Ok, how does this sound? Tonight I blog for the previous 2 days, tomorrow we have a 300k day with a border crossing (no one knows how long that will take) and then the day after we have a rest day. So, either tomorrow afternoon I upload a bunch of pictures, or the rest day I will catch up. Awesome, I’m glad you have accepted.
24th Sucre to Uyuni. Up at 6, on the road at 7. Just enough sleep. Put it this way, the 5 hours sleep that we got was a wholllleee lot more than some others. Small timed section and then a beautiful tarmac road for the remaining few hundred k’s to Uyuni – town of the famous Bolivian Salt Flats. It was a road that curved and winded through the spectacular landscape, It was a road I would have loved to drive my Golf R32 flat out using every inch of the unused tarmac. Penny had her highest climb today at a solid 13,000 feet. And I will tell you what, at that altitude all cars lose so much power. On the dead flat stretches we can barely climb to 100 kmh and at sea level we race our way to 110 up a slight uphill. As well as the cars having a bit of struggle in the spacey air, people have a harder time as well. Simple tasks are just the little bit more difficult. Carrying bags up a few flights of stairs left me somewhat a bit puffing. Need to get fitter when I get home.
Salt flats! now, I have never seen any kind of salt falts before and I went to the best I could have – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salar_de_Uyuni eat your heart out on wiki. Pretty cool stuff. We even got in early enough in the afternoon (second car in) and did a tour over the flat. I couldn’t believe just how flat it was. Extraordinary.
Bolivia in a nutshell is……. geographically amazing. But still very much a third world country. Somewhat like Africa almost. Government is horribly corrupt and has holes all through any form of organization.
A few policemen waved their radar guns at as as we blasted past in a flash of silver and red but made no attempt to flag us down or chase us (I would have shaken the tail anyway!) for a ‘contribution to his pocket’.
The early evening brought a strange occurrence to the desolate locale of Uyuni with a huge storm cell making its way across the flats bearing down on the fragile town. It was pretty cool watching a lightning show with the sunset in the distance on the silhouetted horizon. The interesting thing was that the storm wasn’t that large or menacing but it still had so much hail. I think the fact we were already at 13,000 feet and 10 degrees C the storm didn’t need to be monstrous to be cold enough for hail. Penny is fine, she is a monster.
25th. The locals of Uyuni at dinner last night informed us that the 120k’s of dirt road scheduled for this morning takes them 6hours in a landcruiser, and the 350km tarmac detour was a better option. Organisazion made the call for us to backtrack yesterdays roads for a few hours and turn off to La Paz. Making today 780 k’s. 12 hours, 10 minutes and the bell boy outside the Raddison Hotel almost had a bowel movement as dad yelled “LEFT HERE JAMES” and thundering downshifts and vibrating exhaust missed his trolley by a meter or so (heaps of room). 14,200 feet is now the highest Penny has gone, still gutless and has less gusto as I plant the Go Pedal to over/undertake a slower moving truck. Still such a STUNNING drive.
Imagine driving in the southern hemisphere at the end of summer, freezing your tits off, and having permanent snow capping the surrounding mountains. Very surreal. We even saw more Llamas than people today. The sturdy four legged animals are just munching along on grass like nothing in the world bothers them. I still haven’t made up my mind if baby llamas are cute or not either. Google images them!
La Paz is hectic. Our entrance to the city had about 12k’s of the second densest traffic I have experienced (second to Cairo peak hour) and I can honestly say I was in my element. Traffic in Penny is just so fun. Being big, menacing, and goes blub blub blub faster than anyone could imagine. The only way I can describe some of the maneuvers I do to cut across 3-4 lanes of bumper to bumper horning tooting traffic is: threading the needle. I did better than Cairo when I hit a bus. Today I hit nada! Winning. I’m sure a few other cars in my path had a few ‘sphincter tightening’ moments.
I know I have left out copious amounts of interesting facts and stories from Bolivia. however, my gullet is full and my bed beckons me. Tomorrow into Peru and Lake Titicaca.
In less happy news, 5 cars are now deemed terminal and pulled out. 🙁 Updates on who and why tomorrow.
From La Paz, a strange and hectic city.
James
Shout out to my amigos at home. Another 4-5 weeks until I home. Don’t miss me too much.
Julie
Loving your commentary James! It would be good to be in the back seat.. IF Penny had a back seat! 🙂 Mum. xxxx
NickI Reinhardt
As much as it may seem like it at times, James, you aren’t writing into a vacuum; brings a grin when I peek into my mail via my cell in the early morning and find a Penny update sitting, waiting for an iPad moment later in the day. How’s the Bentley going? Not eating your dust I hope!