Sud Lipez- into the wild

Posted by Åsa on 23 January 2010

We finally arrived back in the civilization again, in Salta (Argentina). Having our clothes washed, a good shower and hearty meals after a tuff off-road ride through the south of Bolivia.

Sur Lipez is a very very remote Province and as much as 99.4 % of the population have no access to electricity and 90 % have no sanitary facilities.

It was not really our intention to make crossing of Sur Lipez more of a challenge then it already is taking one of the main touristic tracks but rather due to us going the wrong way for some five kilometers or so and then being to stubborn to go back….

So, talking to the locals we ended up with a handwritten map in a piece of paper with the shortest (but VERY demanding) route heading straight south from Copacabana (the last village we were to see in the coming ten days). Following the jeep tracks in vast lava fields, criss crossing between the very abundant volcanoes, guided roughly by the compass we were seeing the most marvelous landscapes with salt lakes, strange lava formations and abundant wildlife. We saw vicunhas (wild camelid) and flamingoes, in the night an Andean ostrich had been taking a loop around our tent and left its impressive footprints in the sand.

We were pushing our bicycles through sandy lava fields days on end without seeing a living soul for the three first days. The wind was strong in the afternoons and it was hard to find a place to put the tent in the wide and open landscape and many times we had no wind protection what so ever… at between 4000 and 5000 meters of altitude the water regularly froze in the night, including the water we stored IN the tent… On our second night our stove gave up…. And the pasta that we were carrying was suddenly quite useless…. After that we had to rely on our dry food containing of cookies, crackers and some candies. We started to ration the food to make it last longer, as we were only advancing some 30 kilometers a day we had to expect at least three days more of pushing.

It was pretty hard, but for the circumstances we kept a high spirit. Laguna Colorada was there somewhere waiting for us, and at every little hill we expected to see it there waiting for us with its beauty, its shops, restaurants and guesthouses.

When our food was just about to really end completely we finally saw our first tourist jeep driving through the desert. The stopped to give us some bread and bananas and to inform us that it was about 55 kilometers still to reach Laguna Colorada… another day and a half still… the bananas really came in handy!

Finally on the ninth day we reached Laguna Colorada, after another two days the border to Chile and a good asphalt road. And in a moment we reached here to a green and lush subtropical area of Argentina. Slowly cycling is getting fun and a true pleasure again!

Photos are plentyful and will be posted in two posts.

21 comments. Tags: Asa, . Location: San Rafael, Argentina