The magic of the Bolivian Altiplano + November picture

November picture: Blossoms in the salt desert.

After a week in La Paz, I heaved the loaded bike up the stairs to the cable car gondolas. This little sweat-inducing effort was certainly better than the tedious, even more sweat-inducing climb up through the heavy traffic of the Bolivian city, back to the Altiplano plateau. It was a great view of the city from the cable car, but I was secretly looking forward to finally getting out into nature again. My destination was the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt lake in the world. For weeks, I had been telling everyone I met that I wanted to reach the Salar before the rainy season started, because only then would it be possible to cross it by bike and camp on it. Here and there I even skipped a few interesting points along the route in order to arrive in south-west Bolivia in time.

The Salar de Uyuni is one of those places I’ve been dreaming about for ages, since February 2017 to be precise. It was the winter holidays and even though I’d already mastered my first short hike after breaking my tibia and fibula the previous summer, I wasn’t really mobile yet – it was frustrating. The YouTube algorithm presented me with a video from Ben’s KombiLife channel, in which he documented his journey in a van from Chile to Alaska. I was completely mesmerised and binged Ben’s entire series in one go. That was the moment when Latin America opened up as a travel destination for me – Ben’s adventures looked great. In his videos, scenes from the Salar de Uyuni kept popping up in the intros, not without reason, because it’s a very special place. With the experience of breaking my leg still fresh in my mind, it was clear: when, if not now – you are so quickly in a position where you can no longer do something, it’s better to do it now! I signed up for a Spanish course at the adult education centre and started researching for a big trip with a van. However, a lot of life got in the way before I could set off. But the desire for Latin America and places like the Salar de Uyuni never disappeared.

By now I was (and still am) travelling in Latin America – not by van, but by bicycle – a great way to travel. And now it was only five to six days until I would finally reach the Salar; I was really a bit excited.

Once I arrived at the cable car mountain station, I had a cup of coffee, bought a few empanadas for lunch and finally set off. The big city was quickly behind me, the tarmac road had a good hard shoulder and the traffic was limited. The big advantage of the Altiplano is that it is essentially a huge flat plateau – so the metres in altitude to be covered are limited and you can make good distance. I had heard from some cyclists that the Altiplano was supposed to be quite boring because of all the flat land, but this was not the case at all. On the one hand, this area is quite special due to its average altitude of 3700 metres above sea level and on the other, you can see all kinds of mountains all the time. Sometimes these are closer and sometimes they are at the very end of a vast, barren area – the variety is huge and therefore the number of photo opportunities is great. If you are looking for trees, however, you will only find them in settlements, as the wide plains and the often hilly mountain slopes are treeless and only covered with rather spiky grass or other prickly low plants. It is an area where there are more llamas than people; the herds of llamas are taken out to graze in the morning by the shepherds and return in the late afternoon. Every now and then there are also a few fields to be seen, which I assume are used to grow quinoa.

On the first day, when we left La Paz, thick, dark rain clouds hung in the western mountain ranges from late midday – I even saw lightning from time to time. So was it already too late for the Salar? I hoped that it was just a short, localised thunderstorm, but looked for a sheltered camp spot under a wide bridge to be on the safe side. The next day, the rain caught me in the evening as I rolled into Oruro. However, it only really started to pour down heavily when I arrived at my accommodation.

The next morning, there were huge puddles in the city of Oruro, the sky was dark and the wind was blowing from the front. After the first few kilometres, I stopped at a bus stop to look for possible accommodation. After a good thirty kilometres, there should be two options in Machacamarca – a stretch that could be mastered in the rain if necessary. What followed was a construction site several kilometres long: off-road and extremely muddy thanks to the rain. Normally not a big problem, but there was a lot of traffic, so I was repeatedly sprayed with the finest mud from the side. Most drivers made an effort and kept a good distance, but unfortunately there were always a few absolutely inconsiderate idiots who seemed to have to glaze me with mud – my middle finger was quite busy. At some point, I reached Machacamarca and decided to call it a day, washing my clothes and all my bags at the accommodation. The layer of mud on the bike was actually quite good as protection from the salt, in case the Salar was still passable.

The following day began with rain; fortunately, it had died down by the time I was ready to leave. But even though the rain clouds were still hanging low in the surrounding mountains and it probably wouldn’t stay dry for the rest of the day, my mood completely lifted. The clouds in the mountains, the standing water in the plains around me – it all looked so grandiose and beautiful. I constantly had to stop and take one picture after another, and when I got back on the bike, I pedalled with all my energy, sang along loudly to the music or started doing sinus curves on the bike. There it was: The magic of the Altiplano. The landscape had put me in a complete trance, it was an absolute pleasure to roll along and soak up the surroundings. I ended the day in accommodation in the next town just before the next downpour began.

It was now only 175 kilometres to the Salar de Uyuni, but even on the fifth day after La Paz it looked like it would rain. The lake would probably only be a little wet, somehow the crossing would work out. But then the weather actually turned out to be good, and apart from a brief shower it stayed dry. After the turn-off towards Salinas de Garci Mendoza, it became wonderfully quiet. The already sparsely populated landscape was even more uninhabited there; when I passed a settlement, it looked deserted. The bunches of grass now began to stand a little further apart, with lots of sand in between – it became more desert-like.

Nach einer trockenen Nacht kroch ich aus dem Zelt und genoss bei bestem Sonnenschein den Ausblick auf den Vulkankrater, an dessen Rand ich das Zelt aufgeschlagen hatte. Im Hintergrund thronte der mächtige Vulkan Tunupa mit seinen 5432 Metern. Und genau hinter diesem Riesen lag der Salar de Uyuini – bis zum „Ufer“ sollte ich es an diesem Tag nun mindestens schaffen. Die 35 Kilometer bis nach Salinas de Garci Mendoza waren schnell geschafft, von da an ging es Offroad und damit wesentlich langsamer voran. Doch wie fast immer war auch diese Offroad-Piste ein Garant für noch schönere Landschaften. Die letzten Kilometer um den Tunupa herum waren geprägt von einigen kurzen Anstiegen auf sandigem oder waschbrettartigem Untergrund. Hinter jeder Kurve erhoffte ich endlich einen Ausblick auf den Salar zu bekommen, doch es wurden immer mehr und mehr Kurven, bis er dann endlich vor mir lag – der Salar de Uyuni. Woah! Was für ein Anblick. Eine riesige weiße Ebene, die bis zum Horizont reichte und auf der in weiter Entfernung kleine Inseln zu sehen waren. Ich war endlich da!

Wow, there it is – the Salar de Uyuni!

I quickly rolled down to the small village of Tahua to fill up with water and organise some food. Unfortunately, there was no bread in the shops, but a woman in the shop told me that there would be some in the central square at 5pm. A little frustrated, I waited and was actually able to buy bread just after 5pm. The sun would set shortly before 7pm and now that I had made it to the ‘entrance’ of the salar, I wanted to spend the first night on it. The nearest island was Mogli Island, 26 kilometres from Tahua. This would be easily manageable on good tarmac, but I didn’t yet know how it would be on the salt crust. Completely optimistic that I would make it just before sunset, I set off.

From the shore of the salt lake, I crossed a short dam onto the crust of the lake. The first few metres were dotted with a few puddles, after which the surface of the lake was completely dry – yes, I had won the race against the rain! The surface of the absolutely flat salt crust is covered with a honeycomb-like network of salt edges about five to ten centimetres high. Driving over these salt edges caused a slight resistance and an intense crunching noise. But there were also lanes of motorised vehicles – there, the edges had already been flattened so that the bike rolled more easily. What I hadn’t reckoned with, however, was the wind. It was blowing full blast from the side and the tachometer showed no more than 7 or 8 kilometres per hour. Time passed, but the island in front of me didn’t come any closer and the mainland behind me only seemed to ‘get smaller’ very slowly. The sun set quite picturesquely, but I couldn’t really enjoy it. The wind continued to beat down on me and it was still a long way to go. Stopping and pitching the tent directly on the salt crust was not an option in this wind force. So I rode on and on into the twilight until at some point it was completely dark. There was no longer any sign of the island on the horizon, the lanes disappeared from time to time and at some point others reappeared. The navigation was like a computer game in which I tried to keep the little triangle on the navigation system straight ahead – without the navigation system, I would only have had the wind to guide me. Around half past nine I finally reached Mowgli Island after four hours cycling on the salt crust. There was a cave on the island where there was no wind at all – the perfect camping spot. Due to the cool temperatures, I pitched the tent inside, cooked some pasta and then crawled into my sleeping bag, completely exhausted.

But as exhausting as it was, waking up the next morning on the island in absolute silence and complete solitude was definitely worth it. Even from the tent I could see the blazingly bright surface of the lake, framed by the rocks of the cave – what a view. The sky was completely cloudless, it was unbearable without sunglasses due to the snow-white salt crust and the wind had died down. After breakfast, I rolled over to Isla Tortuga right next door, where numerous gigantic Leucostele atacamensis cacti grow. The giants, up to ten metres high, were in bloom and made a surreal picture against the white backdrop of the Salar with the Tunupa volcano in the background. I wasn’t completely alone there, however, as a mountain viscacha flitted between the rugged volcanic rock. About two kilometres further on was the rather large Isla del Pescado, or Fish Island. There were no fish swimming around, but there was almost a forest of giant cacti to marvel at.

I rolled a good 20 kilometres further to Isla Incahuasi, the touristic centre of the whole salar. There was no more seclusion there, one jeep parked next to the other, small groups of tourists picnicked on plastic chairs under parasols on the salt surface close to the island. It seemed so inviting that I cycled on straight away. But the section that was to come was a tough one, as it was another 70 kilometres to the ‘mainland’. And this time there was no island in between to save me. I had abandoned my original plan of camping on the salt crust for one night for the sake of my tent after the merciless wind roar of the day before. The wind had also slowly started to pick up again, but as the route was now pointing in a different direction, this time it was coming from behind. The tachometer was now reading between 25 and 33 km/h, which made cycling across the Salar much more enjoyable. The view was special on this section: It hardly changed at all. I cycled and cycled, but all around me in all directions it was only white and blazingly bright for kilometres, the mountain range of the eastern shore only approached extremely slowly. I kept catching myself thinking that I was riding on mirror-smooth ice – the fact that the surface was rough and not slippery was simply not something I could get into my head for long. It’s fascinating how firmly dangers are anchored in our brains.

Arriving on the eastern shore at Colchani, I pitched the tent on the edge of the salar and was able to enjoy a sunset in peace and quiet by the salt desert. What a magnificent surrounding, and now I had experienced it for myself.

Thanks Ben for the inspiration from your great videos! I don’t know if I would be on this journey, which has been going on for over three years now, without this inspiration.