Hola Beast Crew

Blown gaskets, blown electrics, salt, altitude and stress.  The Beasts hitched up with 4 motorcyclists to take on one of the highest border crossings and one of the most treacherous stretches of road in the world as well as cross a water covered Salar de Uyuni.  Apologies for the length of this email but as can be read, it has been an eventful few thousand kilometres.

San Miguel del Catamarca (Argentina) – Tucuman – Tafi del Valle – Cafayate – Salta – Susques (Argentina) – San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) – Laguna Colorado (Bolivia) – San Juan – Salar de Uyuni – Isla IncaHuasi – Uyuni

26th Feb - 16th March 2007

The 40oC heat of the northwestern plains of Argentina took their toll on our poor little Beastie.  We pulled into Tucuman and the temperature of the radiator water temperature suddenly shot up to 120oC and started gushing out onto the floor.  Generally this is not considered brilliant for an engine!  We pulled over immediately and carefully took the radiator cap off to be confronted with a cloud of steam and a half empty radiator.  We took the car to a mechanic after pontificating over the issue over a few beers, dreading that the worst had occurred… a blown head gasket.

Grey smoke was pumping out of the exhaust, even producing smoke rings at every chug.  The mechanics shook their heads and rubbed their chins in the way that all mechanics do around the world. One said that it was definitely the head gasket (a massive and expensive job!).  One mechanic cleaned the air filter, changed the carburettor membranes (destroyed by alcohol filled Brasilian petrol) and the grey smoke miraculously vanished.  The blown head gasket had not blown according to the mechanics; apparently the altitude and the COLD weather were playing a part.  Tucuman is admittedly higher than Ben Nevis (by about 500m) and it was a very chilly 18oC.  If only all mechanics in the UK could blame grey smoke flooding out of exhausts on the temperature!

We drove up into the clouds and through the windy roads to the town where Tucamanians escape to the cool of the mountains.  Tafi del Valle is located at 2,500m, a pretty place that overlooks the encroaching clouds, sells llama wool, local crafts and offers local sweetcorn dishes wrapped in maize leaves.

Due to leaving Brasil ahead of schedule we were two weeks early for meeting British Jason and Kiwi Pete we met at the Horizons Unlimited meeting in Viedma and Portuguese Nuno and Brasilian Tatiana whom we met in Dakar Motos.  Pete’s sister and her husband, Jackie and Trent decided to join the lads for 5 weeks driving around the country.  The ironic thing is that we met Jackie and Trent when we were trying to get the Beast out of customs and they were trying to get their motorbikes out of customs in Darwin, Australia and here they were with Pete driving around South America!  The world is definitely very small!

We spent a few days in the pretty wine town of Cafayate getting drunk, lying around the pool, catching up on travel stories and chilling out after a few months of stressful riding and driving.  After several hangover endured days, we drove up through an amazing pink and red canyon with wind and water sculptured rocks with strange names like the frog, castle and obelisk.  The motorcyclists bombed it up to Salta leaving us a good two hours behind them.  In Salta, we visited the mummy museum where a child sacrifice, from before the Spanish conquistadores invaded Argentina, was preserved in her frozen, terrified state.  She was found at 6,000m on top of a volcano. We also subjected ourselves to a stunning white water rafting down through the valleys of Salta.

We left Salta and headed up to the Humuhuaca range, a UNESCO protected mountain range eroding in a stunning way.  The range climbed up from 2,000m through a windy road that climbed up to 3,600m over 17km. The Beast took the lack of oxygen badly as we chugged up the hill at 20km/h dropping down to first gear and even into low ratio just to get up a small hill.  Breathing became more difficult with the altitude and when we stopped at Susques just before the Chilean border for the night we all felt dizzy, sick and lost our appetite.  High octane fuel at altitude is useless and even hinders power.  The fuel is fired out of the exhaust if the altitude if it is too high an octane as it is not burnt in the engine.

The following day, we crossed the one of the highest border passes in the world, the Paso de Jama at 4,200m with the temperature dropping to 5oC before descending down through barren brown stone ridden lands, passing vicunas and llamas to the 30oC tourist town of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile on the edge of the Atacama desert.  We spent a few days enjoying the strange dusty town’s oasis like qualities where days were spent dancing around the tour shops to try and get information on the roads and the effect of altitude in Bolivia and evenings were spent dancing around firepits in discos and sloshing Pisco Sours back.

Again the world of overlanders was shown to be definitely very small as one of the motorcyclists we were travelling with, bumped into a german motorcyclist he had met in southern Argentina.  Chris decided that he would accompany us for the enduring trip back up into the Andes.

We set off the following day: 4 motorcyclists; four riders, three pillion and one giant sluggish red Beast.  After 1 hour at the border sorting out visas and handing back our temporary import documents, we had an hour start on the motorcyclists so we chugged slowly back up the hill at a sleep enducing 20km/h (that is 14mph).  Our hour head start gave us no advantage as the motorcyclists flew up the hill and waved nonchantly at us as they screamed past at 120mph.

The road off to Bolivia was on the road to the Paso de Jama but still in Chile.  As soon as we left the wonderful tarmac we knew that the next few weeks were going to be … well, fun shall we say!  The gravel roads with sudden climbs made the initial start difficult.  We all pulled up at the border crossing and got stamped into Bolivia but we were told that we had to go a further 30km to the customs office.  We spluttered into the customs post and headed into the warm office to be confronted with Abba blaring from the tiny tinny speakers in the customs office.  Breathing was incredibly difficult as we waited for our temporary import document… we were at one of the highest customs post in the world – a mere 5038m above sea level.

The roads were difficult for the motorcyclists so their pillion passengers jumped in the Beast to make driving easier for the drivers.  We drove around the green Laguna Verde and the red Laguna Colorado down roads of gravel and sand with no signs or even a decent map to tell us if we were going in the right direction.  Armed with 3 Garmin GPS systems, one computer GPS and several paper maps, all 9 of us still had no idea if we were going in the right direction!  Nuno got a little overconfident on the gravel and skidded off the road, taking off his protection bars and denting his panniers.  No injuries except for damaged pride and a bit shaken, we all headed off to the only building for 90km next to the Laguna Colorado.  We all piled into a few dorms and settled down to start some dinner.  Altitude made us all feel queasy and we tried to get a few wines down us to steady our stomachs. 

With altitude water boils at a lower temperature, usually between 85 and 95oC.  The water has not actually reached boiling point and so needs to be boiled for longer even though it is bubbling. Had we known this we would have all probably been saved from the vomiting and diarrhoea that ensued through the night. We cooked up some rice and beans… neither of which ever cooked all the way through. 

The following day we drove with motorbikes in front and the Beast lumbering up behind just to ensure that any accidents or petrol issues with the motorbikes would ensure that no one was left behind in the surreal and barren landscape.  We chugged along at between 4,500 and 5,000m, across gravel and sand roads that were barely visible.  Mountains towered up above us with flamingos, llamas and vicunas skittishly staring at us as we chugged past.

We somehow managed to reach the Chile-Bolivia border.  We were confused as to the direction that we needed to take, so locals were asked before we were pointed off in the direction of a football pitch.  We followed the direct road of the map whereas the motorcyclists all decided to take the road that skirted around the mud strewn salt lake.  A wise decision in the end!  Greg drove through a wet patch and immediately managed to bog down the 3.5 tonne Beast.  We all jumped out to see the car slowly sinking into the muddy myre.  Trent and Greg took it in turns to breathlessly dig the wheels out.  The lads on their bikes came over to have a good laugh and then take it in turns to also dig us out.  Alexis, with the girls egging her on in the back, revved the engine and managed to coat the lads in a nice layer of salty mud before driving out onto solid land.  Half an hour of pain could have been avoided if we had only remembered that we had diff lock!

After our mud splattering we all puttered into the small town of San Juan de Rosario where we were escorted by a shop owner to one of the two hotels in town.  We were treated to a spectacular view of the llama farmers bringing their herd into the safety of the town and rounding them up off the village’s football pitch against the setting sun.   

The following day we set off to brave the infamous Salar de Uyuni.  The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt lake in the world at 10,853km2 (4,085 miles2).  It is estimated that the Salar contains 10 billion tons of salt (of which only 25,000 tons are extracted annually). After consulting drivers and overlanders coming from the Salar we discovered that there was 2 to 10km with water on the ‘lake’ which had come from a storm two weeks previously.  We attempted to prepare the Beast for the drive by tying a tarpaulin beneath the car to protect the engine from the ultra corrosive salt of the Salar de Uyuni.  The motorbikers covered their air intakes. 

We sent Jason and Pete out to explore how far the water on the surface of the Salar extended to determine whether we should continue.  The drove out about 1km through sludgy salt covered by 20-30cm of water.  They returned triumphant, Jason covered in a salty layer as he had enjoyed racing around in the water…. (he was later to regret that)…they had discovered solid salt.

Chris decided that the water was too much and left to drive around the lake to Uyuni, a lonely 100km trip.  We all endeavoured to conquer the wet salty water, driving slowly out to the dry solid salt.  We took the obligatory pictures and carried on towards the centre of the Salar.  A small amount of water was covering the Salar as we carried on, splattering every bit of the car.  Salt started to coat everything. 

Jason’s bike stopped suddenly in the white Salar.  All bike mechanics to the helm, a bit of WD40 and an hour of tracing the cables by Pete, Nuno, Jason and Trent still didn’t get his bike started, so Pete held onto a rope and towed Jason behind him to the Isla Incahuasi about 10km away on the glimmering horizon.  The salt was slowly started building up on all our radiators, engines, electric cables, pushing the temperature up and causing a light show of colours on the lads dashboards.

We all pulled into the island of Incahuasi, a cactus strewn island surrounded by a surreal sea of crusty salt as the sun was starting to set.  We were all exhausted after a highly emotional and stressful day driving across a white expanse with clouds reflecting off the water’s surface with glimmering mountains in the distance.  We ate dinner on a table made of salt and snuggled up around the Beast for protection with a couple of glasses of wine as a massive lightning storm drew in to increase the level of water on the Salar.

Trent and Pete got up at 6am to try and work out the issue with Jason’s bike.  They managed to trace the problem to the connectors on his starter solenoid, which were fried and had become a crusty green colour by the salt.  We drove the 40km to land across a glimmering salt lake, incapable of deciphering where the clouds started and the salt ended.  The scenery was surreal.

We pulled up at the Salt Hotel where the Beast came to a spluttering stop and Jason had stopped too.  Pete and Jason were pulling their hair out trying to work out which electrical cable they had already tried but to no avail.  The Beast spluttered back into life and Pete decided that we should tow Jason off the Salar as his bike was also starting to play up.  For a nerve racking 15km, we towed Jason blindly through sludgy salt water which reached depth of 50cm in parts, with every slight wobble slowing to stop him from being dragged through the water. 

We slowly chugged past the salt harvesters, creating piles of salt to dry in the sun and almost managed to all make it out of the Salar without any further damage when the Beast stopped shore side and could not be started.  Several failed attempts only managed to drain the battery, so we flagged down a salt laden truck to see if he would tow us to the next village.  The Beast spluttered back into action after a couple of kilometres towing and we managed to get all the way to Uyuni without too many issues, overtaking a wobbly towed Jason and Pete who were carefully negotiating the potholes.

We all drove straight to the wash station to rid our vehicles of the evil salt that had caused us so much pain over the past few days.  The Beast was last to be cleaned and when it came to getting her back to the hotel we could not start her for love nor money… a sign of things to come!

Our salty adventure has left us all with broken bikes and Beasts, with the exception of Chris who wisely left early and met us at the Salt Hotel after taking a tour (in somebody else’s vehicle!).  If you would like to read Pete’s version of our trip - http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/baird/002509.php or Nuno and Tatiana’s version http://www.rotacheguevara.blogspot.com/ then please click on the links.

An extra big thank you to all our travelling partners- Tatiana, Nuno, Jason, Pete, Chris, Jackie and of course Trent.  Without you all we wouldn’t have been persuaded to do one of the most stupid drives of our two and half years of travel!  An extra big thank you to Trent for calming Greg’s nerves when a stray noise would come into his hearing and for booting the Beast back into action when she needed some TLC to get off the Salar.

 

Notes on Bolivia:

Altitude sickness can occur from altitudes above 2,500m.  The symptoms include vomiting, dizziness, loss of appetite, loss of consciousness, feeling tired, out of breathe feeling and generally just feeling rough.  You also get a feeling of a small dwarf sitting on your chest and squashing you.  One of the cure alls for altitude sickness is the leaves of coca made into a tea or chewed with a little bicarbonate of soda or a black ash, but it just seems to make you feel a bit floaty and staves off hunger.