Volcanoes, Hot Springs and Gastrointestinal Illness: Part 3

Jan 29 - Feb 2: The Return from Tambo Quemado to Oruro

From Tambo, the excellent descent continued until we turned off onto dirt, into the Parque Nacional Sajama. 6500m, glaciated, and just an impressive looking peak. 

We found a cheap place to stay, with a nice woman who also provided dinner.

Jan 30: Sajama

 In the morning, Adie awoke to distant music and shouts of "naranja, naranja, naranja," a traveling fruit truck was in town! Most villages in the altiplano have no fresh produce available. So Adie jumped out of bed and jogged towards the sound, returning with mango, peaches, bananas and lime. We made a delicious fruit salad for breakfast, an excellent belated birthday present! 

Sajama, from Sajama. The mountain dominates the skyline and is visible from everywhere in town.

After the forced-march feeling of our time in Chile, we decided to take a rest day in Sajama, which we spent at the local hot springs, a 7km, unloaded, bike ride away. Rather than pay for entrance, we just lounged, ate and read in the stream below the hot springs, which was a perfect, relaxing temperature.

In Sajama, Adie also discovered a second rack-breakage. One side of the funky under-seat rack he had made was broken where it bolts on. Some rack-rethinking may be in order, but, as we discovered when looking for a rack for Lucy in Cochabamaba, options are limited. 

Jan 31: Sajama to wild-camp near Tomerapi

We decided that, rather than head back to the highway, we would bike around the far side of Sajama and join the highway further east. The weather had definitely changed. It was snowing on the mountains around, and threatening rain where we were, in the valley. 

We stopped at the church in Tomerapi, which had these very cool flying buttresses. 

While snacking there, a National Parks employee approached us and asked to see our tickets. What tickets? Where we had entered the park, there was a big sign and map, and a small hut, but it was closed up. Turns out we were supposed to have tickets, 100bs each for foreigners. Trouble was, we were again running out of money! The guard agreed to charge only one of us, in return for an extra 20bs "to not say anything." That left us with about 120bs to spare, and 150k to the nearest bank. Whoops. 

We continued biking but camped early as Lucy was exhausted. Perhaps her illness wasn't dealt with after all. In the evening the rain hit us, but we were comfy in our spacious tent. 

Feb 1: Tomerapi to Curahuara de Carangas

We emerged from the mountains onto the altiplano with the weather again looking threatening.

The ride to Curahuara was mostly uninteresting, except before rejoining the highway, we came across these amazing rock formations. They are actually part of the bedrock, and there were hundreds of them. As we walked around them, Lucy was overcome with a bout of exhaustion and had to lie down. Her appetite was also almost nonexistent.

And these rocks, in a valley as we descended towards Curahuara.

The last kilometers to Curahuara went slowly, Lucy was struggling. So in town, we loaded the bikes onto the roof of a minivan and drove an hour and a half to the city of Patacamaya, on the main La Paz-Oruro highway. We quickly found a hostel and some dinner, after which we had a frank conversation about Lucy's health and decided we would take another minivan to Oruro in the morning, and there visit a doctor.