It was a pleasure to get out of Cordoba; It was hot, busy, built up and over rated. Bob the Canadian, I had been riding with, parted company, as he wanted to head to Uruguay and I felt the over riding urge to head north. If I hadn’t have lost 7 weeks in Mendoza, I am sure it would have made an excellent detour, but there are still many miles to cover north.
Im reflecting at the moment about how the journey is coming together and in doing so I am naturally drawing comparisons with the last trip to South East Asia (CWR 1). There is something special about riding from your home to a destination, it feels very different to fly the bike somewhere, it just does command the same feeling of “riding off in to the sunset” type of escapism, and isn’t that why we ride motorcycles?
Im reflecting at the moment about how the journey is coming together and in doing so I am naturally drawing comparisons with the last trip to South East Asia (CWR 1). There is something special about riding from your home to a destination, it feels very different to fly the bike somewhere, it just does command the same feeling of “riding off in to the sunset” type of escapism, and isn’t that why we ride motorcycles?
However, now that I am fully back in to the journey, I have to admit that South America holds so much more for motorcycling than Asia does. CWR 1 will always be something special for me, as it was my first big adventure motorcycle trip. I don’t include riding across America on a Goldwing , that too easy to do ,and comfortable.
The scenery is so diverse, Im only halfway up the continent and the changes I have seen are immense. From some of the worlds largest glaciers, staggeringly beautiful mountains running with crystal clear rivers and streams , fantastic dessertscapes full of salt lakes with flamingos and volcanos, multi coloured rock formations tortured by wind and sand, the list is endless, and expletives truly cant sum up the beauty that you can see in a days ride. I dont think its as culurally as rich, when you ride from west to east you see such great changes in the way people live and have done for thousands of years, the religion, the faces, the clothing, change so much and its such an accient road . For thousands of years readers have gone between Europe and the east. 
So there isnt the cultural cahnge, of course there still is one, but the landscape that you ride through on daily basis and the beauty that brings with it , is very special.
My route out of Cordoba took me through some roasting hot dessert, which fortunately had the odd petrol station, that had AC and served espresso, so things were not to tuff, but at the end of the day I was feeling bloody naked with some borderline heat exhaustion. I finally stared to get some altitude as I approached the town of Cafayate, another famous wine district. A very cute little town set in a broad valley, very green and lush. Unfortunately I had arrived on a weekend when there was some sort of festival on. I say unfortunately, as normally in this part of the world, any party is a good party. But to cut to the case, most of the people here were rather loud and uncouth, I felt like I had arrived in some sort of Essex reunion, not too much culture around, apart from what was developing in the food sitting in the sun.
My route out of Cordoba took me through some roasting hot dessert, which fortunately had the odd petrol station, that had AC and served espresso, so things were not to tuff, but at the end of the day I was feeling bloody naked with some borderline heat exhaustion. I finally stared to get some altitude as I approached the town of Cafayate, another famous wine district. A very cute little town set in a broad valley, very green and lush. Unfortunately I had arrived on a weekend when there was some sort of festival on. I say unfortunately, as normally in this part of the world, any party is a good party. But to cut to the case, most of the people here were rather loud and uncouth, I felt like I had arrived in some sort of Essex reunion, not too much culture around, apart from what was developing in the food sitting in the sun.
The town square was even replete with hot hatches blaring music from there subwoofers ! It was like Saturday night in Basildon.
Heading out of town I rode through the Lerma Valley, one of Argentines most revered beauty spots. Unfortunately I have no pictures to proudly display, because it absolutely pissed with rain the whole way. All I got to see way some red hills being slowly eroded.
I arrived in Salta,wet and bedraggled and pleased to find a guesthouse with a good hot shower. Salter is an interesting city, there is for more of an indigenous feel to the place than in more southern areas of both Argentina and Chile;and you start to see that typical South American face, rounder, with a slightly pronounced nose and they are a lot shorter as well.There is an interesting display at the city museum, a 3000 year old remains of a sacrificed teenage girl. Drug induced, they would carry the girl to the top of the highest mountain in the area, in this case 6300 meters and entomb them there. Because if the low temperature, the bodies and clothing are still immaculately preserved, a bit morbid perhaps, but a vivid reminder of the people who once lived in this area.
While in Salta I discovered that I had a puncture in my back tyre, the first of the trip, thankfully,and I also fitted a new front tyre, an off road type, which I can assure you has made the bike feel much more stable and confident when on dirt road, but on tarmac it feels like I have a jellyfish under my wheels.
So I rode out of Salta wobberling and weaving down the road, and headed towards the Chilean border. Two days later I crossed the Paso de Jama, the highest point of the journey so far at 4830 meters. After processing all my papers and saying goodbye to Argentina for the last time the road slowly ascended to over 4000 meters and remained over this height for nearly 100 miles, in which time the weather started to close in and my thermal underwear was tested to the max, as snow and sleet started to fall. It is indeed times like this when you ask your self “ why the fuck am I doing this ?”. But nothing last for ever, good or bad and soon I could see the valley opening below and as soon as you start your decent your start to warm, perhaps physiologically, but you do feel better. At my destination town of San Pedro de Atacama, I cleared papers and found myself a descent campground. At an altitude of 2600 meters and set in the desert, San Pedro as a very agreeable climate and at night , one of the most spectacular displays of stars you will see anywhere.
The reason to come here is its surrounding dessert landscapes, such as the Valle De Luna and the near by El Tatio geyser field, which I visited the following day. You rise at 4am to drive the 70kms to the field and witness this endless supply of steam rise from the bowls of the earth as the sun rises. All very dramatic, but bollocks will I do that again at 4am. It was good, but not that good. As soon as I got back to town I hit the hay in my tent for some much needed sleep.
My next little ride took me to a place that I have always wanted to see, Chuquicamata copper mine; the second largest in the world, only just surpassed by another in Chile. To give it some scale its 4.5km long, 3.5km wide and 850 m deep , producing 630 tons of copper per year. But what I really want to see where the trucks that haul the rubble out of the whole. The world’s biggest truck, weighing 200 tons, with a load capacity of 330 tons. Engine capacity is 55 litres, producing 2770 BHP and 6 tyres that cost $40,000 each and are 3 metres high – simply awesome, I loved them. Valleys of the moon, steaming geysers, stuff it , just give me a big truck!
From here I headed towards the Bolivian border and the tiny frontier town of Ollague. This ride was spectacularly scenic, with volcanoes, some steaming, at every turn, the odd flamingo here and there, really beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable. Ollague had few pleasures or comforts to offer the weary traveller, but I was able to find a bed and some soup.
So Bolivia, it has a awesome reputation for being really tuff on riders and bikes, not to mention robberies and cocaine, so I crossed the border with a certain amount of trepidation. As it turned out the road was better than it had been in the last stages of the Chilean side which I was pleasantly relieved about. So I arrive in the town of Uyuni, the service town for visiting the world famous Salar de Uyuni, the worlds largest salt flats, covering an area of some 12,000 Sq Kms. Im going to be very blunt here;I was really disappointed, this is easy to say in hindsight, but if I had missed them I would not have been disappointed. Now it is rainy season, so because of this I was not about to ride the bike through 3 inches of some of the worlds most corrosive water, therefore I headed out in a Land cruiser .Perhaps if I had ridden across them I would have formed a different impression, this would also have given me the chance to get out there for sunset, which Im sure is more dramatic.
I did manage to get some nice photos, but I felt like I was just ticking a box on the must see list of South America. It never helps when you hear from so many people that something has been the highlight of their trip, it builds too many expectations, so my opinion and it is only an opinion; I have seen better. Perhaps they just need some big trucks!
I arrived in Salta,wet and bedraggled and pleased to find a guesthouse with a good hot shower. Salter is an interesting city, there is for more of an indigenous feel to the place than in more southern areas of both Argentina and Chile;and you start to see that typical South American face, rounder, with a slightly pronounced nose and they are a lot shorter as well.There is an interesting display at the city museum, a 3000 year old remains of a sacrificed teenage girl. Drug induced, they would carry the girl to the top of the highest mountain in the area, in this case 6300 meters and entomb them there. Because if the low temperature, the bodies and clothing are still immaculately preserved, a bit morbid perhaps, but a vivid reminder of the people who once lived in this area.
While in Salta I discovered that I had a puncture in my back tyre, the first of the trip, thankfully,and I also fitted a new front tyre, an off road type, which I can assure you has made the bike feel much more stable and confident when on dirt road, but on tarmac it feels like I have a jellyfish under my wheels.
So I rode out of Salta wobberling and weaving down the road, and headed towards the Chilean border. Two days later I crossed the Paso de Jama, the highest point of the journey so far at 4830 meters. After processing all my papers and saying goodbye to Argentina for the last time the road slowly ascended to over 4000 meters and remained over this height for nearly 100 miles, in which time the weather started to close in and my thermal underwear was tested to the max, as snow and sleet started to fall. It is indeed times like this when you ask your self “ why the fuck am I doing this ?”. But nothing last for ever, good or bad and soon I could see the valley opening below and as soon as you start your decent your start to warm, perhaps physiologically, but you do feel better. At my destination town of San Pedro de Atacama, I cleared papers and found myself a descent campground. At an altitude of 2600 meters and set in the desert, San Pedro as a very agreeable climate and at night , one of the most spectacular displays of stars you will see anywhere.
The reason to come here is its surrounding dessert landscapes, such as the Valle De Luna and the near by El Tatio geyser field, which I visited the following day. You rise at 4am to drive the 70kms to the field and witness this endless supply of steam rise from the bowls of the earth as the sun rises. All very dramatic, but bollocks will I do that again at 4am. It was good, but not that good. As soon as I got back to town I hit the hay in my tent for some much needed sleep.
My next little ride took me to a place that I have always wanted to see, Chuquicamata copper mine; the second largest in the world, only just surpassed by another in Chile. To give it some scale its 4.5km long, 3.5km wide and 850 m deep , producing 630 tons of copper per year. But what I really want to see where the trucks that haul the rubble out of the whole. The world’s biggest truck, weighing 200 tons, with a load capacity of 330 tons. Engine capacity is 55 litres, producing 2770 BHP and 6 tyres that cost $40,000 each and are 3 metres high – simply awesome, I loved them. Valleys of the moon, steaming geysers, stuff it , just give me a big truck!
From here I headed towards the Bolivian border and the tiny frontier town of Ollague. This ride was spectacularly scenic, with volcanoes, some steaming, at every turn, the odd flamingo here and there, really beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable. Ollague had few pleasures or comforts to offer the weary traveller, but I was able to find a bed and some soup.
So Bolivia, it has a awesome reputation for being really tuff on riders and bikes, not to mention robberies and cocaine, so I crossed the border with a certain amount of trepidation. As it turned out the road was better than it had been in the last stages of the Chilean side which I was pleasantly relieved about. So I arrive in the town of Uyuni, the service town for visiting the world famous Salar de Uyuni, the worlds largest salt flats, covering an area of some 12,000 Sq Kms. Im going to be very blunt here;I was really disappointed, this is easy to say in hindsight, but if I had missed them I would not have been disappointed. Now it is rainy season, so because of this I was not about to ride the bike through 3 inches of some of the worlds most corrosive water, therefore I headed out in a Land cruiser .Perhaps if I had ridden across them I would have formed a different impression, this would also have given me the chance to get out there for sunset, which Im sure is more dramatic.
I did manage to get some nice photos, but I felt like I was just ticking a box on the must see list of South America. It never helps when you hear from so many people that something has been the highlight of their trip, it builds too many expectations, so my opinion and it is only an opinion; I have seen better. Perhaps they just need some big trucks!
My next port of call, was Potosi, at 4060 meters, the worlds highest city,which back in the good old days of colonalisum, used to have the worlds richest silver mine. After it was plundered by the Spanish, and they were kicked out, it remained being mined, on a relitively small scale, by co-operatives workers. You are able to visit the various mines that are still worked today, to see the miners at work. It is not the most pleasent experience you will ever have, as the working conditions are quite medievel. There is little or no safety , with the miners working with no dust masks and the mine shafts held up with old bits of timber, for me it looked like hell and infact they do worship the devil.
I stod it for about 45 minutes before claustraphobier got the better of me and I turned tail for some fresh air. It was a great reminder, that as much as we may complaine about our lives in the west, we are bloody luck to be able to have the lives that we do. The silver is contained inside a mountain, and now has 450 sperate mines working it, none of which are mapped, so caulapse and cavein are a regulare accurence and all this for an average weeks wage of 4 pounds!
So I have now arrived in La Paz and am trying to arrange various tasks, such as posting home excess stuff, that I no longer need for my journey north and to the tropics, as well as getting my malaria drugs and some well advised rabies shots. From La Paz, I will be riding the worlds most dangerious road (alegadly) and the on to Lake Titicaca, then in to Peru, highly corrupt so Im told, I should get on well!
So for now, thanks for taking the time to read of my travels and hasta la vista baby, Im off for a curry, can you believe that La Paz has a curry house, best get the toilet paper in the freezer!
And please remember , if you want to see the photos in more detail, just click on them.
