Day 57 Ride Uyuni to La Paz

This was a difficult day for a number of reasons.

Overall the riding was fine, and we left the hotel Tonito beside the large military base, without any issues. We loved and hated this hotel. The room was the worst we have stayed in being very small with only two powerpoints and a shower that never got above luke-warm. On the positive side the couple that owned and ran it, spoke perfect English as he was from Boston and had met her (a native of Uyuni) at Amherst when he was making pizzas. The other positive was that their internal restaurant was excellent and made the best pizzas that I have ever had I think, plus other super food from the west like Cowboy Biscuits and apple strudel, both a real change from normal Bolivian or Argentinian food. 

The second big challenge of the day was getting petrol. JC had asked us to fill up on the drive into the town two days before, which he and I did. The others did not. As a result we had great trouble finding petrol this morning. Bolivia has a system to sell petrol to "foreigners" that requires a computer and charges higher rates. You have to input your plate number, passport number and nationality. My rego plate would not work as it is only numbers, so I added the "ACT" which appears on the top, making my rego "ACT 91518" and it worked. The man even accepted it! However, we drove around four stations in Uyuni trying to find one that had the system, but could not. So Willy filled bikes from his 40 litre reserve from the truck, otherwise only to be used in emergencies. He was not happy! Nor was Paul.

Then we rode off, creating problem number two, where rebuilding an overpass where we had to turn right. Rahn, Jeff and Paul went ahead, and took the wrong turning as the rebuild had closed the official on-ramp. JC could see this was a problem and led me up an alternate ramp via a marketplace which did not look like a street at all, but did connect correctly to the freeway. Thirty kilometres further on, the others caught up and over took us at speed. They were clearly un-impressed.

Problem three came when we entered La Paz. The lower city streets are mayhem, so we had decided to leave our bikes on the outskirts at the top of a hill with a friend and take the new cable cars (called the Mi Furnicular) to the hotel. Despite this, we had to take some very packed streets with large potholes. At one point I was behind a truck with the others in a lane on the right, and I indicated I would move into their lane and did so. Paul thought I had done this too quickly and too close. We did not touch each other, but he gave me a punch on the arm 100m further on. After we entered the compound, Paul said nothing but Rahn really hooked into me, with threats. I told him that violence was not an answer and walked away. Overall it was a stressful day. 

We then travelled down the yellow and green cable ways and took a taxi to a fantastic hotel called the Mitru Sur which is about one year old and is the best we have stayed at. For three nights we will live in luxury and it is a good time to do this!