Project VELAIA

We were not in partying mood when we had arrived at the Titicaca lake. No sleep for days and always taking care for the equipment that lay in the bus luggage compartment unprotected. The landscape had changed a lot: The green had gone, the steep mountains had gone. Only hills left; the brown landscape and the blue sky. Altiplano now, 3800 m altitude,  almost unrecognizable. The highest peak in Germany, we would be on the top now but here felt almost like riding along a coast.

First we had to ride along the Lago Grande northern part of the lake, later on along the Lago Pequeño which together form this 190 km long lake on 3,812 m.

Still a lot of indigenous people living here, almost only indigenous people to be correct. I didn’t closely observe the cultural differences between this part of Peru and the one we had just left with the bus. One thing probably was that here they didn’t shoot any longer at festivals, there was still music, of course, a loft of music indeed. Music everywhere as the cycling observer should find out during the exhausting altiplano ride ahead.

Almost all buildings here are made from adobe, but the roofs are a lot more sophisticated than what we had seen at Cordillera Blanca. The atmosphere had changed as well: Warm, totally dry days, non-stop sun from above and a seemingly less clear air. The smell was a different one, especially when coming close to the big lake which slowly passed by to the left.

Flat roads, often pretty straight for many kilometers. High speed riding compared to what we had experienced the weeks before. I put more pressure into the tires to ride more efficiently. In parts the road got really wonderful with almost no traffic or wide shoulders, but in other parts we also had dangerous sand on the road and simultaneous overtaking maneuvers.

There were plenty of slinging opportunities when stopping for a lunch break at the lake as you can see below. And the skills got more and more sophisticated, but still we missed everything you could miss, sometimes even the water

The weather was nice and my father was cooking, so what better could I do than a small portrait shoot of the recumbent bike in the midday sun, in front of the blue lake and the blue sky.

Yes, I think these quad Seoul P4 LED light installation makes the recumbent bike look more cute, like C3PO from Star Wars.

The control center of the recumbent bike of my father. At the back the green GREENPEACE Ortlieb panniers, the mattress you sit on, the tiny little red bell on the left side of the handlebars together with the rear hydraulic rim brake. Now switching over to the right side you can see the Rohloff Speedhub shifter on the top of the handlebar, then the hydraulic front brake with some protection on the bottom.

In the center you find the rear suspension element and below the rack for the little panniers. The black teflon tubes tell the chain where to go and the small black wheel redirects the chain when the suspension element gets compressed.

Now here you can see the Forumslader black box with the 6V and 9-20V output, with the black shifter for the light and another tiny shifter for ON/OFF. There’s a steel feather inside the front fork for trouble free suspension, with the drawback of being really heavy and not very sensitive.

When they were not dancing you could often see the local people hang around with their sheep or goats making for nice countryside-culture pictures and a lot of communication opportunities. Always very communicative and not letting you go whithout throwing a thousand questions at you

The camping like the people was wonderfully pleasant here. Often the locals told us where we could camp and so we found this nice spot about 30 vertical meters above the road leading along the Lago Titicaca. Nice mornings, nice days, nice evenings and no concerns about bad weather any longer.

Turning our heads to the left we could always spot this massive mountain range behind the lake.

To celebrate the new president of the United States of America here a inauguration day post for my readers.

This view is shot directly from our campsite above Lago Titicaca in the morning. The golden fields, the intense blue water and great mountains in the background. Am I still sleeping or is this real?

Morning at Lake Titicaca

Whenever you cross a border in South America you have to fill in the same forms and (sometimes) hope you’ll get a “90 days”-stamp into your passport. This border crossing on the southern side of the Titicaca Lake was particularly crowded and a lot of local people brought goods on their bikes over the river. The sign says “BIENVENIDOS A BOLIVIA – WELCOME TO BOLIVIA”. We really felt welcome now: Not a single time did anyone scream gringo after us, instead very interested people and friendly.

Bolivia, a country with only 9 million inhabitants but an area of more than 1 million square kilometers. 8 people per square kilometer. That’s 3 times bigger than Germany with roughly a tenth of the population! But massive poverty problems … I was curious. My father had read about bad things, Bolivians killing tourists for their credit cards and so on.

Beside the road a truck had crashed. Not an unusual thing here as the technique is antique, the security standards are non existent and I doubt that the drivers have a legal license or have had driving lessons at all.

Like in the countryside of the Andes in Peru there were really really poor people here. I guess if the statistics in books or the United Nations talk about poor people with less than US $2 a day, those are the people. They walk behind their oxen with the pigs searching for the last crumbs of seed in the fields right next to them. When they’re finished, they go home. Home often stands for a poor adobe hut, one room for a whole family, no tap water, no toilets, often no electricity. Don’t even think about A/C. The hygienic conditions: terrible.

At one of the huts in the picture below, where my father and I came really close to this dust and soil sucking tornado, I asked an old woman for the way. She responded in a different dialect … I thought first. I had already met some boys who pronounced the “s” like “sh”, but this time it got worse. I had heard about local languages, indigenous languages and guess it must have been either Quechua or Aymara.

There would have been a paved option to the trail in the picture above, but we thought we had found a nice shortcut. And we had! Better than riding on the solo paved road to La Paz we turned slightly south with target of Chara~na. This was the countryside. All the woolen clothes of the children below had probably been manufactured right here, local, sustainable production. Pure simplicity.

They were soooo cute and I asked them “Hola, como te llamas?“, what’s your name? A shy and quiet reply, too quiet for my ears, like a gentle breath.

Our information from copied on-line maps which we had reviewed during a midday stop in the town of Tiahuanacu, a very important archaeological place, were crap. The map we had in our hands was even worse. The arithmetic means arisen from the two versions didn’t help us much either.

Today mother sun took us by the hand and showed us the right path. In the evening we had come much closer to the planned route than we had thought back then. The campsite was superior: Not recognizable during daylight the city of La Paz flickered in yellow colors during the night like a lake of gold under a clear sky filled all over with tiny diamonds.

The chill on above 4000 m altitude chased me back into the tent quickly though … no chance for a picture let alone build up the tripod!

This emaciated friend of mine coming closer and closer chased by the heavy weighing hunger deep inside his belly hadn’t been a friend at all before. Together with another of its kind it ran towards my father and me furiously, making fun of the replies I sent in their direction in the form of 500 g heavy stones. What a soldier now! Dogs seem to work the same everywhere. Their pay being food.

Notice: There are high resolution sattelite data available from Google Maps, so click the link title of this article and scroll to the end of it to see the included Google Maps applet. You can zoom in and see the houses, trails, river crossings and a lot more. Check out the border barracks of Visviri for example.

The clouds of the previous evening had been gone in the morning. We put the sleeping bags in their little protection and compression sacks, rolled the Thermarests and put the tent in it’s green bag to protect it from the dust of the road and the hardships of the day.

After 1.5 hours of cycling we reached the town of Charaña (pronounced charanya with the “a” pronounced like the ‘oo’ in blood). A lot more had we expected. At least we found a somewhat reasonable small shop with hundreds of different items and easily spent our last money there, about 20 €. Probably the biggest deal for the young woman owner of the show with her small, 1 year old boy.

We tried to get on the Internet but asked the owner of this small, 3 computer cybercafe for the speed and whether it’d make more sense to postpone the visit to the other world, to the world of NOW. He explained we should get NOW later on in Chile. That saved us a lot of headaches I guess.

So now we’re at the border, ready to get a 90 days tourist visa for Chile and have our luggage checked to protect the country from diseases. Diseases for their vulnerable mono culture growing food industry that is. All the cyclist coming here know that the Chileans don’t want that stuff, so we, too, had been prepared and didn’t buy any fresh fruit or vegetables.

In the early afternoon we started following road I-123 down south. The road follows the Chile-Bolivia border pretty close as you can see if you zoom in on the map. The Chileans were just upgrading the road to a new level and I guess in a year’s time it’ll be sealed. That was the first part only, then it got worse, in parts really sandy.

The colors from the evening sun got softer and softer and put the area into a nice yellow-orangish mood. With a wonderful view onto distant 6,348 m high Parinacota volcano we continued cycling. But the winds got harder, so hard actually that occasionally we had a really hard time staying on our bikes!

We decided to pitch the tent at a place where they were just upgrading the road. We put it right behind some little hills for wind protection. But then the wind changed direction and we had already put big stones on the leashes. The tent got deformed heavily while we were packing our stuff inside. The bikes got fixed to the head and foot of the tent both for the protection of the tent and bicycles.

We had dinner inside and a small dessert: Chocolate. The latter one we had every evening these days, not very healthy but calories. It came in the same silver foil as the chocolate in Peru, probably imported. We had bought a whole box for 4€ containing about 20 units. To get it the previous day we had to bargain with the woman. First she didn’t want to sell it to us at all, but then she realized she could make profit from the sale

While we had dinner the lamas went on their way home to the paddock. I didn’t see anyone bringing them there, so I guess for them it’s a routine and they profit from the paddock because the stone walls give them protection from the cold winds and by sitting side by side they won’t get cold at night.

Weiße Felsformationen stechen hervor

Wir hatten uns in dieser Ortschaft eingedeckt, da wir nicht wussten, wie weit es zur darauffolgenden sein würde – und sicher ist sicher! Noch eine kühle, bolivianische Cola für umgerechnet 20 Euro Cent getrunken, konnte es weitergehen. So sahen die Wege aus, wenn wir nicht die viel zu grob geschotterte “Straße” fuhren.

Viel Spaß auf engen Pfaden

Und hier nun die Verpflegung Station am Mittag: Vier Frauen aus einem ansonsten ausgestorben wirkenden Dorf, die mit ein paar Styropor-Behältern und jeder Menge isolierenden Wolltüchern aus Eigenproduktion die Vorbeireisenden mit Nahrung versorgten. Das heißt, viel Verkehr gab es hier nicht wirklich. Das Geschäft lief gut, wenn alle 10 Minuten einmal ein LKW seine Staubwolke mit sich brachte und anhielt.

Imbiss Stand an der Hauptstraße

Denn das Klima war trocken, Sonnenschein, dünne Luft. Da zog jedes größere motorisierte Vehikel seine Staubwolke hinter sich her. Wir Radler durften entweder Staub inhalieren oder mussten kurzzeitig anhalten … denn Luft anhalten und zugleich weiterfahren, daran war in diesen Höhen wahrlich nicht zu denken!

Steinerne Dorfkirche auf Bolivianisch

Plötzlich fanden wir uns in einer sehr skurrilen Felslandschaft wider, die sich über mehrere Kilometer unserer Fahrstrecke hinzog. Nur für die Straße wurde richtig Platz gemacht, selbst wenn sie sich noch immer in Schlangen-Kurven durch die Felslandschaft zog. Prima Klettermöglichkeiten für Entdecker aller Couleur gab es hier und ich nahm mir natürlich alle Zeit dafür – eine willkommene Abwechslung zu den langen Stunden im Sattel.

Skurile Felslandschaft am Abend

Das Zelt wurde mit prima Ausblick, windgeschützt und mit Sichtschutz vor den Blicken der ab und an Vorbeifahrenden errichtet, direkt neben einem Wegstück der ehemaligen Straße. Mit fast allen verfügbaren Spannseilen gesichert und “ruhig gestellt”.

Bei der alltäglichen Camping-Routine

Danach hieß es nur noch Kalorien bunkern und die überwältigende Landschaft und Atmosphäre auf sich einwirken lassen:

Der Blick zum Rande der Hochebene

Camp inmitten der Felsen

Beim Nachverfolgen der Route bin ich diesmal auf einige Probleme gestoßen. Die Karten-Kacheln bei Google Maps waren leider nicht höher aufgelöst, so konnte ich den Weg nicht gut verfolgen. Ich hoffe, dass ich im nächsten Beitrag wieder Witterung bekomme. Bis dann.

“La Paz, wo bist du geblieben?” … so oder so ähnlich hätten wir am Morgen singen können, denn weg war sie, die Millionen Metropole. Untergetaucht gewissermaßen unter einen Teppich samtweicher Wolken.

Ãœber den Wolken

Trotz des Erstaunens über das plötzliche Verschwinden von La Paz kullerten wir nicht einfach von der Strecke, wie es dem folgenden Genossen en route passiert ist. Die gelben Männlein sind übrigens Straßenarbeiter, die dem verdutzten LKW-Fahrer beim Abfüllen des restlichen Treibstoffes helfen. Könnte ja geklaut werden.

Nebenbei eine an uns gerichtete Frage: “Habt ihr Wasser?”. Wir überlegen kurz, wofür die Männer wohl Wasser brauchen könnten und kommen zum Entschluss, dass es wohl nicht für den Eigenkonsum ist. Zudem neigen sich unsere Reserven der Erschöpfung; in nicht allzu christlicher Manier teilen wir also diesmal nicht.

Neben der Straße

Unsere ständigen Begleiter auf der Hochebene: Lamas. Dies sind die domestizierten Tierchen, die nicht gleich abhauen, wenn man sie mal schief anguckt. Nach uns gespuckt haben sie übrigens nicht, zum Glück.

Vorbei an den Lamas

Jetzt die Herausforderung des Tages: Geradeaus, schnurstracks geradeaus. Zig Kilometer weit immer geradeaus. Kurven waren bei dieser Etappe Mangelware und sehnsuchtsvoll ersehnten wir uns eine jede schon Kilometer vorher herbei.

Ewig lang gerade aus im Hochland Boliviens

Die Schotterpiste oder pista de grava compactada, wie man auf Spanisch sagen würde, war technisch äußerst anspruchsvoll zu fahren. Selbst mit den breiten 2 Zoll Schlappen, die aufgezogen waren, “schwammen” die Räder manchmal geradezu im Schotter und Sand.

“Hinter dem nächsten Hügel wird es bestimmt besser”, sprachen wir uns Mut zu. “Jetzt aber wirklich hinter dem nächsten, garantiert!” Und wieder nicht. Dazu noch ein Platten am Hinterreifen des Mountainbikes.

Kleiner schwarzer Punkt = Elmar eine Minute voraus

Gegen Abend endlich Besserung. Zwar immer noch schnurgerade Strecke, doch wenigstens ein paar Wolken, ein bisschen Abwechslung wettermäßig. Weiter radeln wir mehr schlecht als recht durch Schotter oder auf engen Pfaden neben diesen. Radfahrer aus der Region haben diese Alternative erschaffen auf dem Weg ins nächste Dorf, zur Arbeit, zum Markt (mercado) oder zur escuela, Schule zu Deutsch.

Wir genießen diese Radwege, erstellt von Radfahrern für Radfahrer. Ein Hochgefühl diese mit 20 km/h entlangzuflitzen, scharfe Kurve links um einen Busch, dann gleich wieder Ausweichmaneuver nach rechts um einem Sandfeld auszuweichen. Action, hurra!

Kampiert wird diese Nacht 200 m entfernt von der eh schon wenigst befahrenen Hauptverbindungsroute der Region, die in Deutschland locker als größtes Bundesland durchgehn würde … flächenmäßig.

P.S. Der erste Teil der Route im Karten-Feld unten ist hoch aufgelöst. Hier ist wirklich jeder Kuhstall zu sehen. Bei der Auflösung macht das Nachverfolgen der Route bei Google Maps richtig Spaß.

removing night shelter

After quarter an hour on the bike we arrived at a national park ranger station. Not a lot of people there, but two cyclists from Germany, Tardis and Arno. They told us that inside the station we could refill the water and that there was a television team in the area at the moment to make a documentary about the wildlife up here.

The two took two months off from work to ride in the area Bolivia – Chile – Argentina. They had already been to Salar Uyuni and could tell us quite a bit. We were very lucky to meet them, not only because of the interesting chatting but also because they gave us maps they didn’t need anymore for Bolivia and detailed Russian maps for the laguna route. Thanks a lot! I could even copy a detailed description of the remote area around the lagunas from a small book they had with them.

Arno had been in South America before but not on a bike if I remember correctly.

Meeting cyclists Tardis & Arne

While I talked to them my Dad followed one of the vizcachas, small chinchilla and rabbit like animals hopping around the national park house. I guess they would make nice accessories for the tent at night when your feet get cold, maybe a good idea for touring cyclist pets Just don’t think about the trouble you might have at borders.

Vizcacha, relative with chinchilla

Now with the information they supplied we got into a small dilemma: There were two options to get to the next village: 1) Pretty flat along the Salar de Surire. Taking this one we would have to cross the border to Bolivia for a short stretch without a visa for Bolivia! Risky in my eyes. I had heart from other cyclists (namely Wilbert from the Netherlands) who have payed a lot of money because they have been caught in other countries without the needed entry stamp. Now I guess it’d be even worse without a visa.

Option number 2) was to cycle up a really bad gravel road, sometimes really sandy, to a 4700 m pass.

I guess your character and mentality, the way you’re thinking, influences a lot now, how you decide. Coming from Germany and being raised in a pretty strict and conservative culture I am used not to see things that relaxed (as for example some French friends of mine did or many cultures I came in contact with in South America). Additionally our budget at the time couldn’t have coped with a several hundred or even thousand € loss, so we opt for number 2).

Cycling between sky and earth

Not a bad decision if we don’t take into account the tough road. Almost no traffic with the exception on one 4×4, and amazingly colorful mountains and vicunas beside the road every now and then.

Colorful mountains

horrendous road but incredible place to be

After the tough uphill a similarly tough downhill followed, all filled with bumps in the road every 50 cm. A tough job not only for the rider, but also causing material fatigue.

view to Bolivia after 4700 m pass

Reaching the bottom of the wide valley we continued south. In the evening the same game as the day before: 4 or 5 pm: Strong sidewinds from the coast start to make cycling harder and harder. Add the exhaustion from riding 4 or 5 hours on above 4000 m and you can understand why we take the next opportunity to pitch the tent: A small deserted village with a nice, locked church serves fine as a wind shield. At least till we’ve pitched the tent, then the wind turns and the tent starts shaking like a flag in the wind.

inner view from sleeping bag position in freezing night