Day 23, Rest day, Uyuni

The usual stuff we do on rest days…mainly nothing and recharge our gear and us.

Day 24, 129km, Salar de Uyuni

After breakfast we took food and water for a day and rode to the salar which is 30km from Uyuni. We stopped at the Dakar monument to take pictures but suddenly realised that we are the main attratction. South American tourist wanted to take pictures with us and the bikes. Especially Daniel’s 990 Dakar was the main attraction. The people here really love the Dakar and although it is not in Africa anymore I think it is good that the spirit continues on this continent. Everywhere we stop people come to us asking if we are racing the Dakar. Not quite yet. From one side to the other of the salar its 160km. In the middle of it are two islands with lots of cactus trees. The first is very touristy. Still beautiful but we’ve decided to camp near the second one which is 25km further into the salar. Not even one tourist there. We decided to pitch our tent right on the salar. No wind and we can watch sundown and sunset from our tents. This was the plan! But when the sun went down the wind was getting very heavy. Not because of the wheather, still not a single cloud on the sky. But because of the big temperature drop from 30 degC+ in the day and 0 degC during the night strong thermal winds come up. We tried to secure our tents a good as we could. But it was impossible to get the anchors more than one cm into the ground. The surface of the salar is like concrete and we needed to strap the tents to our bikes. We cooked our instant cup noodles and went to bed early because it was too windy and too cold to be outside for long.

Day 25, 328km, Potosi

Best camping spot of the trip but worst night so far. Not because of the enviroment which is mega specatuclar and unreal but because of the cheap dinner option we brought with us. Felt very sick the entire night and couldn’t sleep. The fantastic scenery in the morning was accompained by a heavy stomache ache. Definitely won’t go for ready made meals again and we will cook fresh again in the future like we usually do. Daniel and I had the same type of cup noodles and the same thing happened to him! A couple of hours into the day we felt better and rode back to Uyuni for fuel and food and cleaned the bikes from the salt. 200km to go to Potosi. When we rode up a pass the engine temps of my bike went red. I had this a couple of times in deep sand on the lagoon route but never onroad. I’ve idled back down the pass but the temperatures didn’t come back down again. Switched the engine setting to low octane fuel which you might need in some places in South America but it didn’t help. After we stopped we realised that coolant came out of the overflow pipe. But the expansion tank was still full! Checked the level in the radiator and it was empty! Refilled it with water from my Camel Back and after a few minutes the radiator was half empty again. But at least it kept half the water and I could continue to Potosi with medium load and still keeping the temperature below max. After we arrived in Potosi, a town with very rough outskirts but a nice old town, we checked my bike. Because there was no garage in the hostel the owner, a big Dakar fan too, told us to park the bike in the lobby! Could not imagine a place in Europe where someone would allow us to do this. Because also the starts of my bike were getting worse and occasionally accompained by white smoke we took the tank and spark plug off. The hostel owner even gave us some additional workshop light to do the job. Looked into the cylinder and it was wet. With a cable tie I could taste something sweet, engine coolant in the cylinder. Fu**! I thought of so many things that can go wrong and which are typical for this bike, carrying lots of spare parts but never heard of anyone having this problem on a 690. It probably was because of the bad fuel we had in Argentinia. Although Thomas has the same bike, mine is reving 350rpm higher due to a different gear ratio. Ok, I definitely needed a KTM dealer now because the bike has still warranty. Only one official dealer in Bolivia, im Santa Cruz, 650km away. Luckily my bike was still running as long as I watched the engine temperature closely. Still a long way for a wounded bike. It was Friday night, 2 days to get there, first thing Monday morning at the KTM dealer was the plan.

Day 26, 298km, Aiquile

Lots of phone calls in the morning to organize my bike repair and where to go. Walter from Racebolivia gave me the contact of Juan Pablo from KTM Bolivia in Santa Cruz. He was very helpful and speaks english. He contacted his store manager to check if the required parts available. Will meet the guys first thing Monday morning in the shop and he told me they’ll try everything to get me back on the road again asap. Will see. The route today was was quite nice, very twisty and we descent from Altiplano at 4000m to 1700m. After 1,5h riding the road was blocked. First we thought because of an accident but it turned out that there was a local rally car race. We had to stop for over an hour and met a group of Australiens on BMW GS bikes. Fully organised trip for a couple of weeks with pre booked accomondation and backup vehicle. 10 grant they’ve paid for this trip. Definitely not our style to travel. Because we left late and the time we lost on the blocked road we rode into the dark. We always said, no we definately not riding in the night, but here we are. Pitch black, still 80km to go, stones, animals and cars without lights on the road and my visor is black. Not ideal! We tried to find a place to sleep on the way but there was nothing and we had to make it to Aiquile where we found a little hostel for the night.

Day 27, 346km, Santa Cruz

Long riding day, half offroad, half onroad. Lots of dust again but coming down from Altiplano to Santa Cruz which is only at 450m altitude the vegetation changes drastically. Lots of green now, hoter and more humidity which I forgot exists. My skin is thankful for that. After weeks in the dry desert the skin of my hands has cuts everywhere. We arrived late again in the dark but found a nice little hostel in the center with secure  parking for the bikes and even a pool. My bike has made it to KTM Bolivia without burning more coolant and overheating. Still anoying that it needs a major repair but if would have been much worse to be stuck in the middle of the desert with a blown cylinder.

Day 28, KTM workshop day 1, Santa Cruz

Following our german habits I arrived at the dealer just before they haved opened at 9. A BMW car and bike dealer with a shared KTM workshop. This would never happen  back home but here they do not have the sales numbers we have to justify a single brand dealership. However, thanks to Juan Pablo the guys took my bike straight away in the workshop, cleaned it and after I explained in detail the problem started to strip the engine. My biggest worry was that it will take very long to order the required spare parts from Europe because they need to go through Bolivan customs. Juan told me that this might really be the bottle neck but said if worse comes to worst he will use a new 690 which has just arrived as a donor for my bike. Wow! This made me feel much more positive now. But we need to find out what exactely the issue is first.