Day 53

 39,715 – 39,782   67 Miles today (17,082 Miles Overall

Uyuni, Bolivia

Got up around 7:30 today and had a few things to do before I went to the salt flats. Early in the morning one of the guys from WhatsApp messaged me and asked if I wanted to ride the salt flats with him and I agreed to meet him at his hostel at 11. I went into town at 8:30 to try to get my cell phone SIM card recharged but I couldn’t find the Tigo shop so I gave up. I Exchanged some USD to Argentinian to get a jump start on crossing the border tomorrow and got a gallon of water for the next day or two. I went to a gym in town and did a nice workout. I’ve gotten a bit weak in the legs since I came out on the trip because I pulled a muscle in my quad from doing banded squats and after doing the Machu Picchu hike with no pain I’m ready to get back at it. So I’m trying to stop at a gym to do some big leg workouts two times a week for the rest of the trip.

After the gym I had some more time to kill so I went down to one end of town to get fuel and then on my way to the train cemetery. I met a Swiss guy with a Bmw that he bought in Brazil as he’s been working there for part of the year the last few years. We made our way around the railroad tracks to get some shots in front of the rusty trains. We ended up hanging out there and chatting for about an hour and I asked him if he wanted to come to the salt flats with us. He agreed. We made our way back in town and Bruno split off for a few minutes to get fuel.

I met up with Howard in town and then Bruno showed up and we all made our way to the salt flats. Howard bought a bike in Peru 4 years ago and has traveled 40,000 miles on a dirt bike all over South America. He has been to the salt flats three times already and he was going to be  our tour guide. We rode all the way out maybe 30 minutes into it which wasn’t that far compared to how big it is. We stopped for an hour or so to take a bunch of pictures and chat in the middle of the salt flats. It was incredibly easy to get lost and stranded out there. We all had different ideas on which way we had to go to get back to the exit. We were cracking up. Thankfully our GPS still worked and we were headed in the right direction.

We made it out and rode back into Uyuni about 20 minutes away. We got our bikes washed since the salt is very bad for it and made plans to get pizza for dinner around 7. I went to the hotel I stayed at yesterday and got another room. This time two floors up so the wifi signal was weak. I went for a walk into town to get food since I haven’t eaten anything yet all day and then walked back to my hotel. I took a nap for two hours. My eyes are burning from how tired I was from the day out in the salt flats. I met up with the guys at dinner and edited all the photos we took and hung out for about 90 minutes or so. I said my goodbyes and was off to my hostel. It was raining a bit but I threw the bike in the garage of the hotel and worked on my blog for a bit. That’s my day!