Days 165 to 168: Uyuni, BOL to TalTal, CHL

Day 165: Uyuni, BOL to Laguna Colorada Ntl. Park, BOL (300 km)


Before leaving Uyuni, we checked out the local train cemetery, which is located on the outskirts of the town.

The first 100 km of the day were high speed hard packed dirt. Then, we turned off into a much more technical road, which was to take us all the way to the border with Chile.

The next few hours turned out to be the best riding I have done so far on this trip. The scenery was just spectacular: mountains, colorful lagoons, pink flamencos, perfect blue sky... The only places that I can compare it to is the White Rim trail in Utah (still my all time favorite), as well as the Salar de Uyuni.

The riding was epic, but not without a few problems. I had my first crash of the trip in a sandy section of the road. I lost my front wheel at about 60 km/h and went down instantly. Fortunately, it was soft stuff, so I didn't get hurt. The bike seemed fine too, so I hopped back on it and continued on. Only a little later I realized that I had damaged the right side luggage rack supporting the side case. Actually, I had noticed a few weeks prior that some fatigue cracks had appeared on both the left and right racks, so I knew it was a matter of time before repairs would be necessary. The crash just accelerated the process. 

Mihai had a spare tie down strap, so we used that to patch things up and we continued on. Unfortunately, no luck, the road soon became very wash boarded for many kilometers to come. With all the vibrations and the weakened racks, it was a matter of time before the other side failed in the same exact manner. Shit.

Another problem we had at this point is that, as the sun was setting down, it got increasingly cold (4500 m elevation) and windy, definitely not ideal for camping. We did come across a hotel in the middle of nowhere, but a double room was a staggering 120 USD, so we continued on. However, a customer there told us we should be able to find cheaper accommodation an hour further south. There was some hope, so we pressed on.

It was almost dark and no more than 5 deg. C when we reached the entrance to the Laguna Colorada national park. Bad surprise there, as the entrance fee was is a steep 150 bolivianos per person (about 25 USD). The good news, though, was that there was indeed a basic hostel there. For around 4 USD each, we got a bed and a big bowl of hot soup.

Even with the difficulties we had encountered, it had been a memorable day of riding, which will be hard to match, and never mind to surpass.

Day 166: Laguna Colorada Ntl. Parl, BOL to San Pedro de Atacama, CHL 

We had a pretty early start by our standards: wheels rolling at 8:45 am. The night had been cold; there were patches of ice here and there. We would have frozen our asses off if we had been forced to camp here on the previous day.

More cool riding for the first half of the day, but for me it was a bit spoiled knowing that my rear racks were in bad shape, and that a few more hours of wash boarded road could just lead to their further deterioration.

We ran into some geysers:

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More cool scenery:

We finally made it to the border around 1:30 pm. We soon find out from the border official that here we can only get our passports stamped out, but the temporary importation permit had to be cancelled in some booth 80 km ago. We didn't have enough gas and/or motivation to ride back there, and the official indirectly suggested there might be another solution... which ended up being 10 USD each and we were on our way. About 5 km later, we hit pavement on the Chilean side, which I was relieved to see, as my broken luggage racks needed a break from all the vibrations. The customs paperwork will be done in San Pedro de Atacama, about 20 km from there.

As soon as we got into Chile, we noticed that this is an industrialized country. The road was brand new, signs everywhere, and recent model cars and trucks on the road. We began our descent towards San Pedro de Atacama, and in a little over 20 kms, we went from an altitude of 4500 m to 2500 m, and it got hot. It was nice to have flip flop and shorts weather again, which we haven't had since entering Bolivia.

The customs paperwork was painless, and were were done in about 30 minutes. An odd thing worth mentioning  is that Chile is the only country so far that does not require us to have liability insurance... go figure. We pulled into San Pedro de Atacama, and started looking for a place to stay. This is where the initial shock came: this country is damn expensive! We paid 20 USD each for a 4 bed dorm room (shared washroom), dinner was around 15 USD each, and then gas....  close to 2 USD a litre!! 

Day 167: San Pedro de Atacama, CHL to Antofagasta, CHL (390 km)


Our first day in the Atacama desert. Brand new highway all day long, but mostly in straight line, so the riding was boring. 

Lots of mining and construction going on here. We saw a lot of heavy equipment being transported down the road.

We saw this tower on the side of the road. Don't know what its story is.

We rolled into Antofagasta around 4 PM. We were back on the Pacific coast for the first time since Montanita in Ecuador. We spotted a McDonald's, and couldn't resist. Two big mac combos later, we headed to a nearby supermarket to get some supplies, as we were intending on camping that night. This plan ended up going down the drain, as we couldn't find a decent spot on the outskirts of the city. We rolled back into Antofagasta when it was already dark, and ended up finding a basic hotel room for 50 USD.

Day 168: Antofagasta, CHL to TalTal, CHL (340 km)

Before leaving Antofagasta, I wanted to make sure that my luggage racks would be repaired. Therefore, we went looking for a welding shop. I ended up getting the racks fixed at a motorcycle dealership for 40 USD, and by 1 PM, we were heading further south.

The ''mano del desierto'' statue, on the side of Highway 5 (Panamericana).

Did I mention that the riding was boring?

It was too windy to camp in the desert, so we opted again to look for a hotel. We found a room for a reasonable 30 USD in the small town of TalTal. Nothing more to report about that place, other than a nice view on the coast.