Conquering S.A. on Little Blue Motos

Here in Arica, northern Chile, we have reached the first milestone of our journey. Within 48hours of arriving in the city we have sold our little blue motos. There have been mixed feelings associated with this as we have had a love hate relationship with our motos – mostly due to the fact that we have pushed them to their limits and had very high expectations of them. Here is a run down of the pros and cons of motorbike traveling, according to Jono and me, including some of the highlights and disasters.

• Constant minor mechanical problems, including altitude sickness (fixed temporarily with the removal of the air filters), flat batteries, flooded engines, loose wire connections.
• Being extremely aware of the environment around you, altitude, undulations, climbs, descents, curves, road surface, traffic, animals, people, markets, weather.
• Instigating conversations with locals and tourists, sparking curiosity.
• Camaraderie with other motorbike riders.
• The chance to divert off the main roads and see countryside and villages that are not on the bus routes.
• Complicated and time consuming bureaucracy associated with buying and selling bikes in Chile.
• The trial and error of packing the bags on the bikes, beginning with some disasters such as water bottles, fuel tanks and other items falling off our bikes in the middle of the road.
• The heat and the cold being more extreme on the motorbikes, at times sweltering in all our protective gear, and at times freezing with every possible layer on.
• Independence to travel when and where and how far you want in a day.
• Trying to drive the bike through loose gravel and dropping it on my leg, pinning myself to the ground.
• Having dogs bite at your ankles when you ride down the street.
• Riding nearly 6000 km on the little blue motos over two months. You get to know them pretty well!

Overall we have had an amazing journey with our little blue motos. Motorbike travel gives you an insight into a country and its terrain like no other type of travel, and it gave us a connection to the people along the way that we would not have experienced had we been on buses the whole time. It’s definitely time to move on, but we were very sad to see our little blue motos driving off into the sunset without us. Hasta luego little blue motos! xx

La Paz

La Paz is the most incredible city. We spent five days there, enthralled with the way it tumbled down the hills into the basin-like valley with the central city at the bottom of the concave. There is a strong juxtaposition of modernity and tradition, it being common to see women dressed in traditional skirts and woollen jerseys with long plaited hair and a bowler hat, passing buy well-dressed business people or students in jeans. Apart from generally soaking up the atmosphere of the place, we had two standout experiences in La Paz – attending a football match, and mountainbiking the Death Road.

FOOTBALL FRENZY

Getting to a football game in South America was fairly well up on our list of things we wanted to do in South America. Their passion for the sport is unrivalled and the spectacle was something we wanted to see first hand. While in La Paz, we managed to buy tickets to a match was between two club teams – Bolivar from La Paz and Universidad Catolica from Santiago de Chile. These two countries have a history of being rivals as Chile took land off Bolivia, leaving the country landlocked. We managed to get an extra ticket earlier that day for our new friend Sara and armed with new Bolivar soccer shirts we headed to the local stadium. The game was for the Copa Los Libertadores, the Latin American Champions League.

We knew the atmosphere would be amazing but I don’t think any of us imagined quite what occurred. We soon found out that we shouldn’t have eaten beforehand as there was all sorts of food leading into the stadium from roast pork sandwiches to grilled meat, sweet coffee and soft drinks - no alcohol, not that they needed it by the fervour that ensued. We quickly settled into the local customs and chants (whistling is a sign of hate) and a fantastic chant was where the stadium self-divided into thirds, led by the noisy band at one end of the stadium who commenced with “Bo Bo Bo,” we followed with ‘Li Li Li” and once “Va Va Va” rung out we all chanted “Viva Bolivar!” Needless to say our voices soon became hoarse – and this was still pre-match. The welcome for the team was amazing – in fact it was akin to the celebrations when NZ WON the RWC. Confetti, rolls of toilet tissue, fireworks and flares (set off inside of the stands) would have turned any OSH officer white in NZ. The atmosphere continued and with a 3-0 win to Bolivar the celebrations were set to continue long into the night.

DEATH ROAD

The “Death Road” is a 63km mountainbike ride that descends down a road with a precipitous drop on one side. Not sure that we wanted to ‘fall’ into this tourist trap we were persuaded by the promise of a few hours in a sub-tropical climate at the end of the ride. It was a fantastic ride (not in the least a fitness workout due to the never-ending descent) starting at over 4600m close to the snow we and 5 other gringos followed our fun and care free guides down the ‘Death Road’. Actually the death road has less death on it these days with a new road in situ that is ashphalt all of the way. There are still plenty of reminders though, within 2km of starting our descent we came across a memorial to 7 people (5 foreigners) who had died when their minivan went off a cliff, the green remnants of which were still visible on peering over. Once onto the gravel we unfortunatley were unable to see some of the major drops due to the cloud cover. With our dropping altitude and the ever increasing warmth though it did not take long for the cloud to lift and we were treated to spectacular views down the valley. We finished the ride at approx. 1330 and headed to a local hotel (with pool) for a swim and lunch before climbing aboard the minivan for our trip home.

Breathing Asbestos

This morning, after a mammoth “miners breakfast”, we headed off with about 20 other tourists to begin the mine tour. I was very nervous and unsure about my decision to go on the tour for a number of reasons. Firstly, I am not a big fan of tight enclosed spaces and I knew from reading about the tour that there was definitely some crawling and wriggling through mine shafts involved. Secondly, knowing that it was a working mine, and taking heed of the warning in the Lonely Planet, I couldn’t help but think of the very real risks involved – collapse, noxious gases, fire, explosions. Thirdly, I had a bit of a moral objection to going into someone’s workplace like that just to watch them work, particularly in the appalling conditions which I expected. Still, when in Rome…

The first stop was a storage place to don our protective clothing – oversized pants, jackets, helmets and headtorches. From here we were taken to the miners market – a market specifically for miners (and now tourists) to purchase equipment for the mines. This was one of the changes that occurred in the 30s when the miners’ cooperative began and while the miners were able to keep a large percentage of what they had mined, they had to provide all their own equipment including protective gear, lamps, food, water, coca leaves, and even dynamite. We bought some things for the miners (an obligatory tip) and were ferried to the mine.

Before entering, we looked at the production process of the minerals. I was incredulous at how close the mine and factory were to houses and the rest of the city. It appeared that it was not only the miners who would suffer health repercussions from these mines. As we entered the mine, our guide Julio greeted some of the miners and it was obvious he had a pretty good relationship with them. This made me feel a little more comfortable as well as the fact that Julio was an ex-miner himself and obviously knew the mines well, and the dangers involved.

 

The two hour walk through the mine varied between being able to walk easily, to being stooped and walking through water, to crawling on all fours, to slithering on your stomach. There was copper sulphate hanging down in stalactites, asbestos shards in the rock, and arsenic dripping off the ceiling making breathing difficult enough for one of our party to turn back. At times there were live wires hanging from the ceiling which we were strictly told not to touch as we waded through the water.

Suddenly, without any warning, an explosion rocked the narrow tunnel and our guide frantically got us down on the ground and told us to keep our heads down, as there were falling rocks and minerals. Three consecutive explosions boomed out from the dark tunnel. I was the most terrified I have ever been, deep in that silver mine, and tears  pricked my eyes as we tried to come to terms with the reality of being in a working mine with no OSH safety precautions. Of course, writing this now in retrospect, we were fine, but that is a difficult thing to believe when you are in an uncontrolled and unfamiliar environment. With our concerned guide checking on us, we pushed on to a level of the mine that reached 40 degrees. This temperature and high humidity was suffocating and it was painful to watch three men hand shovelling rock in this environment, one of which bared the scars and missing eye of a mining accident 5 years earlier.

With asbestos in our lungs and grime from head to toe, we appeared gratefully back out into the daylight, with a newfound admiration and disgust for mining industry. I will never again set foot in a mine, but I’m very glad that it is an experience that I have had.

Uyuni Salar Tour, Southwest Bolivia

The day began with a beautiful breakfast at Hostel La Torre. We packed a light bag for the trip and left most of our belongings, including our little blue motos and all our motorbiking gear, at the hostel with the plan to return to Tupiza after the tour. Outside the hostel, four Toyota Land Cruisers were parked up with four Bolivian men frantically packing food, water, diesel, gear and eventually our bags into the back and onto the roof. There seemed to be a lot of tourists milling around. Like a school trip, our names were read out and we were sent to a Jeep. Straight away Jono and I began chatting to the other couple who were to be in the Jeep with us. Marcelle and Martijn were from Holland – she was a teacher in a school for children with chronic diseases and Martijn had given up a job as a project manager for a construction company that completed large scale commercial buildings. We hit it off straight away. Our driver and guide, Edwin, was very professional and knowledgeable, despite his mere 25 years, and turned out also to be a very safe driver and have a great sense of humour. Natalia, our cook, was a beautiful traditional looking Bolivian woman who maintained the long plaited hair, bowler hat and layers of skirts. She too enjoyed a good joke.

The first day was a long drive, but we covered land that constantly changed from being beautiful and fertile to vast and exposed. The rough road wound its way around high rolling mountains affording us a spectacular view of valleys and ridges. We saw llamas grazing, snow capped mountains, little children who wanted their photos taken in a tiny isolated village, wild chinchillas in a deserted Spanish mining town, vicunas (similar to a llama and a deer), and the vast mountain ranges that hit over 6000m. The first night we stayed in some accommodation run by a Bolivian family. To us, these tiny villages seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, but we slowly began to appreciate the job opportunities from the tourism industry as well as the farming and mining industries in the area. Natalia cooked us delicious hot meals for lunch and dinner and we slowly but surely ate out of comfort, warmth and taste, rather than hunger. The second day of the trip we drove through a surreal looking desert that they have aptly name Desierto de Dali. We stopped just before lunch at a natural thermal pool in a stunning location overlooking a lake and mountains. Sounds very similar to NZ, I know, but there is something also very different here. This may be due to the scale, as the hot pools were higher than our highest mountain, and also the wildlife. In the lake beyond the thermal pool were flamingos – of which we saw and photographed many over the few days of the tour. We stopped by Laguna Verde, Laguna Blanca, and Laguna Colorades (green, white and red lakes respectively), and got to our second night’s accommodation with plenty of time for a brisk walk with Marcelle and Martijn in the chilly evening air. I believe that it is the people you meet along the way that really make a trip, for example our time in Cuba would not have been so life changing had it not been for the people we met. It was so wonderful to be traveling with Martijn and Marcelle, and Sara from the US, and to have such a lovely guide and cook. While the scenery will obviously remain strong in our memories, so will the experiences with the people we have met along the way.

On the third day of the tour, after visiting some more lakes and rock formations, Jono got to put in practice his emergency medicine skills in a fairly dramatic scenario. As we were driving along a stretch of loose gravel road we spotted an overturned Land Cruiser up ahead. Jono was just about out of the car before we pulled up beside them, and immediately set about triaging the people. The driver had lost control on the gravel and fishtailed the vehicle off the side of the road, flipping it over onto its side. Jono was amazing and quickly took charge. We hardly noticed as other Jeeps pulled in around us and tourists looked on in disbelief. As luck would have it, the English family who were in the overturned Jeep were on the whole alright, however the 10 year old boy had ear pain and considerable shock, and the mother had pretty bad back pain. After examining her and dosing her up with a variety of painkillers, Jono recommended they head straight for the hospital in Uyuni for a check up and xrays. It was a shock to everyone to see how easily this could happen, and it was sobering to think of how much worse it could have been. Tourists were redistributed in the Jeeps and the family was taken off to the nearest hospital. Afterwards Jono and I talked through some of the contributing factors to the good out come – some of the Jeeps were carrying 6 tourists while this one only had three in it, many of the Jeeps carried fuel and gas for cooking on their rooves, many of the roads we had driven on were adjacent to a precipitous drop on one or both sides, and we were in the middle of nowhere with no cellphone reception. We laughed wryly about the possibility of using our SOS, but the thought of a phone call being made to our parents to see if they knew if we were alright before contacting the local emergency service was even more scary! It made us feel very lucky that Edwin, our driver and guide, was a safe driver, took his time, and was experienced on this road. Also, amazingly, once righted the drivers got under the bonnet of the crashed vehicle and did a fantastic job repairing the significantly damaged radiator and tyres, allowing the vehicle to drive itself out.

Not long after this excitement, we were driving along in front of another Jeep, when Edwin slowed down and watched them closely in his rear view mirror. As they were driving along, their rear wheel had completely come off and was rolling off the side of the road ahead of them. The drivers talked briefly, and we were off to find some repuestos, spare parts to join their wheel on again. With the wheel fixed, we were all on our way again. In some ways, it was comforting to know that there were many other Jeeps on the road with you, even if you couldn’t see them for miles, and that the drivers had a strong camaraderie and would look out for each other. On our last night together, Marcelle, Martijn, Jono and I had a lovely dinner together and a glass of wine with Edwin and Natalia.

Finally, on day four, we reached the salar in time for sunrise. It was incredible.