THE ANDES - Part III - Crystal White

Vast columns of sand rose hundreds of feet into the air. A small cyclist exposed in a treeless landscape with nothing to dissipate the massive gritty pillars of sand as they weaved unhindered across the plains of the Alti-plano. The independence day celebrations in the Bolivian cities would now be in full swing, all dancing bobbing hats and drinking and full of national pride. Here on this high desolate plain whilst dodging whirlwinds of sand a single plume of smoke rose on the horizon, near vertical in calmer air. It was eleven in the morning when the invitations came to make my way into their white salted back yard. Dazzlingly bright above the low wall surrounding the single mud hut was my first shock of white from the Salar Coipsasa. The old woman, a little weepy and a little drunk clung to my hand for the third time since I had arrived thanking me in a strange dialect for coming to join them and their celebrating and for talking with her son. There was Bolivian wealth in that oddest of parties . . . . . . Two cars, lots of meat roasting on red embers, potatoes and crates of beer.
Fully fed and struggling to refuse a third glass of beer the vast flat white beckoned beyond the reassurances of their independence day celebrations. Above the line of the wall a volcano provided the heading, a sixteen thousand foot homing beacon thirty miles accross the salt. Maps were drawn up in the sand . . . . . . . . soft salty water here, salt crystal rocks over there, steer South after this rocky outcrop . . . . . . A tipsy career out of the walled yard and a sudden, complete immersion into ultra surreal. Pure translucent air defiling any sense one had of scale and distance. Massive volcanic peaks 50 miles away appeared as close as the small disappearing celebration visible for hours, a speck of generosity on a flat infinite, white horizon. It would mark the start of the only twenty four hours in my life where I would see no person, animal or bird. . . . . . Apart from a solo Italian cyclist!















A week of super surreal cycling. A small up and over, a small sand swept ridge, a five mile push of a fat water laden Condor through sand and salt to finally sit in the saddle and pedal the last mile into undoubtedly one of the greatest spectacles on the planet, the Salar D’Uyuni.



Massive and desolate, bright white on deep space blues. Hundreds of miles of crystalline flat white. Surely one of the most incredible places to cycle in the world. Like setting sail on a ship into the unknown, following a compass bearing to some island that promises water and shelter.



Steering a course on brilliant white, dead reckoning in a featureless world toward a refuge nested in ancient coral and cactus on a literal sea of salt guarded by a man who had lived there, isolated on his rock for twenty five years with his wife. Before returning to the dazzling white I was allowed a peak at his personal museum, a small room of coral, old photographs and strange remains of cactus. His personal record of living in the middle of hundreds of miles of flat white salt.





The small rock reluctantly carried aboard finally earned its rights of passage by forcing stubborn pegs into salt rock. It would be the last night ‘at sea’ and with it one last attempt to really get a measure of this surreal world, to try and contain it in mind.






Walking away from camp the white forever transformed to brilliant orange as a rippling sun sank (along with the temperature) for the last time on the incredible Salar D’Uyuni. Condor stood in the distance proud on the horizon, a small metallic island of familiarity in an incredibly mind expansive nothingness. What a treasure! What a privilege to stand in the solitude of it all, to feel the loud hum of absolute silence. To stand there alone then brush away the need to fit it into something. A rare moment on this great bike ride where some great coalescence occurs, an alignment of the amazing and everything, all at once, that propels one into joy. A timeless, inherently unforeseeable moment of pure happiness in (or out of the saddle). A small intangible glimpse on a very big bicycle ride where one has a sense of some great current flowing, some embodied thrill bubbling with excitement yet absolutely calm, running through with huge weight yet lifting one high. It was truly a joy to have been to such a place and after fifteen years of London life to have brushed shoulders so closely with such a bright friend.







It was a dreamy morning. In the middle of nothing in the middle of a delicious breakfast and in the sad knowing that drinking water was running low and that today I would cycle back onto land, sand, gravel and the babble of people in the next town promising a hot shower. A 4x4 jeep approached camp and circled. I’d seen it coming, a small black speck on pure white, growing for ten minutes before the tourists clicked and poked with their cameras out of open windows not even stopping to say hello like rude visitors at a zoo. I traced the trails of overhead jets casting linear shadows on low misty clouds. Seen from positions of solitude throughout the world they had provided a strange link to the other world, the world I had cycle from, strange vaporous supersonic bridges to the accolades and technical achievements of our time. An arresting contrast to the basic raw ground level surrounds one was cycling through. Where were they going? Where had they come from? So fast!

Some weeks south of the Bolivian salt flats as the rattle of tent zippers sounded on the morning breeze a weary sense of change had come about. The rustling of the tent seemed suddenly and inordinately drowned by the shocking sound of a single chirping bird. The startling reaction imbued by that alarming chirp served well as a wake up call, a friendly reminder of the colourful, luscious spongy world that lay 10,000 feet below.










It had been desperately arid for weeks and unzipping the tent, the same cool, dry draft of air wafted over my extended arm, something really had changed in the night. As if some mountain miasma had seeped in through the tent holes (a plenty) and emptied me, leaving a vacuum desperate to be filled with life and colour. That small chirp of a bird called out to a deep loneliness of the spirit as if wrapped in a blanket made of dry Andean winters suddenly heavy with the wanting to leave…….. And that is what must be done. To once again steer east, to descend to the plains of Argentina, to go and find asphalt, to find some colour, to fill that aching with smells and spongy life. To go and see trees!








It would take an author of the finest calibre and deepest knowing to truly describe the profound effect on a starved soul at first gazing over their noble forms. Trees! So Luscious and swaying, standing proud against months of high altitude cycling. Eyes confused at the sight of tall vertical nature, luminescent and green, seemingly imbalanced as if they should fall over at any moment. Below nine thousand feet whole clusters gathered around flowing streams, patches of soft moss began to collect in nooks and a great change came shining from peoples expressions and greetings. It was at around six thousand feet and for the third time since leaving London a partial yet immensely dramatic slip backwards occurred, backwards in time that is, all the way to my childhood. Strange deja vous’s leaping from the past brought on by the simple smell of damp soil collected under trees gathering around the idle flow of streams. With childish eyes I gazed at it all in wonder and awe, not for some mere brief lapse in adult stature but for hours NO days of wonderstruck joy at seeing and hearing the swaying of tall trees in the soft breeze blowing up from the plains of Argentina below. As if their roots had rooted into ones past and found memories of home whilst their tall leaf crowded branches swayed East (in a tale wind!) to the Atlantic, to flat ground and beyond to Europe!



It was a small Oasis town in Uzbekistan that the first of these hugely emotive moments had taken hold. Autumn leaves and the sound of running water after weeks in the desert catapulted one back to home. Then again months later with the first smell of fresh green on the colossal descent from the Tibetan Plateau. But the third and last of these great returns to luscious life shall surely remain imprinted the deepest. Oh the lessons and questions of a very long bicycle ride! The re-learning of the forever and ever of childlike gazes that a solitary tree can provide when they had been absent for so long.

Then arguably one of the greatest pleasures of all to a touring cyclist and certainly no less evocative, the return to asphalt! Across the border to Argentina, from the poorest to the richest country in South America in one stamp of a passport.



Lines and signs and order. Like reaching or returning to a place that had been found and the indescribable moment of cycling over the subtle bump onto asphalt after weeks of clawing through dust and dirt, thick with the retrospect inherent with such slow challenging progress. Then the silence, the void of rattling and the fist chance for Condor to communicate the accumulated ailments of weeks on terrible roads and a sense of how aware I had now become to Condors mechanical chatter.





The tiny tap on the base of ones cycling shoes . . . . . . . . a tiny kink in the chain.

The initial concerns over the subtle vibrations on the palms of ones hands gripping the handles bars . . . . . . . . the delicious feel of tyre tread rolling on smooth roads.

The strange and miniscule wobble when steering. . . . . . . . . . the battered front wheel bearings.

Then came the hours spent in this new asphalt silence tracing super elusive, super natural ticks, clicks and knocks. Though infinite in their malicious variety a few particularly deceitful post Andean cases certainly deserve mention.

The three day case of the ‘left leg rattle’ involving a subtle rattle previously drowned out by the clatter of dust and rubble that only occurred when one used the left foot to push on the pedals but only sounded when the pedals were spinning quickly, that is to say there was no rattle when going quickly in a high gear or slowly in a low gear or when I used only my right leg or &;*£(“)&;$&;*£(())_” . . . . . . . . . . . . On the third morning of investigation the case was finally closed, not unfortunately by some marvellous mechanical deduction or even rational revelation but by a small packet of (rattling) mints falling from a rather too secretive pocket during the morning scramble to get dressed in a small tent (woops!).

Without doubt the most elusive of all these Condor communications (and frustrations) is the case of the ‘left arm creak’. Practically impossible to diagnose and the source of a week of tightening, tapping, taping and oiling. On day three of the ‘left arm creak’ its true character had been fully exposed. Firstly one must push firmly on the left pedal but only whilst in a low gear, additionally (and not independently) the left hand must be gripping the handlebars, that is to say the creak will mysteriously disappear if one steers only with the right hand oh, and if one raises off the saddle the creak will also disappear. Various clauses in the creak involve gripping the frame with the right hand, the time of day (temperature ?) and whether or not the back break was being used!. . . . . . . . . . . The head set needed oiling (phew!)




As the heat and moisture clouded their massive forms I stood next to Condor head high in flushes of memories, gazing up at the last peaks of the Andes. Its treasures stored in fantastic high resolution, a testament to the physical and mental rawness of each incredible day in the mountains. Thousands of miles hidden from view yet as fresh as the celebration in sitting on soft grass next to orange trees and flowers.

As in the Himalayas there had still been a frustrating lack of air for a rousing sing song, lips had still cracked and despicable roads still rattled ones mind but there had been a softness to the Andes. A bitterly steeped expectation of the terrible mental strain one may meet during desolate high altitude cycling had miraculously dissolved into pools of water (almost completely free of ice) reflecting the fluttering wings of a butterfly drifting on winds that persistently remained under gale force. Not once, even on the highest passes was one subject to the humiliating stab of half inch long icicles forming under ones nose or to the alarming sting as parched lips sticking to metal coffee cups. Not once had deathly cold consumed beauty. Yes, I really had been treated kindly, purged and made very happy under the deepest stratospheric blues one could ever imagine.