I was quite warm over night, but early in the morning there was ice on the top of the tent. A breakfast of porridge, and then I hit the road. Towards the end of yesterday, I had cycled up to a ridge way, and I continued following it in the morning. As it turned out, I must have all but peaked at the top the night before, and so soon, a wonderful downhill section began.
Bottoming out at a valley, I stopped at a tienda to get more water, and then continued along the rough track. It was a road that hadn’t seen a grader in a long time, and the six inch high corrugations were spaced less then a metre apart, and stretched the whole width of the road. That said, this valley had something unusual… water, and trees! I hadn’t seen trees in probably more than a month.
Ok, they may not look much to you, but this was the most amount of greenery I had seen in a long time. The valley also had some wonderfully crazy rock formation.
Along the way, I met two French cyclists coming the opposite way (Roger and Monique). I have to say, that I didn’t envy their journey towards Uyuni… when they left me, they would have had a pretty tough uphill climb that would probably take them the rest of the day to reach my camp spot of the night before.
For me, the road continued in a generally downhill manner, passing by even more weird and other worldly eroded rocks.
Quite a phallic looking rock!
The dirt road seems endless!
Even the small trickle of water flowing through the valley makes a big difference to what life can be supported. Llamas change to cattle, birds and insects flew through the air. Having descended a few hundred metres probably made a difference as well, but I am still above the 3000 metres mark.
Cycling into Tupiza, I spotted Heidi, who showed me the way to a nice and economical hostel. I will take a couple of days off here to get the bike sorted, and buy some clothes from the large market which takes place on Thursdays.
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