6. Hot Springs, Flamingos and Hard Riding
Day 141
I didn't sleep too much last night with the anticipation of today's ride. Actually, I didn't sleep at all. I knew that today's ride is going to be hard and cold and at high altitude. And I was right. I was going to miss the breakfast in the hotel so I bought some food so I can have something in the morning. But I couldn't sleep, so ate my breakfast at 2 o'clock in the morning. I got up at 5 o'clock as I was just tossing and turning and couldn’t sleep anyway.
Today's ride is not going to be too long, but I have to start before sunrise and ride off-road, or on a dirt road one hour before the sun comes up. The ride is about 100 km in each direction and mostly dirt road with some nasty off-road section most suitable for the Dakar Rally. I'm going to see some geysers and apparently they are most active early in the morning. That's why the early departure. I had to think about this ride a little bit more seriously because I never rode my bike on a dirt road in the dark and there is nothing in the way of support all the way up and back. I am taking some food, plenty of water, repair kit and my medical kit as well. And because it is early in the morning, it is going to be very, very cold. I am taking my full gear, my riding boots, riding pants, riding jacket, full gear. In addition to that, I'm taking my heated jacket and my heated gloves. Forecast for temperature is 12° for San Pedro. The route today will take me to 4400 m which means it will be there below freezing until the sun comes up.
The sunrise today is at 6:41. I am leaving the hotel before six. It is still a night here. Everything is quiet. I have the route downloaded into my GPS. It is giving me an estimate of one hour and 30 minutes for the route. I think it is highly optimistic.
I'm all bundled up and plugged in except for my heated gloves. It is still warm(ish) around the town so I will switch them when my hands get colder. I quickly get out of the town and head for the darkness. There is still not even a hint of the sunrise. It is a very strange feeling riding a bike in the night on a dirt road full of potholes, sand and gravel. I am fully awake now and paying 100% attention to my riding. The road starts to climb right after I leave the town. Actually every road out of this town start to climb. After a few kilometres I calm down a little bit and start to actually enjoy it. The sky towards the east starts getting brighter, but it will be a while before I see a sunrise because there are huge mountains between the sun and me. As I climb, the temperature drops, it is now way into single digits. And when the gauge hits 6°, I stop and put on my heated gloves. This is the first time I'm using them. I don't know what to expect from them. They look and feel pretty thin. They connect with a cable to the separate sleeves of my heated jacket which is connected to my battery. I hope it works.
The road is bad and getting worse by every kilometre traveled. It is hard to spot potholes in the dark and even with good lights on my bike it is difficult. I try to avoid at least most of them. For that reason I don't travel too fast, that will be the best way to break a wheel on my bike. I want to stand up on my bike, but then all my upper body is exposed to the ever decreasing temperature. So I stand up for a bit, then sit down to warm up, stand up again, and repeat the cycle. The sun starts to peak behind the mountains but it does nothing to the temperature so far. The temperature is getting colder and colder as I'm gaining the altitude. I look to the south behind me at San Pedro. There's no traffic on this road is it leads to nowhere only to the field with hot springs. I get passed by two vans with tourists who don't care about their tires or their suspensions. The landscape around here is pure desert. But all of a sudden I ride up to a beautiful Lagoon full of pink flamingoes and many other birds. There must be at least 1000 of these birds over here. Unfortunately there is bad light to take photographs right now and I have mission to accomplish. But I will be coming the same way back, so hopefully they will still be here.
After the Lagoon, the bad road gets way worse. There is a pronounced washing board on the road. Riding on it is so bad that I'm afraid that it will shake my bike to the pieces. Doesn't matter what speed I ride, it is unbearable. And I can see I'm not the only one with the problems because there are tracks left and right of the road pretty much everywhere. Not one not two, but dozens. There is no good choice. Just take your pick and suck it up princess. The terrain is difficult. You have everything, hard packed, rocks of all sizes and shapes, loose gravel, deep sand, everything is here. And you cannot get around it. It is a very hard work. I only hope it will be worth it. It is a good thing I have all my riding gear on me. With all the protection I have it gives me confidence that at least my body is a little bit protected. It is getting colder and colder. Bellow 4° my bike thinks that it will be snowing and showing a big snowflake on my dashboard. I don't think it will be snowing here, but it is pretty cold. And the temperature gets all the way down to 2°. My heated jacket is on full blast and my gloves as well. I'm very happy with my gloves performance, as I didn't think they will work as well as they do. At least I'm not cold. But maybe it is from the fear or the hard work I'm doing on the bike, I don't know.
After two hours of hard riding, I can see some steam coming from the ground in the distance in front of me. It takes another 20 minutes to get to there. The elevation reads 4400 m there's a huge field in the valley surrounded by mountains with what it looks like mini geysers or vent holes in that field. I pay my fee which is about $22 and I am told the main attraction is not available. There is a nice pool made in the middle of the field where we can go and soak up in the hot mineral water while looking at the mountains around you. Well, there's no water in the pool, and no explanation is given. I'm here and I'm not going back just because I cannot swim. I park my bike, grab my camera and start exploring the field. There are many dozens of small springs, vent holes, pools with hot water, but it is all at the small scale. Don't imagine the Old Faithful in the Yosemite National Park in the US. But it is all pretty cool nevertheless. I was working pretty hard last two hours and I can feel the altitude. Let's say I wouldn't like to run a marathon over here. I hang around for a bit, and all tour buses are already leaving. That's good so I don't have to eat the dust behind them. With many pictures in my camera there's nothing else I can do over here. I clean my visor on my helmet and head back. No need for heated gear, the temperature is 10° already. The ride back is somehow better than the right in. That's probably because I know what to expect and I know where to go and I know what my bike will do and I just try to stay upright. And in some perverse way, I actually start to enjoying it. There are many vicunas around, most of them totally oblivious to me and my noisy bike, just doing their own thing. It is pretty cool as there's nobody around, I was the last one leaving the springs. Now, I'm just wondering if the pink flamingoes will still be at the lake. I get there and there they are. They are walking along the shoreline and they're a pretty noisy bunch. They argue, they fight among themselves, but they all look very, very cool indeed. I love these birds, they are so colourful and they look magnificent. They don't pay attention to me. They are feeding on something on the bottom of the lake. I'm standing 20 m from them. I'm snapping pictures left and right. I probably took over 200 pictures of them. I should have some good ones. Unfortunately, the sun is behind them which is not ideal but that's nothing I can do about. With the flamingo overload I get on my bike and head down from the mountains. The road down wasn't more pleasant than when riding up. The last 20 km was pretty hard. I was very tired from the altitude, the hard riding, exhausted mentally, and from no sleep last night. But I made it safely back to my hotel where I crashed. I was so tired I didn't even download the pictures from my camera. But when I woke up two hours later, and I looked at some of the pictures. I was very very happy, especially the pictures of the flamingos were absolutely gorgeous. I have to be very picky because I have many many pictures and I cannot process them all. That’s will be my project for next couple years when I get back from this trip. All in all it was another gorgeous day on this trip.