July 15, 2016
late start, or is that a half day: Tupiza to dry-stream campsite.
I am not looking forward to today, nor tomorrow, nor next day.
Tupiza where I'm now is at 3000m altitude, while Potosi, 254km north, is at 4200m.
I reckon it'll take three days riding. There'll be a lot of climbing in thin air with two nights camping in sub zero temperatures.
I wait now this morning for the sun to rise well above the rooftops to dispel the frosty morning nip in the air, usually after 9 o'clock. The hostel check-out time is 11am, so I'm in no hurry, only having the area around my bed in the dormitory rid, panniers packed and on the bike ready to leave by 10.45.
I leave the bike in the hostel while off food shopping for three days on the road, picking up a bag of rice, bag full of bread rolls, two cans of tuna, can of sardines and can of cornbeef, the latter bring back childhood memories from the late 60s and early 70s when it was a stable, whereas nowadays, cornbeef is a rare commodity. Also, a tub of "Dulce de Leche" caramelized milk, essentially like toffee, to flavour my porridge in the mornings. Lastly fruit. Everything comes from numerous small stalls in a market involving a lot of legwork, as, Bolivia hasn't got to the stage of development where supermercados are common.
Back at the hostel I wheel the loaded bike out the door shortly before midday.
The town on the bank of a gravel-bar river and enclosed in red rock hills extends along route 14 for a couple of kilometres until the road turns up a ravine: the beginning of a stiff climb that'd go up for about 15kms, winding round and up, each bend I'd struggle up round revealing yet another long uphill to yet another bend. Soon I'm forced by exhausting pain in the legs and shortness of breath to halt slumped over the handle-bars breathing deeply for a minute, before going again. The first of many stops until reaching the summit, before which a cold blast of wind blows down on me. So having started riding below feeling too warm and considering taking off some layers, I am now thinking of putting more clothes on.
Emerging up upon a mountain plateau, the wind is to my left rear corner helping to push me along for the remainder of the afternoon.
About 5 o'clock, about an hour until sunset I'm descending through a narrow valley with a dry streambed to the left hedged in with big thorny bushes. There had been many farmhouses and women and children herding sheep and goat back up on the mountaintop, here though is uninhabited, making it ideal for wild camping. So having covered enough distance for the day, I wheel my bike down through the first gap in the thorns to the dry stream where I pitch the tent upon the sandy level bed.
No one can see me I hope.
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