Poopó

We had another early start from our wild camp in the morning and cycled towards the next bigger city, Oruro.
I had heard from many other people that Oruro was supposed to be just yet another ugly big mining town. But to be honest, apart from the customary trash and dirt piles along the roads into the city, as seen also in every other bolivian town, city or settlement, and terrible traffic, Oruro wasn't actually too bad.
We stopped for some breakfast Salteñas and grocery/water shopping before carrying on, heading further south.

After leaving the city the, previously beautifully wide and well paved, shoulder became a sad, slim and bumpy shadow of itself...

And then, an hour into our cycle, it happened. The first flat.
And of course it had to be the rear wheel.
While I love my gravel tires, I spent the majority of the next hour cursing them with all I got...
Being tubeless ready tires they sit particularly snug on the rimm, making it difficult to take them off, put them on or inflate them evenly with a normal hand pump.

On our first try, Matt and I managed to break the valve of the new tube while pumping it up too vigorously with the, quite misconceptioned, little pump I bought in La Paz, which puts all the pressure on the sidewall of the valve while pumping...bad engineering.
So the tire had to go off again, fixed the tube instead, tire on again, and this time we managed to get it pumped up evenly with help of some soapwater I added between tube and rimm.
After more than an hour we were done and ready to go.

But well, bad things happen in pairs. And so, 10km later I had the second flat.
The culprit was the same as in the first case. A tiny little piece of wire from a torn truck tire that penetrated the tire like a little needle.
But this time we knew the drill and 20mins later we were on our way again!
But not without poor Matt getting the arms workout of his life pumping up the tire with his tiny pump this time. 😬

The sceenery was very diverse compared to the previous days. A mix of desert, hills, emptiness and pieces with some sort of vegetation.

We found our home for the night in the only hotel of a small mining town called Poopó. It seemed like this place doesn't get to see many tourists, and the hotel owner hat first to be called to his hotel in order for us to check in.

Now this town looked more like what I imagined Oruro to look like...A typical small and rather ugly mining town. But good enough for a night's sleep.
And hey, at least they have a police station. The Poop police 🙊

Lastly, the hotel had a special little gimmic to ensure you'dbe fully awake after showering in the morning. Like most other places in Bolivia it had an electric shower. Unfortunately, the shower knob was metallic, meaning every time you touched it to change the shower pressure you got shocked⚡️. #Safetyfirst

🚴‍♀️Distance cycled: 99 km
⚙️ Flat tires: 2
🤬 Hours spent cursing: 1.5
⚡️Electric shocks received by shower: 2Meer informatie