Uyuni to San Juan - Troy

After the Salar we drove back to Uyuni, where the wonderful tour group had secured enough petrol for me to continue the journey. I was feeling better thanks to the doctoring of Tutu so i was ready to continue on the moto, which we fueled then headed towards the train graveyard just out of town.

Due to the high salinity of this place a bunch of trains had been shipwrecked here, and formed a very interesting backdrop to this amazing landscape. After a brief stop for photos (al la countless tourists before us) we then took the completely unpaved and slippery road to San Juan which would be the first nights sleep for us.

I was expecting from my internet researches that this was the beginning of some really harsh and unforgiving riding, but was happy to find it only reasonably life threatening, mostly slippery gravel with corrugates which could rattles the filling from your teeth. Thus following Tim's training and sage advice, I rode this section as fast as I could on the pegs (ie standing up) and kept his mantra in my mind that momentum will keep the bike standing so long as you don't freak out and hit the breaks (I was glad to have heard his many stories of awful roads from his last trip (and for those who haven't heard those stories, he rode some bloody awful roads!!)).

Thus I actually rode ahead of the 4wd and spent a great deal of time waiting for them to catch up! This was also contra to my readings where other riders (who probably had not had the benefit of someone like Tim's knowledge) having the 4wds waiting for them. Eventually our driver told me he couldn't keep up and gave me the directions forward advising me to go ahead, so I did this.

I eneded up getting to a town and pulled over to wait for the 4wd, the sun was setting and we were on a schedue so I presumed they were right behind me. I kicked back on the bike and began to play angry birds on my ipod (thanks again Tim (you mongrel)) after a while I realised that I had got through 4 levels an the 4wd still hadn't caught up. I began to think I may have taken a wrong turn so headed back down the road, after a while I saw the truck, they told me they had broken down, a prob with the battery, and they were awaiting me to come and rescue them...

HAHAHA, this was quite a relief to me since I had always expected that they would be the ones rescuing me!!!

We eventually reached the town of San Juan, though you couldn't really call it a town more like a tiny village. We were ushered into our accommodation just after dusk, which was completely made from salt, the walls, the tables, the chairs, even the beds were made from salt blocks (though thankfully not the mattresses!! We settled in and were served food and promised a hot shower which never eventuated, though thats normal, especially in Bolivia.

I felt confident that if that was the worst of the roads that this trip had to offer than I was laughing!!! How naive was I!!!!!!!!!!