After a breakfast of bread and cake for Paul, crackers and Dulce de leche for me (yum, this is really just condensed milk turned into caramel, and they have it everywhere in Argentina), we set off.

The difference in Argentina is absolutely astounding.  Gone are the tumbledown buildings of Bolivia, the indigenous ladies in their traditional clothes.  There are still plenty of indigenous peoples, but a large collection of European looking tall people as well.  The accent used when speaking their Spanish appears to have a Portuguese hard sound to it.

The road towards Salta took us through many mountains, once again showing an array of colours from red to brown to the brightest green.

The nearer to the city of Salta we got, the more busy the roads became, but the road network was mainly efficient and smooth running with not too many of the silly manoeuvres we’ve been seeing for months. The weather also improved, in fact, ridiculously after our 3 degrees celsius two days ago, we were now riding in 34 degrees celsius!

Along the roadsides there were groups of various sizes, who all seemed to be enjoying the weather and sharing a BBQ (or Asado as it is called here). The Asado is a tradition of Argentina, and Argentine beef is famous world wide. We cannot wait to try it.  Each Asado group were around a table lined with red flags, and looked like they were having the time of their lives. The smells were delicious.

Riding along here in the splendour, which has taken us by surprise we were both struck how like Spain the buildings and the whole feel of the place is.  Spain, perhaps with with a backdrop of Utah in the United States.  We feel at home already, and are looking forward to seeing what the rest of the country is like.

For now, we are in a Posada Viejo (old guest house) at the side of the busy main road, but we may as well be in paradise. We sit facing into the courtyard, full of trees and plants, with birds singing their heads off and just the faint hum of traffic.  Just the type of place we want to be.

Well, the day did not start that well.  We thought it had, we had a nice chat with a group of 5 Brazilian motorcyclists that had also stayed at the same hostal.  They were riding up to Machu Picchu and doing a round trip taking in some Dakar stages before returning to Brazil. They were extremely friendly.

We were trying to be away by 8 am, as we wanted to get to the border early. We had heard it could be adifficult and time consuming one. However, we were trapped in the parking area by the Brazilian bikes, and after chatting well…… it was a little later than that.

Still, off we toddled, gently away up the road, admiring the view when a car came racing up beside us.  Paul said ‘that’s the guy from the hostal’, and we both wondered what we had forgotten as he pulled off in front of us.  He had been a very friendly guy, but when he got out of the car his face was like thunder ‘you didn’t pay’ he shouted in Spanish.  Oh no! How awful, with the getaway we had entirely forgotten.  I suppose there could also be the bother of that sometimes we pay at the beginning, sometimes at the end,sometimes with card, or with cash.  This had been a cash only establishment, so the guy had no means of getting our money and he thought we’d done a runner. Of course, it was easily amended by paying (hmm, perhaps a fair bit more than we thought the bill was), but we were very embarrassed and apologetic.

Once that was over, we both rode away feeling stupid and not very nice, but hopefully the guy will know it wasn’t deliberate.

Villazon where we were to cross the border seemed to arrive very quickly, and we were followed to the crossing by a couple of other guys on BMW motorbikes.  They too were Brazilian Father and Son, and had been touring around together, before now making their way back to Brazil.  The father was very excitable and wanted lots of photos with the bike, with me, with Paul and his son. They were very nice and told us where to go to get the papers done, and even offered me suncream, as the sun had become dazzlingly hot by this point.

As usual the queue of people needing to go through migration was tremendous, but somehow Paul bypassed this and managed to get us stamped out of Bolivia, the bike out, us into Argentina and the bike in within an hour and a half. The only difference here to the other borders was that the Aduana customs people actually looked inside our panniers.  This is because you’re not allowed to bring food into Argentina.

So we were allowed to ‘vamos’ fairly quickly, turn our clocks one forward (we are now only 3 hours behind home), and rode onto our destination, the beautiful town of Humahuaca, where we are staying in a tranquil hostal, with beautiful plants and lovely people.  This must be the quietest place we have been for 3 ½ months. Amazing.

Oh My Goodness, what a day!

This is what adventures are made of…….

A short day ahead, we thought to ourselves, an easy ride along a road that looks nice, we should be there by early afternoon.

Little did we know: remember yesterday, when I mentioned that the Dakar Rally had booked all the rooms in Tupiza the town we wanted to head for?  No matter, we waited until today, and have a room booked for tonight….

Our first port of call was the ATM to withdraw a bit more cash to carry us through to the border. We followed the maps.me directions and found the ATM easily enough. There were two queues, one for the ATM and one to go into the bank.  Luckily, the ATM was shorter, and so only took 15 minutes or so.  We’ve discovered that the Bolivians enjoy a queue nearly as much as the British!

So, that was it, we navigated our way through the rabbit warren of streets, until hitting Highway 1, I settled into my chair, thinking that’s it we’ve cracked it, and then, all of a sudden we were in a traffic jam. Oddly, a very excited couple ran over for photos of us and the sidecar whilst we were queueing. The queue was actually just a mass of vehicles all at different angles.  Once the photos were over, we rode around the jam, and saw cones in the road. Is the road shut we thought? We edged further along and then saw tape across both exits to the road, both up and down.

We parked along the side of the road, and with that, we had an immediate audience of 15 or more people around us chatting excitedly and wanting to take our photo. Paul went off to ask a policeman what was happening, and I fended off all the people wanting to sit on the bike, touch it, photograph it.  Paul came back with the news that the road was shut to allow the service trucks of the Dakar to pass through en route from Tupiza to Oruro. The time then was 9.30 am and the road would be open again at 3pm!

We asked a few people if there was another route, but no, this was defintely the only one.  So what to do? Well, the only thing we could do, I got out my chair, and Paul perched on the bike, and we sat back to enjoy the show.  

It actually made for some great people and dog watching, whilst I think we also provided some interesting distraction inbetween trucks (all that staring). We looked out for any team trucks we might know, and saw a few, including one of Desert Rose’s customers, Dave Watson’s, service van. Paul ran over for a quick hello to them. We also spent a bit of time chatting to a really nice Bolivian guy who was following the Rally along all of its route, using the collectivo buses.  He had a Bolivian flag that he requested a photograph of us with. I heard people talking about us being German, and Paul was asked if we were Mexicans!

All was well, the atmosphere was good, people were enjoying the fun of the tooting and waving, and the various refreshments brought around by ladies carrying their treats.

After a while, we noticed that everyone was bundling their blankets around them, and picking up their possessions, and huddling into the sides of buildings.  By this time it had got pretty cold, and we had put on a few extra layers of hats and jackets.  I asked Paul, ‘what do they know that we don’t?’, to which he replied, ‘oh, it’s probably going to rain’.

Eventually even all the policemen ran to their cars or into the nearby cafe, and so we were the only two silly sods left out, exposed when the hail storm arrived! I sat resolutely in my chair, and Paul had a bag on top of his head as well as his hat.  Needless to say, being totally unprotected within minutes we were absolutely drenched, whilst the hailstones pelted our faces. The road was awash with snow, and water running everywhere.

One policeman asked if we wanted to get in the car, but we are reluctant to leave the bike, so said no, thankyou (always polite), but 5 minutes later a woman across the road (in shelter) and a policeman at the cafe door were both shouting for us to enter the cafe.  So we did, it was at least dry, and Paul could view the bike through the glass sliding door.  This door caused us alot of amusement as no one seemed to be able to work out how to open it, or if they did, they didn’t open it wide enough and became wedged in it sideways.  The local dogs didn’t seem to have a problem slipping through though.

At about 1.30 pm, the hail had gone, it was only a mild rain left over, and people looked like they were getting ready to move off up the road. We hovered a little further inside the cafe, and then made a dash for the bike. The seat of the sidecar was full of hailstones! Paul and I scooped them out with our hands.  Our hands immediately turned to ice. But there was movement, so we quickly put our helmets on top of hats, I jumped in, and we were off.  There had already been a number of vehicles let onto the road ahead of us, but we were luckily enough to get past these at the peaje station around the corner, where we do not have to pay, so they let us through on the wrong side.

The journey was to be 4 hours, however, we actually managed it in less time, arriving about 5.15pm.  Throughout the journey, the temperature ranged from 3 degrees celsius to 17.5 degrees celsius, and we kept riding in and out of huge rain pockets.

The time passed quickly, especially because there were still many Dakar Rally service trucks heading the other way.  We also saw another motorbike and sidecar, although the rider of their bike appeared to be wearing a gas mask on his face!

On leaving the Salt Hotel yesterday morning we bumped our way back down the 5 km of dirt road, over the famous ‘Ripio’ the South American name for a gravel road, corrugated with a washboard effect.

At the end of the 5km stretch which took us over a railway line, and up what looked like a completely vertical climb back onto tarmac, we stopped to check over the bolts that attach the sidecar to the bike.  Already, the one little devil had come loose, despite Paul tightening it as we arrived at the hotel. The bolt is one of the major ones from the bike, holding the sidecar in place. We would be in difficulty if it came out altogether. This, is one of the biggest reasons that we have decided against riding gravel roads as much as possible. The other reasons are because the combination of the bike and sidecar is very rigid, and therefore unforgiving when bumping up and down these roads. Very uncomfortable for both of us. We shall have to pick our routes with care, as the further South we go the more of these gravel roads there are, used as major routes.  Whilst a shame in some respects, we’re already compiling a list of places and rides to return to South America for (oh, and North America).

The 5 km stretch took us across a plain that was covered with Llamas with great woolly coats on.  This was their territory, and they roamed freely, but didn’t take to kindly to our engine noise, so would leap out of the way with their spindly front legs galloping off in all directions.  Like the reindeer we encountered in Norway & Finland they don’t seem blessed by intelligence when it comes to their safety!

The route took us through Uyuni, before taking us onto road number 5, another astounding piece of tarmac running through a geological wonderland.  Once again, we were riding mainly alone for hours, overtaking only two cars over the entire journey.  This is our idea of bliss, riding through this great earth, full of natural wonder, accompanied by only Llama, and surely what must be the hardiest of people to live in the tiny villages that appear occasionally on the roadside.

Once again, we saw many references to the Dakar Rally, and also this time the roads and roadside rocks were painted with reference to the Bolivian President Evo Morales, for whom there is a great respect and love.  President Morales is the first Indigenous President for Bolivia, and appears to be doing his very best to make it a better place for his people to live.

To us, the local people look as though they have very little, but the sheer joy of receiving a wave in return to my own raised hand shows that they probably have everything they need.  They are not chasing a new car, house, hairdo etc- they have what they have, and that’s enough, thank you.

We arrived in Potosi, and our aparthotel was a little bit out of town.  The nice lady receptionist gave us a map and an idea of where to head for something to eat.  We were pretty hungry, so headed off about 4.30pm, we took her directions and walked the six blocks downhill to the restaurant to find it closed. We tried the Chinese opposite, but they could not give us a menu, and told us to go up the road.  Tired and hungry, we settled on a restaurant with a board outside advertising lunch. We walked to the door to be greeted by an elderly couple practically blocking the doorway sitting in their chairs.  ‘Yes, come in, we are open’ they insisted. There followed a very entertaining hour, where we were fed a great dinner of rice soup, followed by spicy chicken for me, and ‘blanco’ chicken for Paul.  We have become a bit more daring lately about where we will eat (out of necessity), and feel we may be running the gauntlet of food poisoning, but undoubtedly these very basic types of places, with plastic tables and chairs make the tastiest food.  The gent and his wife bombarded us with endless questions, he was fascinated that we were from Inglaterra, Ingleses from Italy! He wanted to know what time it was there, while his wife was more interested in why we don’t have children (they told us 10-15 children is normal in Bolivia), what age do people retire, is it cold, what are the salaries of people there, that kind of thing.  

We thought it best to dash quickly back to the hotel, but there were no repercussions from the delicious food, thankfully.  We spent the rest of the evening trying to book a hotel in Tupiza, only to discover that the peoples of the Dakar Rally had booked all 32 places to stay for tonight.  We have therefore stayed another day in Potosi, but will cook our own dinner tonight!

Yesterday, we set off from Oruro, and headed out of town on Route 1.  

After following this route for 170 km, we turned onto route 30.  This was a stunner!  The road wound higher and higher, until we both were feeling very breathless again, but it was worth it, as it seemed like we were the only souls riding along this beautiful black topped road lined with Vicuna, and tiny villages, some pretty, some in disrepair.

In the distance we could see two sets of snow-capped mountain peaks, and they were our companion for most of the ride, as we skirted all the way from one side of them to the other.

At one stop, we discussed how everything that has gone before seems worthwhile when we arrive in a place like this, that perhaps this was the type of thing we’d had in our mind’s eye since setting off.  We’ve started to have a lot of ‘pinch me- I can’t believe we’re here’ moments lately.

Our destination was Colchani, a tiny village on the edge of the Salar de Uyuni Salt flats.  When we were about 10km from town, we could suddenly see a bright white glinting up ahead. We’d arrived at the famous place. Next week the Dakar Rally will be visiting this area, and as we rode along yesterday we came across a village that the Rally had visited last year.  There is a buzz around the Rally with some of the Bolivians, and they seem very excited to be promoting their country via this interesting and challenging sport.

The Salar de Uyuni is a natural wetland, which covers hundreds of miles right to the edge of Chile. It is possible to take your vehicle onto the flats and ride, but we have decided to give this a miss this time, as the salt is extremely corrosive to every part of the bike.  We also considered a guided tour, but the least amount of time you could visit for was 5 hours, and Paul was worried about being trapped ‘with people singing at us, in costumes’ again.  

Instead, we are staying at Hotel Luna Salada, right on the edge of the salt flats, which is extremely lovely.  It is extra special because it is made from blocks of dried salt, and all the passageways are lined with salt granules to walk on.  The views of the salt flats are exceptional, and there are picture windows everywhere to make sure you enjoy it from every angle.  Last night there were huge log burners lit all around the building, giving it a warm cosy glow.

We had thought that we would be crossing into Chile after leaving here, but we’ve had to change our plans.  The road to the border with Chile is 230km of dirt road.  Yesterday we rode the 5km of dirt up to the hotel, and were told the road would be the same as this.  Just riding that short way shook a couple of bolts for the sidecar loose, so this is most definitely not a road we should be using. Instead we shall head straight to Argentina, and start making our way South towards the bottom.