Bolivia
Motorcycle trip in Bolivia
The border of Bolivia in Copacabana was pretty easy to cross. A few minutes to let know the Peruvian authorities that we are leaving the country, then a form to fill to get the 30-day visa stamped on our passport. For the side-cars, we also needed to fill a form, but online. Then, the customs inspected our vehicles and needed the documents of the vehicles. In an hour, everything was settled.
Our first Bolivian stop was in the village of Copacabana. Built on a cliff, the village offers glorious view over the Titicaca lake. The first kilometres in Bolivia, between Copacabana and Tiquina were breath-taking. The view over the surrounding mountains and the Titicaca lake is glorious. We needed to reach the other side of the lake to cross the country. We used a small boat made of old wood to cross. Once we reached the other side, we celebrated Raphaël’s birthday on the Titicaca’s edge.
We passed by La Paz for some mechanics shopping. We noticed that it’s very hard for foreigners to get petrol. Indeed, the Bolivian government is selling petrol at the cost price to the residents. However, the price is officially much higher for the “extranjeros” (three times the price for locals which finally means around 1€ per litre for foreigners). Plus, they have only unleaded with an octane of 85 and a bad quality. However, our vehicles need at least an octane of 90. We opted to buy a product to increase the octane and will carry on our journey in Bolivia as such.
We headed to the famous Uyuni. The roads are in good conditions but there is only the desert between cities.
In Uyuni, we decided to leave the side-cars in the village to avoid damaging them with the salt. We heard too many stories of vehicles damaged in the Salar de Uyuni and preferred not taking the risk.
We reached the Salar with a “collectivo” (bus used by the locals). We went to the Isla de Incahuasi, an island made of corals with many cactus. Around there is a white desert made of salt, as far as we can see. This is breath-taking. We watched the sunset and sunrise of the island before to go back in the Uyuni village where we visited the Cemetery of Trains. Many trains have been abandoned and left in the south of the village, this is perturbing to see this kind of “cemetery” in the middle of the desert.
Then, we have decided to go with a guide by 4×4 in the South of Lipez, an area in the South of Bolivia. The roads are in very bad conditions and we preferred to give a rest to our side-cars. The area is absolutely glorious. We saw the Laguna Colorada, a lagoon with a tint of red and many pink flamingos, the Geysers, the Aguas Calientes with a bath at 35°C and a view over a lagoon, the Dali Desert which looks like one of the paintings of the famous artist and the Laguna Verde, a lagoon with a tint of green. After this we crossed 200kms of desert to reach the Peruvian border, in Ollague.
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