Hello,
My boyfriend and I are thinking about taking the route from San Pedro the Atacama to Uyuni in a few days. I was wondering if anyone has GPS coordinates that might help us. We have a GPS but no cable so we cannot download any maps...Also, we were wondering about how much fuel we need to carry with us and if there is a fuel station along the way. I read there was fuel at one of the islands..but not sure if that is still the case. At this point we still don´t have a map of Bolivia so not sure how many kms it is between fuel stations.

Any other tips about that route would be greatly appreciated. Any good place to camp or spend the night out there without freezing to death?

And we were also wondering if any north americans had gone up that way? Seems that we need a visa which costs $100 to get into BOlivia, but seems like maybe we will not get one crossing that border, so we were wondering if that has caused anyone headaches?

THank you very much,
jola and brad
jolaglabek@hotmail.com
Home

I can't help you with GPS coordinates... but Brad's bike poetry is great!!!! I can just imagine writing 'em while sitting through mile after mile of slab.

Enjoy your trip!

__________________
http://davegtravels.com - RTW on a DRZ
All the way south - Texas to Tierra del Fuego in '08-'09

Jola and Brad,

You look a bit crazy, aren't you!!!
First of all, are you prepared to the cold nights in this region in Bolivia?
Now it can be some degrees below zero!!!

If you leave from San Pedro de Atacama enter Bolivia by Hito Cajo pass and ride all the "lagunas" Verde, Colorada, Hedionda, Honda, etc, maybe you will not find any gas station on the way.
You can buy some gas, water and food from the Toyota Land-Cruiser drivers who take tourists from SPA to Uyuni to visit that region.
It´s a sandy road!!!
You have to have a GPS!!!

Places where you can stay without freeze:
Laguna Verde/Blanca - maybe ???
Salar de Chalviri - You can talk to the people who work at the admnistration to stay at night inside (I have stayed there), it´s in front of a small hot springs, where tourist bath.
Laguna Colorada - Maybe ???
Laguna Hedionda - there is a hostel there, but you have to bargain, so it was U$15,00.
San Juan del Rosario - this village we have bought gas!!! You have to ask to the people.
After this point there are some villages, then Uyuni Salar, Colchani and Uyuni town.

From this pic forward you can see some pics at:
rohden : photos : Moto-Viagem: Atacama Uyuni // Motorcycle travel: Atacama Uyuni- powered by SmugMug


If you really want to ride this southwestern region in Bolivia, later I can send you the famous waypoints (lagunas, salares, etc).

Have brains!!!

Reginaldo Rohden.

__________________
Ushuaia - 12.000 km - nov. 06.
Atacama Desert & Uyuni Salar - 8.000 km - oct. 07.
Carretera Austral - 10.000 km - apr. 09.

http://www.rohden.smugmug.com/

Thank you for the information and your photos on your website are really nice and it´s good to see how the roads look, interesting, but it looks really pretty and cold..

THank you for the GPS point offer, but we just managed to get a bunch from someone so that´s great.

However we have ran into a bit of a problem... We were coming to San Pedro across from Argentina, just north of Salta...Maimara I think was the town name. Anyhow my little Suzuki DR 250 has never been at that altitude (4700m or so), with me anyway. Anyway it went fine with just a few farts over the first 4100m pass, but then once we came down the pass a bit and all the way to San Pedro it ran like crap. We took the air filter out and it helped a little, but still in places going up the hill my boyfriend had to push it along with his feet to get it to move. So little by little, very slowly sometimes 30km per hour we just made it right before dark. Man it was cold up there...

Anyhow we were talking to someone about putting a different jet in the carborator, but we don´t have a jet...Think we´ll go to Calama, a bigger town 100kms from here and see what they have....any ideas?
Help...
THanks again and yah about Brad´s poems, I think only some of them are funny...
jola

Hi Jola,

When I rode to this region, we had a problem with our XT 600 jet, we had one, but we lost it!!!
So we put a wire into the jet hole, so less gas will pass throw it.
Some people in these high altitudes are usually to do this at cars, motorcycles.
But when you ride to a low altitude, you have to take it off.
If you ride on dirt roads, it´s not a good idea to take the air filter off, because of the engine.

Have a nice ride,
Best wishes,

Reginaldo Rohden.

__________________
Ushuaia - 12.000 km - nov. 06.
Atacama Desert & Uyuni Salar - 8.000 km - oct. 07.
Carretera Austral - 10.000 km - apr. 09.

http://www.rohden.smugmug.com/

Thank you,
we tried the wire idea and it helped a bit but we decided to try and find a jet to see if it would help more but all we found was a size 108 and ours currently is a 115, would you happen to know if that is to small?
thank you,jola

Hi Jola,
Maybe a 108 jet is still big, maybe a 108 with the wire will work better!!!
You have to try it!!!

Best wishes,
Reginaldo Rohden.

__________________
Ushuaia - 12.000 km - nov. 06.
Atacama Desert & Uyuni Salar - 8.000 km - oct. 07.
Carretera Austral - 10.000 km - apr. 09.

http://www.rohden.smugmug.com/

There may be something on this page to help you figure it out

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tech/carbjet

This link is down on the bottom left nav column, under Bike Tech (of all places!).

__________________
quastdog
Chiang Mai, Thailand

Hi jola and brad,

I see you've already got some points, but the route I took is here. If you have a slower connection/computer you may need to "refresh" a couple of times. You may have less of a problem going north, but going south there was a turning which I had a lot of trouble finding.

Also some photos here. I have to say this section was one of the highlights of a 28,500 mile trip!

Hope your jetting gets sorted OK. The altitude goes up to 5,000m. I only stayed one night, about 3 km SW of Laguna Colorada. I was tempted to try and complete it in a day, but got there about 4pm (from Uyuni), and what with the altitude/temperature and not being sure what time the border closed, decided to play it safe. Good job I did, it was -3C in the morning - I slept all night with all my gear on. Some people do it over three days. It's quite hard going, but should be easier on smaller bikes (although mine did have the advantage of making it from Uyuni to Calama on one tank of fuel!)

The landscapes are absolutely stunning though!

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Adventures on Two Wheels
Photos on Flickr
Video on Vimeo
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Here are some of my waypoints from the salar. They include some directional ones (go south here) and these are for a trip from uyuni to San pedro. You can of course reverse the direction and you should include them anyways since they may help you.

here you can get my garmin database with the points and my tracks

Having the wanderlust mapset greatly helps you.

Arbol De Piedra S22 03.109 W67 52.992 4585 m
Bol Aduana S22 26.452 W67 48.353 5019 m
Bol Border S22 52.434 W67 47.426
Camp Ende (gas,water,food,accomodation) S22 10.415 W67 49.117 4316m
Chilean aduana+border S22 54.665 W68 11.629
Colchani-Entry to Salar S20 18.001 W66 55.999
Waypoint EntrytoSalar south (approximate,but you cant miss it) S20 33.995 W67 34.499
followtracksouthhere S21 04.831 W67 59.809
San Juan (gas,water,food,accomodation,incagraveyard) S20 53.930 W67 45.915
Geyser S22 25.988 W67 45.704 4885 m
go south to here and follow railway S20 58.589 W67 45.934
go straight S21 23.609 W67 59.617
Hot Spring S22 46.945 W67 48.168 4330 m
IsladePescada(approximate) S20 09.956 W67 45.154
keep left S21 30.535 W67 51.695
keep south S21 44.924 W67 58.644
Laguna Blanca S22 32.140 W67 38.980 4422 m
lago colorada S22 09.692 W67 44.950
laguna verde S22 47.113 W67 46.591

__________________
Peter Kongsbak
South East Asia, USA, Central and South America and Scandinavia.

THank you for all the info everyone.
Well we just did a test run to Taito? Gysers here in Chile at 4,300 ft and my bike finally ran well. We put in a 110 jet with a wire in it. The 108 jet looked a bit suspecious, bigger than the 110 jet...Anyhow hopefully we are off to the Altiplano tomorrow. We have come into another small problem...my bike just does not want to start in the mornings. Thinking it{s maybe a bad battery, but we are not going to Calama for the third time, so we´ll just keep push starting it and hope to get one in Bolivia somewhere, if that{s the problem.
Well thanks a lot again.
If anyone wants to know what the road up to Jama Pass looks like my boyfriend Brad can tell you because he rode up there about four times testing different jets and wires, and screws, etc...fun fun

the cold will in the altitudes of bolivia will kill your bikers battery completely, so solve the problem now or live with it in the middel of nowhere!

Maybe buy a battery that doesnt fit and attatch it somewhere? If you cant get a new one. Maybe some local shop can check the battery?

Adjust the choke?

__________________
Peter Kongsbak
South East Asia, USA, Central and South America and Scandinavia.

Hi there,
Just wanted to say thanks for all the tips everyone and we made it to Uyuni....We did not find a battery in SPDA, so we push started my bike all the way to Uyuni, i would not recommend it...
We had a great ride to the hotsprings where we stayed the night in the hut above the hot springs and the next day went to San Juan, which was another story. We underestimated how long it would take us. I had a couple of nasty falls, broke the rest of my windscreen off and broke my clutch, while Brad got a flat, so we rode two hours in the freezing air trying to get to San Juan, me without a clutch and Brad pumping up his tire every 10minutes. But we made it.
Thank you again,
jola

Jola & Brad,

Despite your craziness, I´m sure you have enjoyed the bolivian altiplano, it´s unique!!!!

Best wishes,

Reginaldo Rohden.

__________________
Ushuaia - 12.000 km - nov. 06.
Atacama Desert & Uyuni Salar - 8.000 km - oct. 07.
Carretera Austral - 10.000 km - apr. 09.

http://www.rohden.smugmug.com/