Trip around the world
Leaving La Paz My bike sorted (or so I thought), I left the hotel, once again, to a warm embrace from the same hotel manager, this time telling me I shouldn’t break my bike again. 50 meters out of the hotel, I dropped my chain and realized my derailleur hanger was bent towards the wheel, meaning even if I was in 8th gear per the
Well, maybe it was more bad luck and stupidity, but the Death Road played its part! The plan was to do a five-day jungle backcountry cycling tour from La Paz, starting with the (in)famous Camino de la Muerte. While in Sucre and La Paz, I had searched high and low (four bike shops and a few other sports stores) to find a couple of tubes
Salar de Uyuni and desert lakes The Salar de Uyuni is one of those bucket list type destinations, something so surreal you kind of have to see it to believe it. I had originally planned to see it by bike, cycling up from the Atacama desert, but because illness and reason getting the better of me, I had to settle for the 4x4 tour. Thank
Day 1 - Already in love with Bolivia Things didn't get off to a great start, as it took me over three hours to get my Bolivian visa, then another hour criss-crossing the border, changing money, paying for the visa, then going back to Argentina to get processed exiting, before I was finally on my way. But things started to look up when, just outside
The plan was originally to cycle a very "wild" route, from the Atacama desert up into the Bolivian high plains (border crossing at 4900m) and across the salt flats, but getting ill and not feeling confident about either acclimating or carrying 7 days of food made me opt for a safer, paved, more populated route from Salta basically straight north to Uyuni. Day 1 -
I'd be remiss if I failed to mention the towns I've passed through on the trip in Argentina, particularly because I've really liked them. By town, I mean the broadest sense of the term, encompassing everything from say 10,000 people to Buenos Aires, which, at roughly 15 million, houses about a third of all people living in Argentina. Where I've been: Esquel Cholila El Bolson
I've written so infrequently that the posts become too long, so I've held on to these for a rainy day, and now you get nothing but the interesting little tidbits Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid In 1901, shortly after allegedly robbing a bank in Winnemucca, Nevada (not far from where I grew up), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, along with Sundance's girlfriend, high-tailed
I'm not sure if any real bikepackers, the folks who load up with 50kg and head out for years over some of the roughest terrain in the world, would agree with any of this, but this is what I've found this far: Line choice is 50% of the battle The difference is felt in your ass, joints, and soul, as well as on your speedometer.
A comically disastrous day Abstractly, my trip has two primary aims: first and foremost, see cool things; and secondly, move forwards, ideally by bike. After unhappily resigning myself to the fact that the weather was likely to prohibit me from doing the first, and for quite some time, I got on a bus so I could at least do the second without suffering. After 450
Day 1: Great start Though it was chilly and drizzling when I rolled out, it wasn't too cold, and after about ten minutes the drizzle disappeared, the cloud level rose a bit, and I was treated to just about 100km of spectacular scenery on undulating, relatively smooth gravel roads. I crossed paths with a few other cyclists going the other direction, having a quick chat,
