San Cristobàl

While I had big plans to set of at 7am, I didn't really feel like getting up when my alarm rang...and so we started much later, around 8.45.

Our first stop was the train cemetery. Eventhough it is one of Uyunis main tourist attractions (all tours going to the Salar stop here too) it was quite underwhelming, featuring only two old trains and huge trash piles all over the place.

From there we continued on what is supposed to be one of the main roads to Chile. And what can I say...Bolivians don't seem to be very fond of Chile (and who can blame them, after Chile took their coast line 🤷‍♀️). And this dislike shows in the condition of the main "road" or rather the broken, sandy, washboarded gravel path that used to be a road. Only once we turned off the main road towards the mining towns further south 65 km into the ride, the road started to to be asphalted again.

While it was great to be on tarmac again, the previous road conditions, headwinds, sun and too little water took their toll on me and the last 25 km felt like the hardest of the whole trip so far. And my bloodpressure dropping to new all time lows every time we took a break didn't help...

When we finally reached the mining town of San Cristobàl, home to the world's third largest silver mine and our destination for the day, all I could think of was to find a bed and some food and go to sleep.

We ended up in a rather run down and dirty hostal with paper thin walls and very noisy neighbours...but at least there was a bed and even a hot shower. And after a bag of salty crisps and some sweet drinks I slowly started feeling better.

🚴‍♀️Distance cycled: 90km
🚃 Nr. of trains at cemetery: 2
😀 KMs enjoyed on the bike: ...noneRead more