By Paul
La Paz – Oruro 144 miles
Well after riding around in circle’s the other day in La Paz for hours and hours trying to find our way out it was much easier today. We found our way out of the city this morning with no problems. The ride today was pretty nice. We had just about no rain for the whole day. Today we are on the most (major) highway in Bolivia. Hwy. 1. Well lets say what we have seen from over our handle bars today. First there was lots and lots of dead dogs. Then there were farmers cleaning off there sacks of carrots by walking on the sacks in the ditch water. Oh and then there was a full size bus coming at us with no windshield or windows at all. The drivers were all bundled up. It looked really funny. And the last thing we saw that was interesting was a fuel truck with a blown out tire in the rear that was smoking heavily. He was going slow as if he knew he had a blow out but didn’t really care. We passed that truck in hurry.
Upon arriving in Oruro we ran across two others that were on Moto. tour. They flagged us over to have a chat. Rob was on a Tennere 660 and Joe was on a DR 650. They were from New Zealand and have been on tour for 2 months. They were getting a local Bolivian motorcycle enthusiast to go fill up there gas can so didn’t have to pay the 2.5 times more for the fuel. ( As foreigners here in Bolivia we have to pay a lot more for the fuel. This is thanks to the bordering countries coming over to smuggle fuel back to their country. So us on motos. are caught in the loop hole. This really sucks for us. Most gas station wont even give you gas at all. It takes too much time just to find fuel here. We don’t really care about paying the surcharge. We just want GAS!! Its one of the few things that we cant do without. Now we have learned to find our gas the night before so we don’t ride around all morning wasting our time getting on the road.) After about 5 times to the gas station they refused to fill the gas can for him anymore. They still did not have enough fuel in their tanks and would have to deal with it in the morning. It is also illegal for them to fill gas into any kind of a can here in Bolivia. Some will do it for you; but most will not. We fill our gas bags out of our tank before we go fill up at the station. Camille and I had dinner that night with Rob and Joe. We were heading in the opposite directions so we looked at maps over dinner and exchanged some info.
Oruro-Potosi (13,300 ft.) 198 miles
Today we were riding at very high elevations once again. Between 12,000 and 16,000 ft. It rained on us just about all day long today. Its amazing that it can be so so cold and still raining. There was one long stretch when the rain turned to hail. Pretty good size hail at that. I would say about marble size and at this elevation there is Nothing. Nowhere to get out of it and hide. No trees,no buildings. Nothing!! All you could really do is just keep riding, but at a much slower speed. Then it got to the point that the hail accumulated on the road so much that vehicles were sliding off into the ditch. Luckily Camille and I do have some experience riding on icy roads so we were OK. Oh and then there was the lightning storm. Its not the best feeling when you see the lightning storm ahead and your heading right into it. Again we are about the highest thing out here on the road. I thought to myself “ At least we have rubber under us right”. As you may be able to tell today was a long very cold day. Yes we also needed gas today and we were in the middle of nowhere and the station would not budge at all and refused to give us anything. Luckily they told us of a house around the corner that was sell it out of jugs. Good thing because Camilles shooting star would not have made it to Potosi. Sorry no photos. from today. Just wasn’t really in the mood.
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