Day 48 San Cristobal to some little town in the desert

The landscape became more and more fantastic, while the road became increasingly more difficult. With dirt or gravel, you can average around 40 or 50 mph...cautiously. However, sand is another story, especially on a fully loaded 500 pound bike. For your average street rider, having the tire slip out from you is a definite "oh shit" moment. As a racer, you become accustomed to having the tires move around underneath you, as you are pushing the limits of the tire's traction. In the sand, its like having the front tire in a never ending "oh shit" moment. You can be going completely straight and the front tire (and handlebars) are going in all different directions. You have to train yourself to not overreact, let them move around, and to stay on the throttle. Even with being a competent off road rider, I must have almost crashed at least ten times that day because I would get up the speed on the gravel or dirt, but then suddenly the road would turn to sand. Perhaps the day was a little tougher than usual because I had gotten sick from dinner the night before and was unable to eat or drink much of anything all that day. Despite the brutal riding, I wouldn't have missed the experience for anything. The river crossings, boulder fields, and roads to nowhere are just a few of the things that make this a unique adventure.

Day 47 Potosi to San Cristobal, Bolivia

When the pavement ran out leaving Potosi that morning, it became apparent that it would be some time before we would ride on it again. We were headed straight for the southwest corner of Bolivia where the largest salt flat in the world is and one of the hardest possible routs to get into Chile. The whole area is basically the northern portion of the Atacama desert. The Salar de Uyuni salt flat is huge beyond description, unfortunately pictures of flat white areas in the desert don't seem to come out too well.
The only other vehicles heading our way were full sized four wheel drive trucks that the tour companies ran. It was an incredible and tough day with all the rain, hail, and lack of traction. At one point there was a menacing thunder storm ahead of us with lightening all around, I had to think about the last time I purposely rode straight into a lightening storm out in the middle of a nowhere desert. The answer was never.

Day 46 La Paz to Potosi, Bolivia

Monday morning we hit the road south out of La Paz. We made good time most the way down the high plains of Bolivia, despite the bikes running rough from the high altitude. The landscape was slowly turning from rolling hills to the desolate beginnings of the desert. Later that day it started to rain and over one of the mountain passes we rode over snow (just a bit sketchy). Of course when your cold and wet is also a good time to run out of gas. Lucky for us, we found a shack on the side of the road were this kid (photo below) sold us a couple gallons to make it to the city of Potosi.

Day 45 La Paz

The next day I was ready to ride south after a solid 3 hours of sleep. However, I got word from Mike that he couldn't make it through the rain forest and had to come back through La Paz. He spent hours riding through torrential rains, river crossings, and deep mud. So while waiting on him I kicked it around the city and had lunch with my friend Paul.


I wonder if these Jesus buses were made to be used on the death road?

Day 44 Coroico to La Paz

Saturday morning I set out back up the death road to La Paz to go play my gig later that night. Mikey, having no interest in returning to the city or hearing loud electronic music, went north for a 2 day ride through the rain forest. The plan was to meet south of La Paz in 2 days. I arrived in the city that afternoon to an area called San Pedro. A great improvement over where we were a few days ago. Later that night I met up with my friend and fellow DJ Paul at the club/art gallery he owns and runs with his family. By 12:00 the place was packed. I didn't have to play 2 am, so I just kicked back and met all kinds of really cool people who were generally interested in all kinds of music and art. This gave the whole place a really great vibe. From the first track I played, everyone was getting down. Equipped with a good mixer and a clean sound system, I rocked it. Playing music is a lot like racing motorcycles, in that you spend countless hours in preparation just for those few great moments where nothing else matters. And for the next hour, nothing else did. When I handed over the reigns to the next DJ, instead of mixing or cutting out of my track, he let it play through, then stopped the music and the whole place went wild...kind of like a night club version of a standing ovation. It was really cool to get that kind of response from a place you never even been to before. I was a bit taken back. The rest of night I had countless people thanking me for playing. One of my of my best gigs in my many years of DJing.

Day 43 Coroico

Coroico was in fact paradise. We took the day off to swim in the pool, eat plenty of good food, roast in the sauna, check out the town, and to generally enjoy not operating large machinery.

Day 42 La Paz to Coroico, Bolivia

La Paz is a big city and we were in the wrong part of town. After the border crossing the day before, we arrived too late and worn out to find a better place to crash for the night. I was booked to DJ on Saturday night, but that was three days away and we wanted out of the craziness. That morning we read in our travel book about the world's most dangerous road; La Paz to Coroico. Perfecto. This road has a elevation drop of around 12000 ft in 60 miles of twisty, pot holed, and partially paved road. It claims over 100 lives a year. At the end, a little town tucked away in the edge of the rain forest that caters to those trying to escape the big city. Mike and I had a killer time (sorry...I had to say it) riding this road. Unfortunately, most of the way down was through the clouds. You knew that the drop-offs over the side were thousands of feet below but you couldn't really see that well. The first photo is the only one I got from top and the second is just below the cloud line towards the bottom.