Bolivia!

Only in Bolivia did I feel like I was on some sort of biking expedition, Its as out there as it gets. There are a few decent highways that will see you through the major towns and cities, but come on, this is Bolivia! No place like it in the world, the closet your going to get to feeling like your on the moon, the altiplano(terrain above 3500 meters), snow topped volcanoes and mountains everywhere you look, crazy salty stuff everywhere, smoky sulphar stuff coming out the ground, lagoons jam packed with pink flamingoes, llamas and vicuñas grazing the treeless land, and not much else really. Bolivias beauty lies in its raw rugged landscape. For me, the Andes are in all their glory in Bolivia, surrounded by a terrain equally as powerful and majestic. That said I chose to take the hard road and spent over a month off the beaten track in the desert.

In the end Bolivia kicked my ass, big time, mentally and physically. With the air so dry and cold, I had a bad rash both on my armpits and upper thigh, ongoing knee problems, and major upper back muscle pain from hours of bumping around on rocky roads. The only thing keeping me sane was the odd village and the chance to play around with the kids, some of which were really cool. shoot some basketball, paint, share my life and restore my energy that the desert had sucked out of me. Then the villages became more sparse, at times having only a few people, at times distant people, and at times abandoned.

One day towards the end of Bolivia, I was crossing this huge salt flat, with heavy wind, I had been struggling for maybe 6 hours already that day and was wasted, then i turn the corner, the point that I had been dreaming of for hours, the point where the wind changes in direction and I cruise. But, even the easy days in Bolivia are still bloody hard, and this was not going to be an easy day as I turned and saw a huge hill, and felt the wind even stronger than before. I reckoned it would be a 2 hour push at least, riding was just retarded as the wind made it faster and a hell of a lot easier to just push. So I stopped in a sandy ditch, tried not to get blowing sand in my really awful tasting oats (I love oats but these were just the worst, like 50 cents for 3 kilos, should have gone quaker, but I went cheap ) and rested my back and knees. Then the wind that had been terrorizing me for weeks started to reply to my questions. Maybe the wind was actually talking to me, or maybe I was loosing the plot, I don’t know, but one thing I knew for sure was that I had to get out of the desert.

Enough of frozen water in the morning, wind, sand, no air, no fruit, no nothing, enough already. As well as literally dreaming for hours about food, I longed for trees, for warmth and a nice patch of grass to take a nap on and feel the cool breeze on a hot day, and I’m not talking desert grass that is sharp enough to cut you, I’m talking real grass, the soft kind.

Awesome country, almost everyone told me about rude people and the like, but I didn’t hit up any of the tourist places apart from Uyuni, so I only came across cool people. Definite highlight on the adventure side of things.

Tags: andes - armpits - bad rash - basketball courts - beaten track - big time - bolivia en bici - bolivian altiplano - cool kids - cycle touring bolivia - cycling bolivia - Cycling Latin America Touring biking - cycling the bolivian altiplano - funky clouds - hoops - jason mcanuff - knee problems - lagoons - legs of steel - llamas - mountains - rocky roads - rugged landscape - share my life - sheffield steel - tiny village - towns and cities - upper back muscle pain - upper thigh - volcanoes