What the roads lack fortunately are the huge ridges that run along the tarmac in towns and on the main roads between them. These are tarmac 'ruts' made by lorries "ploughing" their way along the roads and can really trip you up if you're not careful. Not an uncommon sight anywhere in the world, but here, the ruts are bigger than I've seen anywhere else. Perversely it's better to ride these at speed as the fast spinning wheels give the bike stability.
Talking of spinning, I noticed our wheels are all revolving backwards. I put this down to the Coriolis effect as Bolivia is south of the Equator. It's my first time in the southern hemisphere and maybe that why it's so strange to me. Or could it be that I'm still jetlagged. ;-)
With snow capped peaks in the distance, the ride up to the pass is an intoxicating blend of long, straight stretches, punctuated by sweeping bends. It's on these long stretches that the 650 stamps it's superiority over the humble 250 I've mentioned in an earlier post. The larger capacity is able to sustain the higher speeds even with an incline. Eventually the bends become more frequent and the temperature drops. There are less trucks here and we pass only a few cars which are dispatched easily as they struggle with the slopes. Then we hit the high point and it's a relatively steep drop to lower altitudes. The bends on this steep descent are often strewn with gravel, or even bereft of tarmac, so have to be taken very gingerly. My ears pop with the rapid descent and soon we are now at a lowly 3100m - still a very respectable altitude for an Alpine ski resort!
Our destination is a curious cabin/hotel in the town of Quime. But that's a whole other post!
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| The climb from our garage to the hotel in Quime |
well thumbed from my BlackBerry
1 comment:
You appear to be one brave soul. I'd be shitting in my pants.
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