Missing: One Beloved Tent

Yep, that's right. Our tent is gone. And when you're living on the road, losing your tent feels like losing your house. In our case, the house was two painstakingly hand-sewn tents made by Adie, the inner for our first bike trip two and a half years ago, the outer specially for this trip. 

Unfortunately, we have little to no hope of it turning up at this point (the story of the search is below) so we are back in Tupiza, where we have just ordered a new tent. The director of my study abroad program is returning to Bolivia this weekend from her holidays in the US and has generously agreed to bring the tent back with her! So our plans have changed, but we will only be tent-less for a week! We just have to get back to Cochabamba somehow to pick it up. And we will be without Adie's wonderful handcrafted house forever. 

So, the story. We set out from Tupiza early Sunday morning, expecting to be on mostly empty roads for 8-10 days until reaching Chile. We spent the next eight hours slowly and painfully climbing 1300 meters on a beat-up dirt road to reach what we thought would be the altiplano. But, our main lesson from the first week of riding is that Bolivia is very rarely flat, even when it's called a plain! So the view of the other side from the top revealed a sweeping descent to a dry riverbed, with steep mountains and valleys all around!

     Amazing rock surrounded us the whole way up!

     We made it to 4,000 meters! (That wasn't the end though...)

     One small section of the winding road. 

Given that it was already nearly five o'clock, we set off down the other side, hoping to find a protected camping spot in the river valley below. The road down was in even worse condition than the way up, with deep sandy ruts carved in every curve and loose rocks pretty much everywhere else! We found happiness in the fact that we were going down and not up it! If only we knew what was to come...

      The inevitable descent!

Upon reaching the bottom, we found a tiny community of llama farmers. The family that owned the one little shop kindly offered us space in their patio to camp for the night. Apparently they've had other bike tourists and backpackers sleep there before! We gratefully accepted and went to set up the tent, which is when we discovered that it was no longer strapped to Adie's bike! Our stomachs instantly dropped. Unfortunately, the tent had been strapped under Adie's saddle, in exactly the spot where he had lost a croc two days before... I guess we didn't learn our lesson. We searched the family's property, but it was nowhere to be found. Knowing that we had seen it at the top of the road when we put our helmets on for the descent, we decided we would have to go back and search for it along the 6km descent. All of a sudden, the wonderfully peaceful, empty road became a nightmare, as we realized that probably no cars would pass that might be able to give us a ride to the top. 

So, we set off on foot. One ambulance passed, but it was carrying a patient so it had no room for us. We walked and walked and walked, searching over both edges, fueled only by the hope that the tent would be waiting for us around the next bend. Somehow, the altitude of 3800-4300meters didn't even affect us! We just kept pushing on, feeling unable to turn back as it would mean giving up hope, even as we watched lightning storms fill the sky around us. 

At about 3/4s of the way up, Adie decided to take off running, while I kept walking because of my weak hamstring. After a few minutes I was finally able to catch a ride in the back of the truck, which carried me to meet Adie just starting down from the summit. No tent. Shell-shocked and exhausted, we began to hurry back down as darkness fell around us, hoping to hitch a ride and make it to the bottom before the storms hit us. 

Unfortunately, the bountiful generosity we have received here did not extend to the drivers that night. Only 3 or 4 cars passed us, but they were either full or didn't even bother stopping. Disheartened, we continued on, watching lightning strike closer and closer. When it became blinding, striking the ground right in front of us, we took of running, to hell with the hamstring! At nearly the same moment, drops started to fall, which quickly turned into a driving mix of rain and hail. We ran blindly down the hill, the road instantly becoming a sandy river and the light of our headlamps barely making a difference. Finally, after 2km of running, we saw a light ahead and new that we had made it. We stumbled into the store, through the flooded patio, and into a bare room where the family had kindly moved our bikes. They said it was nearly impossible because of how heavy they were! They stood watching as we fixed a bed in the corner, then brought in a bowl of soup for us to share. Once again, I was left feeling utterly overwhelmed with gratitude for their care and hospitality. What crazy, ridiculous gringoes they must think we are!

We quickly dropped off to sleep, but woke with the sinking feeling that it was not all a dream, which the soreness in our bodies was quick to prove! We slowly packed up while considering our options, but knew that the only thing we could do was go back the way we had come. All that work, and we would just have to go back down! But first, we had to go back up, retracing the 6km for the fourth time, and probably the hardest time yet. Exhausted and sore, we eventually made it up to the top for the last time, still finding no tent. We then headed down the other side, which was a very uncomfortable 2 1/2 hour descent!

      Struggling back up. 

Now, back in Tupiza, we are thinking of heading to the Salar de Uyuni to see the salt on our way to collect the tent in Cochabamba. We will probably use a combination of bikes/trains/buses to get back. It has been a rough few days, but the experience has taught us humility in many ways. And we will never leave anything not securely attached to the bikes ever again!

      If we're in a city, we might as well eat fruit!