Friday September 23, 2011
Uyuni to Tupiza 240km.
Departing around 9 am we begin the gravel portion of our journey through the badlands of Bolivia. It is not far out of town when Milt and I discover Sandra's motorcycle, side down, in the middle of the road with her sitting on the shoulder. Overreacting to a dip through a small water course she lost control and ended up laying the bike down. Unfortunately she broke her wrist and had to depart the tour. Silvana arrived not long after and we loaded the bike onto the trailer and sent the girls back to Uyuni to get Sandra medical attention. Todays journey was extremely difficult as we had to travel through sand, loose gravel, small rocks, rutted, potholed and washboard terrain all on mountainous roads with hairpin curves. Most of us ended up dropping our bikes today mostly in deep sand helping us to avoid injuries.
The harsh landscape was absolutely stunning with amazing rainbow colored rock, small Bolivian villages, deep canyons and high mountains. Unfortunately due to severe vibration over rutted surfaces my camera shook apart and stopped functioning as I made the mistake of storing it in the motorcycle tail bag. With my spare camera locked away in the support vehicle I did not get any pictures of this beautiful and remote landscape today however I managed to borrow a few from Andrew. Days end brought us to Tupiza which is close to the reputed site where the demise of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid took place. Exhausted I felt like I needed two weeks sleep to feel normal again, as did most of the group.
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| We have this far to go on the map |
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| A break for the broken |
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| Dirt and more Dirt |
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| Gravel and more gravel |
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| Military Checkpoint |
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| My new buddy |
You look like you've been rode hard and put away wet!
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