A 2000 m drop toward Purmamarca

Finally downhill! Towards S. Antonio de Los Cobres

Crawling up the last few kms

Fast as thunder, still towards Abra del Acay

With the Carlitos and Fred, l'avventure extreme, towards Abra del Acay

wild camp 3 - Potosi

Leaving the basketball court, we rode 15-20 km of slight uphill to a small village with a few comedores and hotels for travellers and truck drivers.
After the village, a long leg killer, up to about 4200 m asl. Cold and rainy. We got a good shower to make us "clean" before entering the city.
We thought this would be the last before dropping down to Potosi, but the usual Altiplano up and downs went on another 20 km.
At last, a long downhill to Potosi, surrounded by a huge openair mine on what we believe is the sadly known Cerro Rico.
The city is caothic, cold and rainy but definitely has its own charm, a mix of old colonial houses and churches, new houses and barracks.
We found a couple of comedores vegetarianos, among which the Manzana Magica, run by a local yogi, was our favourite.
We sleep in a nice hostel (koala den) and used the terrace to dry our tent.
We were really tired and we took 3 whole rest days here, but that also means that we caught up with the pictures, ready to leave toward Oruro tomorrow, tuesday.

wild camp 2 - wild camp 3 (53 km before Potosi)

One more long day of up and downs in the land of cactus and a load of shitty diapers along the road, what's up with that? Guess western costumes with plastic diapers do not really fit.
We had a cookie stop and rang Petter who had just had surgery. We were happy to hear he was already doing fine.
We asked for permission to put our tent in the basketball court in a village (every small little village seems to have a basketball court!) and ate polenta without any spices or sauce for Marco's stomach to get better.
it poured all night and we were happy to verify that our little home did not leak.

wild camp 1- wild camp 2 (7 km after Tumusla)

A long downhill led us to Santiago de Cotagaita. Just after the small village a new major uphill, followed by up and downs for most of the day. Until we came to a really nice long drop to Tumusla, where we bought some water and a had a chat with the family who run the kiosko.
Out of Tumusla the last big climb of the day was waiting for us, almost a mirror image of the drop that had led us to the village.
We decided to set camp near the top along a dry river bed. This time, none found us, but Marco spent 3-4 hours awake because of a sudden stomachache, Too much raw onion and garlic in the pastas?

Tupiza - wild camp 1 (56 km)

Leaving Tupiza we faced a 20 km long uphill that took us at about 3700 m of height.
Ellen broke down twice, but made it no problem to the top after some hugs and cookies. only a couple of days later we would understand the cause of her bad mood; pms.
After the uphill a long downhill followed by up and downs.
We took a short day, when we realized the storm and thunders were closing in.
We camped behind a hill in a cactus field, home to some humming birds.
Once again, we figured it would be an almost flawless hideout and fell asleep for a afternoon nap.
We woke up by 4 dogs barking at our tent and were rescues by the tenyear old herd Franco.
Last picture depicts the camp unisex bathroom.

Rest day in Tupiza and Carnival

Carnival seems to be a big thing in Bolivia, lasting one week.
People from the villages come to the city to sing and dance in their traditional clothes. The young get crazy with watergun and foam spray battles. Needless to say, the gringos were easy targets.
Leaving Tupiza, we decided to buy "bottled" water having been unanimously warned about bad tap water.