Uyuni to Sucre 359km

 

We depart Uyuni with a degree of relief and once again an example of the generosity of strangers when on adventures such as this. The only Brit resident in Uyuni, who came to chat to us the previous evening, appeared just before we left with a large can of GTX oil for Chris which he had got up early to find. The German bikers resident in our hotel gave us a very friendly fairwell and off we set for Sucre.

As seems to be the norm on these remote main roads in Bolivia the tarmac is excellent, the traffic unbelievably light and the roads rise and fall, twisting through the mountains. They are extraordinary roads to drive these majestic old cars on and today was another example of just such a journey. First a random toll, charging next to nothing, but importantly giving us a piece of paper not to be lost, then the road rose up into the Andes upto over 4000m once again.

 

The 5 road takes us past Palacayo one of many small impoverished mining communities. We pass masses of Llams and Vicunias along the roadside being very careful of any of them suddenly crossing the road infront of us. We didn't stop at the hot spings at Agua de Castilla but pushed on to Potosi. Afterall we have 359km to drive today and in these mountains that requires us to push on.

 

For centuries Potosi was the location of the largest silver mine in the world and the Spanish mint, the source of the first reserve currency of the world. It still sits on one of the largest silver deposits in the world. We were told that there are some 22000 tunnels in the mountain all owned by different families. It has been so severely mined that the top of the mountain is now collapsing! By the time we got there the petrol station at Potisi was welcome, and the signs on the "facilities" made it very clear which to use!

 

Depite this extraordinary heritage Potosi, as with all the mining towns we have passed, is a sad reflection of its former self. Waze once again took us on an unexpected and challenging route straight through the old town rather than taking the main route bypassing it. By the time we got to the last steep, narrow climb in the town the car was ready to conk, but one last effort saw us back on the old road which in due course connected to the road we had been on originally!

The road from Potisi to Sucre was far busier, covered in vicious speed bumps, which if hit hard could cause considerable damage to the cars. The Rolls was seen to take off at one point when met by one of these unexpected bumps but fortunately no damage done!

We followed Nigel and Hugo into Sucre but unfortunately lost them at a crucial junction and had to drve around the steepest roads in Sucre a number of times before finding our hotel. It was located up an extremely steep, narrow, cobbled street and having finally got to the top we couldn't get into the car park. It was unsafe to leave the car at an angle of 30" so David reversed the car back down the hill and the Rolls and our Lagonda were parked on the street overnight to the delight of local residents.

The contrast between Argentina, where every town is full of places to eat ,and Bolivia, where there appear to be verty few eateries, is extraordinary. We walked through the main square of Sucre and then the surrounding streets in search of a delicious dinner. We felt we had earnt it. After about half an hours wandering we settled on a very average looking restuarent on the main square which infact did us fine. Then a steep walk back up to our crows nest of a hotel sitting on top of Sucre.

 

Tomorrow we face the challenge of the road to Oruro!