High and Dry in the Atacama Desert –

Continuing his journey down the Andes from Colombia to Santiago de Chile, Ryan Wilson travels across the surreal landscape of the Salar de Uyuni and traverses a rarely visited part of the driest desert in the world, the Chilean Atacama. Read on to follow his final days in Bolivia and his route through one of Chile’s most remote corners…

If I think back to every place I’ve traveled by bike over the last 8 years while touring around the world, there’s one that stands apart from the rest as a truly unique experience. Riding across Bolivia’s 10,582 square kilometer (4,085 square mile) expanse of salt known as the Salar de Uyuni is something that every cyclist or lover of nature should do at least once.

There’s something incomparable about the feeling of being so far out in the middle of such a massive salt flat that distances become impossible to judge in every direction. Where you can pedal for an hour, aiming directly for a feature on the horizon, but it never seems to grow closer. The details in the salt beneath you whiz by as you pedal, but the horizon stays fixed.

The surface of the Salar de Uyuni ranges from crunchy soft plates of salt on the edges of the salar, to something similar to a chip-sealed road, or its signature octagonally-shaped crust patterns. Either way, it’s some of the fastest kilometers you’ll find on the Bolivian Altiplano outside of the paved highway.

The sun here is as strong as you’ll find given the high altitude setting as well as the pristine white surface that perfectly reflects the sun toward parts of your body and face that aren’t used to seeing much direct light. I learned that the hard way on my first crossing of the Uyuni salt flat back in 2017. All of the SPF in the world isn’t going to save you here.

This time, I would avoid the ridiculously chapped lips and sun/wind burnt skin by covering myself from head to toe. Good eyewear is important out here as I’ve heard stories about cyclists having to be helped across the flat because they experienced temporary vision loss from just how bright the sun reflects off of the salt, and it prevented them from seeing which direction to go.

Cacti Island

One of the aspects of crossing the Uyini that makes it so unique is stopping to camp on one of the small islands that sit way out in the middle of the Salar. While it’s possible to make the ~155km crossing in one day, most cyclists opt for a night out on one of the islands or in the center of the salar itself.

Isla del Pescado and Isla Incahuasi are two of the more prominent features set in the middle of the salt flat and make for memorable places to camp for the night, especially if the Bolivian winds are raging and you don’t want to set up in the middle of the salar as was the case for me this time.

Tucked into a small “beach” filled with clusters of cacti, I had a perfect night, sheltered from the elements, watching over the endless sea of salt that surrounded me.

Uyuni City

The following morning I got up early to avoid the mid-day sun as much as possible and made a quick push to Uyuni city. It was just about the fastest 100km stretch of riding in all of the Andes, and with a gentle tailwind helping me out, I arrived right at lunchtime.

I had some cerdo a la parrilla (grilled pork) at the local barbecue spot, re-stocked at the weekly street market, and set my sights on the Chilean border.

The last time I was here, I did the (in)famous Laguna route that hugs the Bolivia/Chile border on the Bolivia side, but this time I found some even more remote tracks along the Chilean side of that same border that offered a whole lot more mystery, as I hadn’t found much information on that area online.

To get to the start of that, however, I still had 220 km (137 miles) to cover across Bolivia’s stark western altiplano.

Wide open landscapes with volcanic formations and geological wonders accompany every pedal stroke. Ostriches, Flamingos, and Vicuñas dot the otherworldly terrain.

After a long day in the saddle and some brewing afternoon storms that coated the highest peaks in a dusting of short-lived snow, I found a spot nestled into the rocks to spend the night and caught an amazing moonrise over Volcán Ollagüe, which straddles the Bolivia/Chile border.

Viva Chile

When entering Chile from Bolivia, there are a couple of things that immediately jump out at you. One, the road changes from dirt to a big, pristinely paved road lined with an excessive number of road signs, and two, everything triples in price. Welcome to Chile!!

The other noticeable change is the huge uptick in slang used in Chilean Spanish. My español has improved since I was last in Chile in 2019, but the way words are rapidly slurred together here combined with the added slang vocabulary peppered in almost makes it feel like a new language.

The first town in Chile is not much to speak of. It’s more of a border post with a scattering of buildings around and a railyard. No ATM. No way to exchange money (bring Chilean pesos from Uyuni!). Only one small shop, a restaurant, and a couple of hotels for those lucky enough to get stuck at this border.

With the afternoon headwind roaring from the direction I was heading by the time I cleared through immigration, I snagged myself one of those pricy hotel rooms and stocked up on supplies that would have to last me for the next 4 days or so as there would be no shops on the route until I reach the tourist hub of San Pedro de Atacama.

La Ruta Chilena

In the morning, I hit the road early, aiming for a small mining camp on the side of the road 70 kilometers away, which one of the border guards told me had a church that I could “camp” in for the night. Being that I was crossing the driest desert on earth, it was also my last known stop for water before I’d head out onto more remote roads for 2-3 days, so it was a good strategic place to stay for the night, allowing me to leave in the morning with 11L of water fully stocked.

The only downside to my luxurious accommodation was the occasional passer-by coming into the church at all hours of the night, which can be a little jarring to wake up to. Sometimes they would sit outside with the engine running on their car for 30 minutes before entering, while I sat inside wondering what they could be doing parked outside of this very remote church at 2 am, with their headlights shining through the windows. It’s easy for your mind to fumble through all sorts of crazy scenarios in these moments.

The night passed without incident, and as soon as the sun rose, I hit the dusty trail along the edge of yet another salt flat. Long gone was the wide paved road as the route pitched up and I started the climb toward 4600m (15k ft).

Locals warned me to be aware of any vehicles in these areas that weren’t official Carabineros (Chilean Police) patrol cars as some “illicit trade” happens in the more remote sections near the Chile/Bolivia border. Thankfully, I only saw one truck across the valley from where I was, which looked a bit sketchy heading for one of the many “unauthorized” border crossing tracks in this area.

For the rest of the way, it was just me, the open road, and a few hundred Vicuñas to enjoy the harsh yet spectacular landscapes in this part of the world.

Camino Cerrado

Progress was slow but steady. I got over the first pass and began descending for a few kilometers until I came across an old, rusted-out sign that I could barely make out as “Camino Cerrado Con Barrera” (Road closed with barrier). There was no sign of a barrier in front of me, but admittedly the road didn’t appear to be very well traveled from here, so there could be one further down.

Do I backtrack a little bit now to a different road that would add an extra 40km to my route to bypass this section, or risk descending way further down and running into a barrier that I might not be able to cross at the bottom of a descent, forcing me to climb all the way back up? These are always the tricky parts about doing a route without any sort of trail notes, especially in an area where supplies and water are so limited and there are no locals around to ask.

Too intrigued to find out if the road was passable, I kept descending past the sign for another 20 minutes before passing a gate that, lucky for me, was cracked open.

At the bottom of the descent, I was welcomed into a new valley with a very sandy road and a roaring headwind that made it impossible to stay upright on the bike at times.

I pushed, pedaled, and dragged my way for eight more kilometers until I spotted a rock-walled structure off the road to investigate. The wind was so strong that it would not be possible to set up my tent without some sort of windbreak, so this spot was a lifesaver.

In the morning I was treated to one of the most spotlessly perfect dirt roads I’ve ever ridden in my life. Going from the sandy disaster that I dealt with the day before, to this road that was smoother than most paved roads in the Andes was a shocker. I don’t know why this stretch in the middle of nowhere, with zero people around was so perfectly maintained, but I wasn’t about to complain.

As randomly as the perfect road appeared, so did it disappear. In one moment a big section was washed out by a landslide, covering the road in large boulders. This must be why I haven’t seen a single person since that one sketchy truck the previous day.

As I got higher, the staple llarata plants of the Puna de Atacama began cropping up, and the rock formations became even more rugged. Some of these plants have been around for 3000 years!

When I crested the final big high point on the route, a view toward El Tatio Geyser opened up, and I found myself a spot to camp up in the mice-infested rocks. Well, I didn’t know they were mice-infested before I picked my spot, but I did figure that out pretty quickly overnight when they started trying to chew into my bags.

The Long Way Down

El Tatio geyser would be my first run-in with civilization since I left the roadside church a couple of days prior, as it’s one of the most famous tourist attractions in the region. Every morning there are countless vans filled with tourists coming up to see the thermal vents puffing into the cold morning air, but those crowds quickly dissipate as the day warms up.

Maybe I’m a touch jaded after 8 years on the road, but in addition to the thick aroma of sulfur, this place smelled a lot like a tourist trap with its nearly $20 entry fee and a handful of designated photo spots visitors see before being sent on their merry way.

As I passed through, I met a group of cyclists from Brazil who had been shuttled to the Geyser and were riding back to San Pedro de Atacama and we were able to share most of the ride together. A couple of them were living in San Pedro (which is full of expats) and a couple of them were in the midst of a longer bike tour, and were just out for a day ride.

The descent was not quite as descent-y as I was hoping for, with a whole lot more climbs and flat sections than I had imagined in my mind. Isn’t that how it always goes? Still, visions of helado (ice cream), a cold beverage, and a shower danced in my head just enough to give my legs the strength to push on the 90 km to the city. In San Pedro, I’d take a few days off and plan my next move, as I work my way south through the continent.

Stay tuned here for more stories from the road, as I make my way to Santiago de Chile, and big thanks to Tumbleweed Bikes for sponsoring my reportage!