tell him to give it a ride. He does and I watch him try to lock it up right in front of me to prove his point but weird he just keeps rolling by haha. He comes back lays the bike down away from the other bikes and hands me another bike. This one’s back suspension is locked up and doesn’t work but oh well I don’t care just glad to have a bike that kind of works. We head off and the first portion is all pavement, we start off slow but the guide stays in front slowly going faster. I am dyeing laughing because good old’ Mikey is all over the guide and keeps getting yelled at every time he tries to pass him. Finally we get to go as fast as we dare, Mikey, I, and two others stay in the front chasing each other passing cars and trucks. It is fun to have a different experience once in awhile then sitting on my moto (although I miss it of course). We get to the start of the park which we have to pay a park fee and then load the bikes up for a quick transport.

The road looks awesome but not really that deadly looks like a lot of the roads in Peru that I have just ridden to get here. It gets its name because it used to be one of the main roads to get to La Paz so with buses and trucks trying to pass each other a lot of buses have rolled off thus averaging 23 people a year dyeing. Although since they have started bringing tourist down on bikes 16 have died. It a pretty bumpy dirt road with good drop off to the left, we only had one person in our group wreck and it was within the last 200 meters of the road, haha he was okay bruised and caught a rock to the neck so his whole left side was swollen on his neck. The ride took about three hrs on the bikes with lots of breaks; we finished at a hostel and a dip in the pool. The three hour ride back was on the new road which was smooth and fast.

We got back around 7pm and knew we were going to go out on the city. When we were walking back to the hostel I saw a DR650 near our hostel that I thought I recognized and stopped to talk. It was Patrick from BC who I had talked with on the HUB before I left the US and randomly met in Puerto Escondido. This place is crazy the clubs don’t really open and get full until about 2am and people don’t go home till the sunrises. We walked to the hostel bar which was packed at 10pm, met two awesome guys riding bicycles. One of the guys is Nicky who has been slowly piecing together the world on his bike on many different trips throughout his life. The other guy is Dr Steve who is on a 5-6 year ride around the world riding 6 Continent top to bottom. Please check him out at www.cyclingthe6.com. He has already been on the road for 2.5 years and had ridden from UK to Cape Town shipped over to Argentina and is making his way to Alaska. It is always nice for me to meet other guys who are traveling that are not doing the back packer thing they just gave a different mentality and is fun to hang out with and talk to. Patrick showed up at the bar and we talked and caught up playing pool, he has been traveling for 7 months as well. He unfortunately had just been in Potosi building a memorial for a fellow rider and friend of his Kevin who I met with Patrick in Mexico, Kevin was hit and killed by a Mining truck near Potosi Bolivia early April. The cops had told his parents he was passing a truck on a blind turn when he was struck by oncoming traffic, but when Patrick was building the memorial a family came out and told him what really had happened. A mining truck was passing another mining truck on a blind corner and Kevin had nowhere to go.  

Getting ready to shred

The Bikes

Nickey and Steve

Thats Mikey B, haha

He was not stoked to find me on his bike!

Best Painting ever!!!! Hahaha

Mikey gets to Bolivia!!!

DAY-190

5/10/2012

        Woke up ready to go find oil and a new back tire, after looking around and asking around I realized it was going to be more of a mission then I have encountered in other major cities. Although after a little more research I found a shop outside of town and decided I will take care of the bike after Mikey leaves. I decided this because he is bringing me a bunch of new stuff for the bike so I will have to work on it after he leaves anyways. I met a nice girl from Australia and walked around La Paz with her getting my bearings set for the city. I took a pretty easy afternoon and then had a little too much fun of a night and passed out excited for Mikey to get here.



DAY-191

5/11/2012

I woke up around 6am to go to the bathroom, when I heard someone on the computer down the hall. I peaked around the corner and there he was Mr. Mikey Benedict in Bolivia!!!! I was so pumped to have one of my best friends to travel with for two weeks. I quickly threw some clothes on and off we went, what the hell were we thinking nothing is open, not even breakfast joints till 7am here. We ran around for a bit ate some breakfast and drank some coffee. Mikey is a big Mountain biker so he really wanted to ride “Death Road” so we found a good company and signed up for tomorrow morning. We walked around visited the Witch Market, Alpaca Market, and the Coca Museum. I found out that Coca Cola still uses Coca in their product, just the leaves for taste. (Barely any, but still in there) We had some local Bolivian set Menu for Lunch and just walked around. Mikey was in a little shock I think, but you have to remember this is his first time traveling, he went to Belize once but it was to a friend’s house with his ex and they never traveled just sat on the beach (doesn’t count). We didn’t go to crazy had a few beers, played pool, and just relaxed. Passed out early so we were ready for the next day of biking. After a lot of talk and research we decided to change our original plan. We had been planning on doing a 10 day paragliding course in Cochabamba. Due to road blocks and the fact Mike has never had a chance to travel and see another country we decided not to spend his whole time in Bolivia in one place doing a course. So we decided we would take buses around Bolivia our first stoop would be Uyuni for the Salt Flats.

COCA MUSEUM

POLICE BLOCKADE

NICE VIEWS ALONG THE WAY

POLICE RIDE IN STYLE, WELL AT LEAST ONE ALL THE OTHER ON SMALL DIRTBIKES

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