Tarija to Tupiza

 Tuesday, January 5th

We got an early start, leaving our host's house at 7:30. On the streets of Tarija, our bikes felt ungainly, overloaded. On the way out of town we pulled over at a roadside food cart and ate a big cooked breakfast. We then biked north towards San Lorenzo. This was interesting mostly because we had ridden this section already, on Sunday, with our host and about 10 other Tarijan cyclists. 

San Lorenzo with Tarijan cyclists

It's rare to ride the same ride loaded and unloaded, and really brought home the difference the weight makes, even on relatively flat, paved road. Short of San Lorenzo, we turned off on the main road to Potosí, the nearest big city, perhaps 500km away. We spent the rest of the day on this road. The first 20 or 25km were flat and uneventful, except that Adie got a flat. Even with good touring tires, nails are nails, and there was one embedded in the tire. 

Flat fixed we soon began climbing. Our speed dropped to 5-6kph (3-4mph), and then pretty much stayed there, for hours. The climb seemed to go on and on. By about 1pm we were both really starting to feel it. Muscles tight, threatening cramp, eyes drooping. We sat down by the side of the road. Adie was practically falling asleep in his camp chair in the drainage culvert, but we ate some cocoa and some coca, and then traded painful deep-tissue calf massages before getting on the bikes again.

Soon, it seemed like we were reaching the crest of the climb. However, once over the top, we could see the road stretching out before us. First we faced a flatish section on a sort of plateau, but then the road began zigzagging up the face of a steep mountain. High above, the road disappeared; the tunnel we had been told about, presumably. 

After a few switchbacks, Lucy was beginning to slow. Finally she pulled over, spat out her cheekful of coca, and said "I need sugar! I've never wanted sugar so badly in my life!" This was particularly funny because all week (all semester?) Lucy has found much of the food and drink to be way too sweet. For example, Tarija is known as Bolivia's wine region, but all the wines we have tried have been absurdly sweet. Even the not-sweet wines are sweeter than any desert wine you would find in the US. So we dug around for some sugar, and found kiwis, dried figs, and a small amount of dark chocolate. I guess we weren't thinking sugar when we food-shopped! (Only the next day did we remember that we were carrying maple sugar sent by Lucy's mom...doh). Lucy made the astounding comment that she now understood the appeal of snickers bars to bike tourists (Something Adie has known since touring in France/Spain in 2011).

We pressed on, trying to remain distracted by the views, which stretched all the way down to the valley floor where Tarija is located. On one zig, an enormous condor flew by quite close, and then hovered above us on the thermals. Lucy pointed out that the condor is a sacred bird in Andean culture, so seeing one was good luck; we would make it to the top of the climb!

 And indeed we did, at around 4:00pm, after 6 hours and 1600m of ascent. This made it the longest climb either of us have done, by a good margin. 

We also found a little stream to refill water, before cycling through the tunnel, just under 1.5km long. Unfortunately, at the other side, when we stopped for a snack, we realized we had left a water bottle behind, so Adie went back. 

We then cruised downhill, looking for a place to camp. After a nervous night wild-camping on our test trip near Cocha, we decided that in populated areas, it would be better to ask someone where we can camp. So with some hesitancy we walked our bikes past some llamas into the yard of a small farm where a woman was standing with her daughter. We asked whether there was somewhere we could camp, and after some confusion about tent, etc, she pointed to one of the small buildings forming the perimeter of the yard, and said, "a dentro," inside. The room was under construction, with a rough stone floor, but it had a roof, and was out of the wind. We were very grateful. As we unpacked, the woman reappeared with mattresses and blankets! Then, when she saw our little stove, she offered us the use of her kitchen. We made a camping meal new to us (from a tip given by our Tarija warmshowers host), polenta with cheese and veggies. 

Wednesday, January 6th

In the morning we made oatmeal, but still hadn't remembered the maple sugar. We then hit the road, leaving the highway soon after. We headed down a long valley on a very quite paved road. 

However, all good things must end, and after a few km, the asphalt did. We also began climbing, regaining the altitude we had lost since the tunnel. Climbing on rough dirt is slow work, and the traffic began to increase. Many of the vehicles had Bolivian flags flying, and we realized they must be heading towards the Villazon/Uyuni area to watch the Paris-Dakar Rally (which is in Argentina and Bolivia this year, funnily enough.

After lunch we reached the top of the climb, at about 3600m and there found a National Parks guard house. We knew we would pass through a national park on this road, but didn't know anything about the park itself. We stopped in to ask for water, and were given it, but also asked if we had registered for entry. We hadn't but were able to there and then. They explained that the park contained salt lakes which were a haven for dozens of species of birds, including flamingos, that there were sand dunes etc. We descended down towards the lakes, then turned off before the first, planning on spending the afternoon riding around the far side of the lakes before rejoining the main road. This valley was impressive, long and flat bottomed, surrounded my mountains.

We saw many birds, but none of them were flamingoes. As we continued around the lakes, the road deteriorated, and was hillier than expected. 

Eventually we realized we would have to stop for the night. We poked around the first house we came to, and although it looked very lived-in, there was no-one around. We continued on to the next little hamlet, and walked around. Again, lived-in but no people around. Eventually we found an old woman, but she was deaf and blind, so we had no luck asking about camping. Eventually we found some people, lots of people, at the church. It was January 6th, the last day of Christmas, and we happened to turn up during mass! We waited til mass was over, watching a thunderstorm over the mountains opposite, then camped in front of a municipal building. During the night a dog started barking at us, and continued barking for hours! 

Thursday, January 7th

We continued on our loop around the lakes, heading for the main road but we also stopped to play in some sand dunes!

After crossing the valley, dropping to perhaps 3200m, we began climbing, on bad quality dirt. On rejoining the main road we were relieved to find it paved! As the climb continued, the asphalt ended. We snacked then continued climbing, with great views back across the valley. Past the summit (3800m), we quickly descended to the town of Yunchara. There we waited out some rain, and had a big lunch at a comedor. As we continued out of town, we were astounded to find ourselves at the head of an enormous canyon-like valley, with a switch backing descent stretching out endlessly in front of us. 

The descent was 25km long...

But more importantly, we dropped all they way down to 2600m, some 1200hard-earned meters!

This was unlike anything we have ever seen before, nevermind cycled!

At the bottom was a town, Tojo, where we filled water, lots of it, because we were told that on the other side of the valley, we would be climbing right back up again. Oh no! This is the problem with not having topographic maps...you just have no idea of what's ahead!

We camped in a dry riverbed on the other side of town, just at the start of the climb. The tent was pitched in a tight spot hemmed in by cacti and other very thorny plants.

Friday, January 8th

In the morning we tried to get an early start so as to start climbing before the day's heat began. We were delayed, however, by Lucy's discovery that she had a flat. That's the problem with thorny campsites! At the same time we also attempted to patch a developing side-wall rip in Lucy's front tire. 

We began climbing at 7:30, and climbed a couple hundred meters, before finding in front of us even more descent! The road then followed a river for about 20k on decent first, so that we didn't start the climb until 10am or so.

The ascent was less winding and perhaps a bit less steep than the descent, for which we were greatful. We continued seeing cars with Dakar stickers and flags, but this time returning back to Tarija. 

The climb was long and hot, and we went from about 2600m to 3400m, before cresting a ridge and having a strong suspicion that we had reached the altiplano! 

As the road continued, our ridge joined what was clearly the altiplano. It seemed very flat, after our days in the mountains. We rested and filtered water in the only shade we had seen for hours, under a tree, before joining the (paved) caretera! 

We followed a distant thunderstorm northwards, heading to Tupiza. We weren't sure how far it was on the highway, but expected some towns in between. What we didn't expect was an enormous descent....nooooo! We did enjoy the paved descent, hitting 70kph at one point, about 10x faster than we had been going the last few days! We found ourselves back at 2800m, almost whee we had started the day.

 At one of the towns down in the valley, we stopped in that plaza and got rid of our garbage, which included one of Adie's Crocs. The other had fallen off the bike, unnoticed at some point during the climb, and we certainly weren't going back for it! We also consulted our map, and it seemed Tupiza was not on the altiplano as we had thought, but further along the same river valley. Combined with the distance we had covered descending, we realized that although it was already 5pm, we could probably make the 25k to Tupiza before dark, and spend the night in a hotel! Adie was concerned the hotels would be full because of Dakar, but we decided to go for it. 

There was a headwind, and more hills than we expected, and it was also more like 30k, but we made it, exhausted and sweaty, at 7:15pm. We booked into the first hotel we found, a bit pricy, but with private bathrooms meaning we could do our laundry. We got dinner then forced ourselves to do laundry before collapsing in bed, after almost 12h, 110km, and 1000 vertical meters of cycling!

 In total from Tarija, 280km, half paved, half dirt, three big climbs, max altitude 3800m. And we thought getting to Tupiza was just the bit before the adventure started! 

From here, we had planned to head into the barren Southwest, to Chile and San Pedro de Atacama, which we expect to take 8-10 days. However, plans change! We spent the morning food shopping and looking unsuccessfully for wifi, but the town felt very empty. Most of the stalls in the market were closed, very odd for a weekend. We thought it might have to do with the 12th day of Christmas. Nope. Around 2pm today, we were cycling out of town, and found all the people of Tupiza thronged around the river. As we pulled up, we saw an off-road racing car tearing up the riverbed. Turns out the Dakar Rally is passing through Tupiza today. What's more, the route the cars (and motorbikes, ATVs, and full-on trucks) took to arrive in Tupiza was exactly the road we plan to ride! Since the road would be closed til evening, we decided to stay another night here.

 We hung around town, watching the trucks pass through town (now not in the river bed because recent rain meant rising water levels) and became somewhat of a spectacle ourselves. Lots (dozens) of people wanted to take photos with us. As we biked through town, Adie waved and "honked" as the truck drivers had been doing, which drew cheers from the thronged spectators. 

So here we are in Tupiza another night, at a different hotel, this time with wifi. And tomorrow we leave for real.