Solar de Uyuni
Thanks for the kind words guys...
Our route through the Altiplano was to take us through to the Solar de Uyuni, the worlds largest salt flat. Again 'surreal' just falls short when trying to desribe it.
We'd ridden from San Juan after finally finding fuel. We have no idea what the octane level was and it felt strangley familiar to see fuel in plastic containers after our Africa experience.
With an early start from San Juan we'd ridden past active volcanoes and made it to the Solar by early afternoon. An expance of eye burning white, I'm not ashamed to admit that the first few 100 metres of riding onto the Solar were pretty intimidating. With no tracks we were placing a 100% faith in the GPS to get us to Isla de Pescada which, apparentley was some 60 miles into the Solar. The small knot of excitement in our stomach's was already growing.
With the Isla reached by around 2pm we'd grabbed a few photos and set about trying to see where we could camp. Any available space seemed to be taken up by the huge and ancient local cacti, besides we'd dreamt for years of actually camping out on the Solar itself, hah, that was'nt going to happen.
By early evening the wind was already getting up and an hour and a half later we'd resigned ourselves to giving up the idea of getting the tent up. The salt surface was like concrete. Even with nail spikes there was no way we were going to make any progress.
As we desperately battled to put the tent away the evening light show began. We did managed to get some nice photos of the sunset, bikes and the Solar.
...and my favourite...
Eventually we managed to get the kind permission from one of the staff on the Isla to sleep in one of the new buildings...talk about relieved!!!
We managed to get a few morning photos before heading to Uyuni town to find a cheap and warm hotel.
Ahhh, Fritz you say all the right things...PS: Javier just been on MSN and send you and Bev his bet wishes.
Right now we're in Peru staying with friends after visiting Lago Titicakca in Boliva. Ahhh, to warm again.
We've just built a new gallery on our website and uploaded it. Here's our site
http://www.2ridetheworld.com just click on the gallery link and have a browse...hope you enjoy it, there's six galleries to check out.
Right I'm knackered and off to bed, night, night and thanks again.
Simon T