Now in Sucre
 

Hi Maria,

We're now in Sucre. Tried to cross the Paso de Jama a few weeks back in an attempt to reach the Salar from the Western side, but were turned back at Argentine customs as the pass was closed as a result of snow. Full story on our last blog.

Instead crossed into Bolivia via La Quiaca. Heading towards Santa Cruz after more Spanish lessons here in Sucre and on to the Pantanal via Corumba. Will return to Bolivia late next month (?) via Paraguay and cross the Salar then. Hopefully it'll be a little warmer and less windy by then, going by recent reports!

Drop us a mail if you're in the area, would be good to catch up for a beer...or two!

Cheers, Hame & Em

Now?
 

Anyone nearing Uyuni soon?

I am waiting 2 days for parts in La Paz and then heading there in 5-8 days depending on whether I go via Potosi.

cheers

Fernando we are currently in Arequipa, planning to cross the border mid next week. You can email me at: maria "at" franglais-riders "dot" com.
We may be around Uyuni at the same time that you guys. Keep in touch if only to meet for a beer! :funmeteryes:


MikeS thanks for the tips. We´ll see how it goes there! I´m not too rubbish at dirt but sand or dip gravel terrify me so I think I will be going through a big learning curve and cursing all the way!!! :scared:
How did Michelle managed? IF a girl did it and tells me it´s fine it will do a lot for my confidence! I´m not like you guys with long legs and big muscle! I´m only little and on a bike too big for me :scared:

Hello all,

I am in Huaraz, Peru looking forward to my visit to the salar when the situation around Lima & Ica clears up. Expect to be there somtime in the next 2-4 weeks and hope to bump into some of you in the these parts too.

Cheers,
Daren

We are currently in Sucre. We should get to Uyuni in a of couple of days if we can leave town (lots of streets protests and road blocades here!).
We plan to go around the Salar but have decided against the ride to San PEdro de Atacama.It is just too hard for me. We will ride to Tupiza and from there cross the border by Villazon.
Anyone could put the coordinates of the Isla Pescado here? I don´t have software for my GPS so it is useless for me to get in a format other than Wx.xx.xx and Sx.xx..xxx if you see what I mean!
Anyone around Uyuni in the next few days?
Cheers,

Ah Maria, no worries - don't need GPS coords for Isla Pescado. From Uyuni you go north to Colchani. Just follow the tracks straight east from town out to the Salt Hotel. From there any tour driver can tell you which track to follow to the Isla. I stayed on the tracks pretty much, figured it would cut down on the salt being thrown up from the tires. From the Isla, you follow another track back to where you want to wind up. Trying to make your own route off the Salar, you're likely to get into the mudflats that surround the Salar, so stick to the tracks to exit.

Have fun (maybe I'll see you in Mendoza?)

Chuck thanks! We´ll follow your advice.
We made it out of Sucre today, with difficulty due to at least 20 blocades on the way. It was not that easy to squizz through but we managed and in one we pleaded "we´re only tourists!" and they moved a car. No way we could have gone through otherwise!
We should head for Salta once we cross the border. Are you still there? Did you fix your bike? We don´t have precise plans after that. Maybe spend a bit of time in northern argentina (testing the local wines!) before going to south Brazil for a while... keep in touch!
Cheers,

Maria:

I'm in Mendoza, Arg. where there's a BMW bike dealer, along with lots of BMW riders (policia use the 650, so good supply of common parts for your bikes). Also, some good other BMW mechanics. I'm having work done at one now (RPM, on Francia, off Beltran), bike will be ready tomorrow (all the work I described earlier, nothing else found). I broke my sidestand (hit a rock on Ruta 40, broke off the welded tab that the springs connect to, so without spring tension, it fell off). With that gone, bike was a pain (since I also broke my center stand in Ecuador).

I'm planning on staying here in Mendoza a couple weeks, for some R & R. Currently in Hostel Independencia, off Plaza Independencia.

Maybe you'll catch up to me here? After Bolivia, you'll find the food and vino to your liking - prices are reasonable (after Bolivia, everything else is....well, expensive).

I have a cell phone so if interested PM me and I'll give you the number.

Ride across the sucker? What borders are staffed?
 

I was reading this for route planning as i`ll hit that area in probably 2 days, and found that all the town names/routes mentioned in the thread are not actually across Salar De Uyuni. Doesn`t anybody ride across it for fun, or is that a given?
Or just ride across it until you`re bored and then the really good part is the route of Uyuni to SDPA?

I`m riding southbound in Chile and so my preferred route would be to enter near San Pablo de Napa, west of the lake, and then i guess; Empesa, San Pedro de Qeumos, San Juano,
Alota, Quetene Chic, Campamentio Ende/Laguna Colorada. (i don`t have the map in front of me so please excuse the spelling)
Is there a road west of Laguna Colorada to Linsor (not on my map), or is it only possible to continue southto Hito Cajon, and then West to SDPA?

Anyone know if the border near San Pablo de Napa has officials there/staffed, and if so, permissable for foreigners? And what about the border near SDPA? If San Pablo isn`t staffed then it would be easier to re-enter Chile at a point with no offiials since i would not have had permission to enter Bolivia.

Thanks

Everyone rides across the Salar for fun - its a given. Riding across the salar is easy - its the worlds biggest parking lot. Its getting there, and leaving again that's the challenge.

This is the main 4-wheel jeep tour route. Its got all the good stuff on it, that the tourists are paying to see - arbol de piedra, salvador dali desert, the flamingos, lagunas, etc. Otherwise, not much to stop and look at. Lago Colorado has overnight accommodations - important if you don't have a sleeping bag that is good down to -20C - or a bike that will start after sitting out all night in that cold and the wind. Its 3 days to go from Uyuni out on the Salar and down to SP de Atacama. Day two from San Juan to Lago Colorado is a long, tough-ass ride.

There is no gas out there. Uyuni and San Pedro de Atacama are gas points and its over 350km between these two points. Other people have come from the north and west - there's jeep tracks across the salar from those points. but where do you fill up with gas? I can't answer that for you.

Don't know anything about Linsor - not on my map either. Can't be much of a place, since most of the places that are on the map "aren't much of a place".

I have no firsthand knowledge about SP de Napa.

There's an immigration station near Hito Cojones, but no aduana for the bike. TheBigJ turned in his bike paper here on the way out of the country; they said they'd take care of it - turn it over to the aduana people. I turned my papers in about 60 km before the border crossing, just north of the Geiser sol de Manana, at an official aduana office at a mine. There's a sign along the road to/from Lago Colorado for the mine (which mentions aduana as well) - the mine is about 8km "off route". They can issue papers on the bike there. If you get into the country without doing the temporary import docs at either the border or the mine, it may be possible to do it in Uyuni, but that's just something I heard, not something I can say for certain. Ask the immigration guy at Hito Cojones.

Again, in summary: Whatever route you take, you have to figure out where you are going to stay in the cold, what to eat, deal with the gas situation. The easy part is riding the Salar. The hard part is all the rest.


Here's some GPS points/elevations

HTML Code:

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Salar de Uyuni (island)  S20.24091 W67.62763    3672m
San Juan                  S20.89965 W67.76643    3700m
Arbol de Piedra          S22.05193 W67.88298    4588m
L. Colorado (No huts)    S22.16737 W67.82033
L. Colorado (So huts)    S22.26378 W67.82033    4346m
Mine/Aduana Office        S22.44164 W67.80683    5035m
Geisers                  S22.43438 W67.75760    4860m
Hot Springs              S22.51405 W67.64818    4419m
Border (Hito Cojones)    S22.88102 W67.79839    4487m

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Visiting the Salar from Chile
 

Thanks for the response quastdog. I read it before i left Arica and so carried and extra 2 gallons from Pozo Almonte, just east of Iquiue. The last fuel station heading east from the Chilean cost is Pica, but this is of little advantage since it is a longer route.

I intended to enter Boliva at San Pablo de Napa, but when i got to Pircas de Coposa i wasn`t sure of where the track started (tarmac until then) so rode to the SW corner Salar Coposa or advice at the only building. It turned out to be the Frontier Police and the guys out front had already seen me so i thought i better stop at them and ask. They advised that crossing at San Pablo de Napa is illegal as not officially a crossing and no border staff on either side. They recommended i cross at pueblo Ollague, and showed my their detailed maps as encouragement. And topped up my 2 gallons of fuel (160km to that point), and gave me water and a police issue balaclava for the cold. Basically they knew they couldn`t stop me from crossing where i like but were instead really nice guys, and so i couldn`t really cross at San Pablo de Napa after that as they`d see my dust going north even if i road around the lake, and plus incase something went wrong and i had to come back to them and look them in the eyes! If you do want to cross at San Pablo de Napa the trail starts next to the weather station, so just don`t visit the Frontier Police first! I´m sure you cross between Chile and Boliva wherever there is a low point between the mountains (roughly the border line) as there are many trails made since the valleys are reasonably flat and treeless.

The track to Ollague too about 2 ½ hrs and was well signposted as i think the Frontier Police are paranoid about people crossing the border on another track, and otherwise most of the land west is owned my mining companies. The restaurant also had a few good rooms with bunkbeds and hot showers. If it wasn`t cold enough, the wind in each afternoon was fierce! The 70km from Ollague to San Juan is easy enough as all tracks basically keep the train line in sight and is 4th/5th gear across salt pans. I was recommended by San Juan residents to visit Salar De Uyuni at the trail across it, which goes roughly from the northern part of the track to Aguaqizz, where this track runs alongside the lake, to Colchani. Where the track runs alongside the lake is a (dodgy) hotel by the name of Chullpas S20`36”.313, W67`35”.008 that has a raised earth car road going about 5km toward Cholchani i you don`t want to ride on the salt for to long but get more toward the centre. Probably the best way to see the lake would be to ride across it from Colchani to Chullpas, although you would have to go slow on the west side at least since there are wet areas that would be very boggy. And you`re bike would be as salty as riding in the UK in winter (they put a lot o salt on their roads).

Now from San Juan to Laguna Colorada i took the wrong track at some point so found a new route that way too! About 40mins south of San Juan the road split with the east directtion stating San Augustin, and the south direction Cococobana. Once i got to Cocobana (21`14".303 W67^47".839) a guy there advised me that Villa Alota was about 10km due east of there, but to get there you had to go some distance south and then north as mountains in between. I had intended to buy fuel at Alota (said possible in San Juan) but now just continued on and this trail provided some excellent scenery. I passed 3 lagunas, with one of them being about 3 times the size of Laguna Colorada and only a mining company owned house on the shore (S21`41"974, W67`47".050). There was a young employee of Borax mining company living there, as a caretaker of the laguna from what i could work out, and he happily let me stay in one of the rooms overnight. It was 3hrs from San Juan. I then kept guessing my way south for 2hrs until i hit the east-west track between Laguna Colorada and Quetena Chico at a mining camp, about 20km east of Laguna Colorada. By this point i`d done 650km and had about 1 litre of fuel left(!) but this mining camp would only give me 1 more litre to get me to Laguna Colarada, at where i saw no occupied building and so no fuel(?). A few people travellers recomended i continue south but then i ran out of fuel on the top of the mountains and had to wait a while for a gasoline 4wd that would sell me 1 litre to get me to the mine processing plant where aduana is, and there they appear to have a system in place to sell anything from their workshop to passers by, including fuel.

The road from here to the Chile border is wide and recently graded, so also very easy in 4th or 5th gear. Most of the trails i was on in the Salar de Uyuni area were in good condition and fast, so i think many have been graded recently for mining trucks to use. Only a few areas was it sandy, and you`d be a little nervous and slow i 2 up on a twin, but otherwise i hope no one avoids the area thinking it will be difficult.

And most of the towns and mining camps have fuel, it`s just finding the person with it or persuading them to sell you some that is difficult! So stock up on fuel and food and enjoy!

One comment on Simon post.
It is not a good idea to cross Chile - Bolivia border in unauthorizes pass.
The reason is that due to serious problems in the past between the two countries, there are land mines fields at least on the chilean side.
Be careful

That is a very persuading point Tires. I will make sure to use the proper road when I get there...

We carried 10L each spare gas but I got us some more gas (about 15L) in Villa Alotta from the wee hostel place we stayed in, the folk who live there need gas too so if you ask around, I'm sure someone will sell you some, perhaps at a slightly higher rate than you normally would pay. I also had to siphon the gas out a barrel before breakfast too!

The other thing is that the tour jeeps carry fuel too and a German guy we were traveling with also stopped one and bought a few liters off one off them.

Crap, that's pretty cold. Is that regardsless of season? Also, does that mean that most people travelling the Altiplano don't tent it and have to plan their stages between town accomodation instead?