Horizons Unlimited - The HUBB - Salar Uyuni wihout GPS: A warning

In short if you are going to ride across the salar without GPS stick to the main routes..

The idea:

Enter from Colchani, 20ks north of Uyuni, then pretty much west to the Island in the middle and then straight north to the Volcano. .........Easy.

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It was what I had planned, but of course it went wrong, it all went wrong.

I was cruising along on the salar at 120. When I left the salar at the north just below the Volcano I was back on rocky winding roads not even doing half that speed. I thought I'll just go back on the saler and continue further east and then come off again. I asked one of the tour 4X4s was it possible to exit at Jirira and the towns further to the east

"Sure!"

So off I went on the hard flat salt at 120 again.. Plain sailing, like it had been all day. A pure joy to ride across. but it all went pear shaped.

The ground got wetter and wetter.

I decided to head a bit further into the Salar, away from the side of the volcano that I was hugging as I headed east by northeast.

As I got further away from the edge of the salar, I go drier again

.. for a while, then it just got worst until I was driving through lakes of salt water. The bike was being completely caked in salt water and I feared getting stuck in a sink hole. I turned around and abandonded my Idea of leaving to the north of the salar, I had to get back to Uyuni to get the bike powersprayed immediately.

I went back the way I had come and soon I was out of the wet part. Uyuni is in the south east corner, I decided to head south by south east. I had a (cheap) compass that I used combined with the sun going down in the west to navigate. I rode for miles and miles and soon I was against the east side f the salar. No sign of Uyuni. I had headed more east than south east. It was tough going navigating out there against the clock, sun going down...So now I was headig due south along the east side of the salar. I had not seen any 4X4s since I had been at the Vocano. Alone, I had no Idea how far north of Uyuni I was. It is seriously disorientating out there when your not on the established tracks. At one point I even wondered if I might be south of Uyuni. As I headed south the ground below me got real soft. The bike was sliding from side to side and digging in, huge arching fishtails. Soon the back wheel was half buried in mud and the next 40 mins was spent unloading pushing the bike from the pannier frame at the rear and reloading. ( Argentina2Alaska's Photo Albums at Footstops.com - Free Travel Map & Photo Blog for Travellers )When I was ready to head off again it was almost dark. Although I wanted to get on to Uyuni to powerspray the thick salt off my bike asap I resigned myself to spending the night on the salar, set up tent, bury snow flaps etc. brew up some mate..Try to sleep. it was a cold night, then next morning I found a track back along the side of the salar. I was 50ks north of Uyuni and the ride south to Uyuni was deep sand and difficult.

Anyway I have waffled on a good bit now so I'll end by saying.

The salar is definitely worth it but if u go and u dont have GPS ... keep it simple, dont try shortcuts and try not to have to camp out there, its cold.