March 21, 2000
Day 151 To Potosi
It was a full moon last night or maybe the night before. We pack up. Patrick wears his teva’s and takes the bikes across one at a time back to the road. Then the front panniers. Then Rachel on piggyback she is very thankful for that, the water was cold!!!
We climb the switchbacks out of the canyon. We reach Agua Castilla and are glad we free camped. There is another long climb above the town. We hope we maintain the Altitude!
But we don’t.
We wind around through the valley high on a ridge overlooking fields and adobe houses. We come around a long curve and see a basketball court in a field high above the valley and distant mountains. Rachel rounds the curve and sees Patrick stopped and surrounded by school kids. Rachel gets out her camera out but is spotted by the children and they scatter. Except two girls run toward her and she takes their picture. Soon their professor joins us.
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We continue on and soon come across a truck stopped in the middle of the road. The men have waved Patrick to stop. They have a flat tire and want to use the bicycle pump to pump up their tire. It’s quite a sight seeing this small pump on such a big wheel!! It’s slow progress, another truck comes by and the Bolivian woman flags it down, the man has an air compressor and we continue on.
Later they wave to us as we are at the side of the road taking a food break. We reach another summit a man opens what appears to be an abandoned house and offers to sell a drink. We buy a fruit drink, dry the tent and give the man a green pepper, onion and apples.
We are 20 km’s from Potosi and we have a long descent. Ugh! We know we must regain the altitude. Patrick can see Cerro Rico the rust colored mountain that Potosi sits in front of. There’s just another mountain in front of it we must go around, or over. We climb again, wind around, descend to a guard station. It begins to sprinkle and the wind is blowing. We buy cookies and a drink from a small stand, and decide to go on. The guard says the town is just over this next hill. We can see the road go up and up and over, parts very steep. Then descends around a curve and again up. We finally see the town on the side of the hill. We seem even level with it, but the road descends first before going up towards town.
Patrick stops and takes a picture of the dirty river. The last part of the road toward the center was very steep. We finally make it to Hostal Felcar. Very nice courtyard with lots of plants. We take a Hot!! Shower. And go have Chinese for dinner. Free camping makes small things a bigger pleasure.
What a journey from Uyuni to Potosi!!
Today's ride: 62 km (39 miles)
Total: 4,946 km (3,071 miles)
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