Day 22-24 Change of plans, Uyuni and going south

In light of the situation in Peru, a lot of the travellers on motorcycles that came with my container from Europe and the ones before me, have been challenged with surplus of days – so either I could extend (not possible) or cut down slightly. Now I’m waiting for the X-mas holidays to pass and get confirmation dates of the return of the containers (with my bike).

So I’ve decided to cut Bolivia short and head south again, first to Uyuni Salt Flats and then a short encounter again with San Pedro de Atacama before heading into Argentina targetting Ushuaia second half of January.

In short, the bike will most likely be on a container mid/late february instead of mid March – so I might cut off 2-3 weeks of the travel overall which is ok in light of completely missing Peru this time.

The long stretch through the southern part of Bolivia from La Paz to Uyuni again showed the large divercity of the population in Bolivia. Along hundreds of kilometers of road children and some adults where reaching out for a small contribution, something to eat or play with. Good samaritans on this Christmas Day (25th) drove to the remote places and handed out small gifts. After Oruro and heading for Uyuni the children disappeared from alongside the roads – and remarkable enough so did most of the garbage – but rest assured, it re-appeared in Uyuni city.

Being on a motorcycle I do have some succes in Bolivia – passing through police controls and road tax is easy – they just waive me go along. And I even had some succes with refueling – now understanding which fuel stations to look for. And a side note, cruising at 85 km/h on the Altiplano made my motorcycle run over 800km on a tank of fuel – normally I can stretch it to 550 in Europe. But is also seems as the quality of fuel on these YFBP stations are better – I was in line for 45 minutes the other day – and the nabouring station was almost empty of customers.

The city of Oruro did not impress me much. I got a resonable hostel with safe parking and breakfast included. So spending the afternoon catching up on the rules in Argentina, I went early to bed to get ready for Uyuni the next days.

Arriving in Uyuni was quite different than what I’d expected – at the city limit the roads turned horrible – but, well at least that kept the speed low. Garbage everywhere and the wind howling packing up dirt and dust. After fueling I checked in at the hostel, went to the bank to get more BOB’s and had a late lunch or early dinner. I had booked a 4×4 tour to Salar de Uyuni, as I passed the entry to the salt flats entering Uyuni – and from the sparse looks of it, I made, it seemed, a wise choise not taking the bike into the salt.

But what an expedition – from 10am to 8pm with lunch and drinks, very nice guide that as often as he could took pictures of the six of us in groups or individual. The Salar de Uyuni is impressive and BIG. I will let the images telt the story – if you ever get around then book this tour – it was only 50USD and we drove well over 200km that day.

The next days heading to Chile again and FINALLY meeting up with my daughter in San Pedro de Atacama. Will settle for a few days of nothing – checking the bike, re-pack/re-order stuff, arranging service and new rear tire, plotting the course through Argentina – and enjoying the company of Mads and Josephine celebrating New Year 2023.