Tuesday, March 5, 2013

No Good Downhill Goes Unpunished


No Good Downhill Goes Unpunished

Why does it always seem that when you get a good downhill you just get a worse uphill right afterwards that just kills the euphoria?
After I left the Salar de Uyuni at11,995 ft (3,656 meters) the climbing wasn't over. I thought that since my next major destination of Potosi was going to be at about 13,860 feet (4,200 meters). I thought that it was pretty much going to be a climb up to that elevation and then it would be high plains or something until Potosi. Of course that is not how it went. I was climbing, descending, climbing, descending the whole way! I didn't really feel the high altitude in my lungs, it seems I felt it in my legs!
This southwest corner of Bolivia had some really cool rock geology and was a really pretty part of South America in its own way. Treeless areas don't usually appeal to me but this was super different and interesting, so I enjoyed it.
I did some camping here in between towns, there was a lot of open spaces and cold weather. They don't have heat in any buildings in Bolivia (and lots of other poor countries) even in the mountains. Some of the places that I stayed in hosterias/hospedajes were as cold inside as it was outside. Lots of towns had no running water.  The water was trucked in and stored in tanks. They had no showers or regular flush toilets. To take a shower was to use cold water and a bucket, and a toilet flush was done by pouring water into the toilet from a bucket.


I actually don't like cold weather despite my alternating seasonal lifestyle of living and working in Alaska and Antarctica. In the mountains I sure didn’t like that I would have a dry nose/lips/fingers/fingernails, and that as soon as I stop riding I have to put on all my cold weather clothes right away and be ready for my sleeping bag as soon as the sun goes down. That goes for either camping or in a room as I would often use my sleeping bag inside because it was warmer than their blankets
I definitely had to sleep with electronics (get your mind out of the gutter Monica Ray-it was to keep their batteries from draining) It was hard to find fruits and veggies, all the food in the mountains of Bolivia and Peru is made up of all starches.  Every plate served had potatoes, yucca (starch bland like a potato made from cactus), and rice and then a smidgeon of some overcooked dried meat. Bolivians are not famous for their food by any means.
But I absolutely love the mountains otherwise and that is why I keep going back. 
I have included lots of photos in this post.

Leaving the Salar de Uyuni (salt flats) from the first climb
I found this deserted guard shack to sleep in one night.
Cozy inside.













Not always the best place to camp. This area was wrought with large thorny bushes/trees.
This was pulled out of my flat tire.


There would be wide open spaces and then some po-dunk town like this that fortunately had a room in a house for travelers.
Typical room in a town like shown above.
Typical bathroom. At least they are bicycle enthusiasts here!
Some things are the same worldwide.  Well, these probably wouldn't have been decorations in a "hotel" room in the USA but for sure in an auto shop.



Brrrrr, morning with frost on my panniers.
Potosi tour agency. Here it was possible to journey into a real silver mine and see how it operates. They encourage that you buy some dynamite or cigarettes to give as gifts to the minors (not kidding). I just couldn't bring myself to do a tour, I hate tours.
Potosi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Potosi
A vendor's baby being "contained" literally while the vendor works.
Bolivia was full of trash on the roadways and unfortunately trash was also choking most of the rivers too. It was very sad to constantly see.
A family's yard where they allowed me to camp for the night.
Here are two members of the family that allowed me to camp on their property.

A random castle draw-bridge-like entrance to a village in the middle of nowhere. Maybe Hollywood made a film here once or something and built it????
Mark, a Belgian cyclist I met along the way. He doesn't mind walking up hills and says it is good because it works out different muscles for a change. I hate pushing my bike, would rather stop and rest then ride some more.
Mark had his bike loaded kind of like a homeless person!!! Probably not at risk of getting robbed when it looks like this!
A kind of defunct village clinic where I camped.
Pulqui village-very typical of this area
I had dinner here at this woman's house. I met her on the roadside next to the village and told her I would like to pay for dinner at someone's home as I was low on food or maybe just lazy that night. She invited me to breakfast the next morning as an invitation not a business transaction.This was the morning.
She did a lot of bead work and she said she had trouble seeing it. This is in the morning when I had brought my spare pair of glasses with me for her to try. They were an older prescription so I decided to give them to  her.
Some of the family.
The center plaza/park in Sucre. Sucre was at 9,240 feet (2,800 meters) so it was a lot warmer.

Sucre was a very nice city. It was very colonial Spanish in feel. This city is also UNESCO World Heritage Site.


Electrical engineering at its finest.
This market had some great fruit salads really cheap and yummy. See below.

This fruit salad was the equivalent of $1.57USD.
A morning ritual for my 5 days while I was in Sucre, I had this empanada and coffee for breakfast. Well actually I had about 2 or 3 of these!
For not walking much in these shoes they seemed to wear out a bit. I love developing countries though because they can fix anything. The back of these shoes were made to look and feel like new for $5.50 USD by the guy in the photo below. I wish I had a photo of these after the repair but I don't have those shoes with me anymore. I left them in the US when I went back briefly.
Shoe repair miracle worker.

The grounds of a home in which I was invited to stay. I asked at the village clinic about a hostal/hospedaje in which to stay and the woman told me to go to the house by the bridge and they would have a room. As it turns out this family (shown further down) has hosted other travelers too and expects nothing in return.
My space in their storage room.
The family who hosted me. The father, Silverio just genuinely enjoys knowing people from other countries and giving those people a place to stay AND feeding them. Silverio was very clear about not extending the same courtesy to South American travelers.  My birthday was coming up in a few days and Silverio was very insistent that I should stay for my birthday. He said we could all have a party and good meal. But I was keen on moving on to get to Santa Cruz on time to meet my friend. I wasn't sure what the roads would be like. Silverio debated that I should stay and just make up the time on a bus! Very sweet, really wanted to make my birthday special but I moved on.
Bolivian roads were not well marked or maintained. The handwritten signs on this building were the only indications of direction at this crossroad. "CBBA" indicates the direction for Cochabamba and "Sta Cruz" for Santa Cruz (a little more obvious).
Bolivian roads were challenging in this area between Sucre and Santa Cruz consisting lots of sand, dirt, construction and difficult hills. My chain would go dry from the lack of moisture and because of the sand.
This is the woman, Sandra, who gave me the room (shown below) in which to sleep.

I put the chairs in front of the door because there was no lock. Notice the Justin Bieber poster on the left wall....in Bolivia no less!!!


This is the main square in the small town in which I spent my 47th birthday on July 29th, 2012. Very relaxing.
More challenging roads in Bolivia. It felt like I was on the Carretera Austral again in Chile but these are major roads!
A really beautiful area near the National Park Amboro. I was the only one in the campground the first night.





From where I camped it was a quick five minute walk to these falls.

Of course there has to be a downside to this area and in this case it was sandflies!! They ate me up! Mosquitoes don't bother me but apparently sandflies love me!
A very obvious landmark to indicate the location of a really cool organic farm where I stayed in 2009 when recovering from the ocelot bite surgery and where I revisited on this trip-Ginger's Paradise.

I arrived on a holiday weekend at Ginger's so it was packed.
Sol (means "Sun" in Spanish) and her newest addition to the family, Orchidia (like "Orchid" in English). I loved Sol, she was so cool. Cris is an American who rode his bike from California to Bolivia and settled there and married Sol and started this organic farm.
Great organic food with edible flowers.

My place to sleep at Ginger's Paradise.
They grow their own coffee beans here amongst lots of other foods.

Outhouse at Ginger's Paradise with the wooden lid over the toilet hole. You do your thing and add some sawdust to the mix and call it good. Cris processes the waste and turns it around in 6 months to be compost.
Some of the artwork that adorns Ginger's Paradise rooms.
I love constrictor snakes!! This one is a baby.
Views from hiking in the area around Ginger's Paradise.

Ruins in Samaipata visited near Ginger's Paradise.
This site is also UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Tankita is 18 years old and has transported me more than 7,800 miles (13,000 km) combined total of miles on this trip and the trip where I crossed the USA with my friend Betty in 1994 (which itself was 4,200 miles/7,000 km). All parts were original on her until this point with the exception of one wheel replacement in Santiago, Chile. Believe or not, most of these parts were still in great condition (another reason why she has earned her name). My awesome friend, Karen Dunne, who is a bicycle enthusiast extraordinaire (who used to be on the US Cycling Team and was a gold medal winner at the 1999 Pan American Games among other things) hooked me up with parts for a total overhaul for Tankita. All major components were replaced in Santa Cruz because some were starting to show their age and changing one part made it necessary to replace others in a domino effect kind of way and because I upgraded others to a better system since it was already being done.
My room in Santa Cruz and preparing for major surgery for Tankita!
I was going to try to tackle this surgery but in the end I wasn't up to performing yet another surgery (remembering the South Pole winter where I helped perform an appendectomy!) so I turned Tankita over to a pro. I didn't have some very important tools and knowledge for the job anyway. The mechanic agreed to let me watch and learn on parts changing.
It was actually very lucky that I found a guy who was a fan of Trek bicycles (Tankita is a Trek) and who respects the quality of such a bike. How could I go wrong when the stall number of his shop is my birthday! He did a great job of installing all the new parts with care. The whole job and some parts I needed locally was less than $40 USD plus the cost of the other parts from the states.

Ahhhh, what a nice face lift you have Tankita!
Juan works at the alojamiento (hotel) in Santa Cruz where I stayed. This was my second time staying here and he remembered me from the last time 3 years before. He even remembered the room I had stayed in. Maybe he doesn't get too may patrons recovering from surgery from an ocelot bite.
An unexpected wild roaming sloth at the zoo. Rumor has it that they used to roam around the downtown park in Santa Cruz, but I guess it just got too populated there eventually. This sloth was a wild sloth who was on the zoo property. I happened to notice him and went over to say "Hi." 

Another wild roaming sloth on the outside of an aviary at a nature reserve. It was funny because I said to my friend minutes before this that it would be really cool if we saw another sloth and so it happened! That stuff happens to me A LOT! Just goes to prove that if you are following your dream, all the world conspires to make it happen!! And such is my life.
 Well I am trying to get caught up on this blog.This entry takes you up through 9/6/12, Santa Cruz, Bolivia shown on this map. I am in Colombia now!
Next post: Welcome to the Jungle