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Photo by Marc Gibaud, Clouds on Tres Cerros and Mount Fitzroy, Argentinian Patagonia

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Photo by Marc Gibaud,
Clouds on Tres Cerros and
Mount Fitzroy, Argentinian Patagonia



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Old 10 Jan 2019
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Accomms San Pedro to Uyuni
Hi All


We will be San Pedro de Atacama early November and want to head up to Uyuni after that. I reckon it's a 2 day ride with the border to cross etc so will need an overnight somewhere.



Normally I would try to stay near the border the night before, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot near or in Ollague, and things are further complicated by the fact that there will be six of us on three bikes - hence the forward planning.


Any advice appreciated, just don't send me down sandy roads...
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Old 10 Jan 2019
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There are two hostels listed in Ollague on iOverlander. El Tambo and Hostal Atahualpa. Both get good reviews it seems.
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Old 10 Jan 2019
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Thanks for that, wasn't familiar with iOverlander - how could I not know about it???
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Old 10 Jan 2019
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I could not find an open hostel in Ollague when I rolled thru there a year ago.

What we did is we camped on the Salar and then we rode to Calama, deep into Chile in one day.

Savour this ride as it is unique. The sky at night there is out of this world so I highly recommend you camp if you support the 4000 meter altitude.

There are no roads (just tracks) on the the Bolivian side but the pavement starts in Ollague at the border.

Dont fall for the "fee" to leave the country from the Bolivian border agents.
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Old 10 Jan 2019
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OK, so perhaps there may be problems as we will not be camping this trip. What are road conditions like on the Bolivian side for a heavy bike two-up if we go on the 701?
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Old 10 Jan 2019
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Originally Posted by jfman View Post
I could not find an open hostel in Ollague when I rolled thru there a year ago.

What we did is we camped on the Salar and then we rode to Calama, deep into Chile in one day.

Savour this ride as it is unique. The sky at night there is out of this world so I highly recommend you camp if you support the 4000 meter altitude.

There are no roads (just tracks) on the the Bolivian side but the pavement starts in Ollague at the border.

Dont fall for the "fee" to leave the country from the Bolivian border agents.

My information is very stale, so take with the usual large grain of salt. When I was there 10 years ago there was an hostal next to the main road on the Chilean side of the border. More recent reports have described another place in town.

More to the point, there were definitely actual roads on the Bolivian side leading from Uyuni to Ollague--big fat roads with occasional shallow sand, bits of water, and lots of washboarding. This might not be the case if crossing the salar(s), but it's an option, particularly since you're riding 2-up. There are also routes which skip Ollague entirely, entering Chile high in the desert to the east of San Pedro de Atacama. These are more difficult, and might not be the sort of thing you have in mind.

I rode from Uyuni to Calama in a single push. It would have been fine except for the border guards going on strike for a few hours during the afternoon, which resulted in some night-driving and significant exhaustion on my part. I don't know whether there is lodging between Ollague and Calama, but it might be worth looking into this just in case you, too, are delayed for whatever reason.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark
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I'm going to have to fire up Basecamp and check out the routes on the maps I downloaded - certainly Google Streetview seems to show roads like you're describing.


San Pedro is about 300km from the border, and the other four are relative novices so I want to cross early so we can have the whole day to get to Uyuni. I'm beginning to understand why tourguides have that slightly haunted look about them...
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