CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Uyuni it runs 590 km to the finish; allow about 17 h 18 of riding. It goes by way of Salar de Uyuni, Laguna Colorada and Sol de Manana. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 51 km this is Bolivia Southwest Altiplano Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
At 3,650 metres above sea level, on the high plateau of south-west Bolivia, Uyuni is a dusty, windblown frontier town that exists for one reason. Just beyond it lies the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world, a blinding white plain of more than ten thousand square kilometres, which formed when ancient lakes dried out. In the rainy season, from roughly January to March, a thin film of water turns the salt into a mirror that doubles the sky, and in the dry season the surface cracks into hexagonal plates that stretch to the horizon.
Read the complete Uyuni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Uyuni is where the day begins. Next is Salar de Uyuni.
The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world, a sheet of white about ten thousand square kilometres in extent, lying high in the southwest of Bolivia at roughly 3,650 metres. It formed when prehistoric lakes dried up, and what remains is a crust of salt several metres thick, with brine beneath it. Under a hard sun the surface is blinding, and the horizon disappears, so that the land and sky merge, and distance becomes meaningless. It is one of the strangest places a rider can reach.
Read the complete Salar de Uyuni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Salar de Uyuni comes up 185 km in. Next is Laguna Colorada.
Laguna Colorada lies at about 4,300 metres on the Bolivian Altiplano, inside the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve, and it is one of the strangest sights in South America. The water is a deep rust red, stained by algae and sediments, and it is dotted with white islands of borax and salt, with thousands of flamingos wading in the shallows. Three species, the Andean, the Chilean and James's flamingo, feed here, and the contrast of pink birds, red water and white crust against a backdrop of brown volcanic peaks is almost too much.
Read the complete Laguna Colorada write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
369 km in you reach Laguna Colorada. Next is Sol de Manana.
Sol de Mañana is a field of steaming holes in the ground at nearly five thousand metres, on the high desert of south-west Bolivia, and arriving there feels like landing on a small, hostile planet. Fumaroles hiss from the cracked, yellow-stained earth, mud pots bubble and plop, and a smell of sulphur hangs in the cold air. At dawn, when the temperature is below freezing and the steam is at its thickest, the whole field looks as if it were on fire, and the sun comes up behind it in ribbons of orange.
Read the complete Sol de Manana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sol de Manana, late in the day. Next is Laguna Verde.
Laguna Verde is a colour you do not expect to find at four thousand three hundred metres, in a dry, wind-scoured corner of southwest Bolivia, a few kilometres from the Chilean border. The lake lies at the foot of Licancabur, a near-perfect volcanic cone that rises to about 5,900 metres on the frontier, and on a calm morning the cone is reflected in the water. The colour, a milky turquoise that can turn to emerald, comes from dissolved minerals, copper, magnesium, lead and arsenic among them, and it changes with the wind and the hour. Do not swim in it.
Read the complete Laguna Verde write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Laguna Verde. That is the ride.
Uyuni → Salar de Uyuni is 153 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Salar de Uyuni → Laguna Colorada is 455 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Laguna Colorada → Sol de Manana is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sol de Mañana → Laguna Verde is 79 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.