Dakar Madness. Celebrity Status Uyuni, Bolivia!

January 11, 2014 Desert outside of Uyuni to desert south of Uyuni 200km.


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Today we packed up camp and took off on the 100km of gravel to Uyuni.

While riding we passed small fields of Quinoa.  Not sure how it grows in such a dry place.

Stopped for some road construction.

Turns out we had our dates a little wrong the Dakar (Bikes and Quads only) will be headed through Bolivia tomorrow.  

We took the extra time to explore the incredible Salar De Uyuni.  

The Salar is the worlds largest salt flat at over 10,000 km 2.  Not to mention its at an altitude of approx 12,000ft.  It had rained in recent days but was clear skies while we were their.  We had to drive through a  bunch of water (extremely salty) to get out where it was a little drier.

We visited the salt hotel and put our sticker beside the others.  The salt hotel is made up of bricks of salar crust. 

Dakar salt sculpture!

Collection of flags on the flats.  Go Canada! Matt Cambell!!

After the Salar we got our bikes washed at a local car wash.  They boys running the hoses managed to over soak the bikes.  Sending water down Trevors exhust and soaking Kyles airfilter.  Then Kyle´s bikes battery went dead from trying to start.  Some helpful Bolivians helped get us going again. 

Just a couple of the hundreds of photos people took with us. It was insane!  Not sure if they thought we were racers... or the fact that we were really tall.  Everybody wanted photos with us.

This guy interviewed us about our travels.

Normally travelers run into gas shortages in Uyuni.  Bolivian gas company YPFB was on the ball selling gas from two tanker trucks.

We met Jeep Club Florianopolis from Brazil at the car wash.  The Jeeps are called troopers and have a 3L diesel Ford drivetrain, Dana 44 axles and a fiberglass body!  The jeepers advised us that they were headed to Calama Chile to watch the next stage.  It would be better as there would be all the vehicles in the race not just the quads and bikes.

Calama was 480km away by gravel road.  380km without gas (our bikes range is 300km).  After checking out the sights and sounds of the Dakar in Uyuni we decided to head to Chile on a whim.  

We gassed up 100km away from Uyuni and camped for the night.