Project VELAIA

This tool, the Lucido TX1 headlight, headlamp or head torch (which I will call headlight from now on), is an item I bought from my outdoor shop at the beginning of my tour. I especially liked it on the recumbent bicycle as my rear light was not very good. The headrest on the recumbent was carbon fibre but finally broke in China when a man tried to stop me from riding away. Therefore I show how I mounted the headlight to the headrest exemplary on a phone handset.

Some people I met on the tour have reported problems with the power cord breaking after some time on other headlights. I never had a problem like that with this headlight even though I used it on a daily basis for 20 months.

Now this is a picture how the light had been mounted on the headrest (side view). I had some loss in comfort when leaning my head against the headrest but had the full power of the light directed to the back. The full power, that is the 1W Luxeon LED in the center for the long distance light, the two smaller LEDs for near-field wide angle flood light and the three red blinking LEDs at the battery box. In Iran for example I also added a reflector west to the bike for increased visibility on the dangerous highways at night.

The battery box takes 3 AA (mignon) batteries of which I had many, all rechargeable ones for environmental, economic and performance reasons. I didn’t have any trouble not even in very wet environments. The picture below is with two batteries still in use after almost 2 years usage on tour. They were ANSMANN 2500 mAh batteries if I remember correctly.

There are two buttons for controlling the functions of the light. They’re right at the top of the light. Here are the functions which each of them serves:

• Left) Push it once will enable/disable the long distance 1 watt LED in the center, push for 3 seconds will enable the 1 watt LED and the two flood light LEDs sitting beside it for full power to the front
• Right) Push it once will enable the two LED flood light in low-power mode, push it another time will switch to the high-performance mode and a third time will disable them. Push it for 3 seconds will enable/disable the 3 red LEDs at the battery box in blinking mode.

Now to protect the optics and LEDs under harsh conditions or when you don’t use the light and have it together with other (heavy) equipment in a bag, you can turn around the front LEDs so they’re protected. That will look like this

I am still using the light now after the trip for jogging and cycling at night time. The only problem I have right now is a loose connection which makes it a bit uncontrolable at times – I have to check whether the Mammut company will exchange or repair it on guarantee.

During the tour I have met and cycled with people without such a strong headlight with the near-field and distance features. I often had to lend my light away to them. That’s why I have written this review, because it’s one of the tools I don’t wanna miss and I would have missed a lot on my tour.

The only drawback is the pretty high price of almost 80 €. I was lucky to have a gift card of 200 € from my outdoor shop with which I could pay for the headlight.

The night was a good one, good sleep with the pleasing sound of the river a few meters away, with the fresh air of the Andes, and relatively warm temperatures. My feet also slept well

Then in the morning the distance to the village where we had planed to catch a bus further down to the south, to Puno on the Titicaca lake, was only a few kilometers, all downhill. The decision was not very easy because generally we don’t like to ride in the bus, but the timeframe we had to get to Chile got smaller and smaller: 50 days were left to go in Huaraz. We definitely had to cycle on the high plateau in Bolivia, on the salt lakes and the laguna route, so we had to sacrifice some parts of Peru, namely the area around Cusco and Machu Picchu. Not an easy decision!

So we went to the small village, looked for the bus terminal and asked for the options. All the buses left at 5 or 6 pm, so we had more than enough time left. We went to the city and started cooking. I don’t know whether it was the professional manner that attracted the people, the uncommon spaghetti dish or sauce or just the fact that two gringos on bicicletas were cooking in the center of the village. What I know is that I found myself in the middle of a 50 person crowd explainin everybody what we’re cooking, who we are, where we’ve come from and a thousand things more. The children were happy about this change in their daily routine and even parents watched these strange strangely dressed aliens.

Then we went on the internet where we had a bit of privacy and a bit of internet … probably a sattelite connection again, but the PCs were OK.

The transport to Lima where we had to change buses should get really hard. Not only because of the fast driving style of the driver and the extremely bad road, but also because I had to leave the bus everytime it stopped to pick someone up or let some farmers go. I did that because I was worried about the luggage … a lot of reports about luggage getting lost and I’d rather like to not lose it in a foreign country! Also the handling of the bikes was pretty rough and Elmar and I insisted on putting them onto the bus ourselves!

With almost no sleep we arrived in Lima in the early morning hours and had to find a bus company that would bring us to Puno on the Titicaca lake. We cycled with the sacks in which we had put the luggage around the area of the bus companies while strange people walked through the streets … nothing for the faint-hearted!

Then the morning came and we realized that the earliest we could get a bus to Puno would be in the afternoon! More waiting hours with nothing to do and now already more than 24 hours no sleep – we felt groggy! And we still had to take care for the bikes because of all the people around us. One time we went to a restaurant in the bus terminal of the flores bus company and just took our bikes with us up the stairs. One of the waitresses got really angry with us and even threatened to call the police if we wouldn’t leave! We were the only customers at that time!

Anyway, one hour before getting onto the bus, a man came runing towards us and said something that we had to take an earlier bus because there was not enough luggage space on the bus we had booked for the two bikes! Only problem: the earlier bus didn’t have the cama seats, the comfortable bed-like seats where you can rest properly! I tried everything to get our bikes on the cama bus, but no chance. Then I decided that it was more important to get to Puno and we made a compromise that we’d get two seats each in the normal bus – accepted!

This time the bus ride took about 21 hours! Almost no stop. I could sleep occasionally but it still felt strange: no bike riding, no possibilities to stop wherever you want, no communication with the locals. Just not the real thing for me. On the other hand the desert outside didn’t look too interesting, there were a lot more cars, often no security lanes and it was sooooooo hot.

We arrived in Arequipa, then continued to Puno where we got off the bus and into the nice altiplano weather with a lot of sunshine and blue sky!

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.

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.