Instead of driving straight to the salar do Uyuni I changed spontaneously my plans after a friend of mine told me to check out the national park of Torotoro, located just another 150 km in the South of Cochabamba.
Learning from my mistake of San Matias, I was asking several people from the BMW Motorrad Club about the conditions of the road. Apparently, there was no “arena” but a mix of gravel and copper stone roads waiting for me. Everything manageable even without motocross tires and I decided to go for it. The alternative would have been a 4-5 hours ride in a mini bus together with plenty of other people on a rather bouncy road. No, thank you 😀
One of the BMW club members was a motorbike accessories dealer and I still wanted to check out if he would be having a headlight protector which I did not find in Santa Cruz. Arriving there I also showed him my GIVI support which broke in the meantime in the middle of the right side. He could temporarily fix it but promised to have a better solution available when coming back from Torotoro. He even invited me to his house to stay for another night which I gladly accepted. Furthermore, one of the gasoline containers was leaking after my crash in San Matias which he also promised to eventually fix.
Leaving later than I originally anticipated, I hit the road to the national park.
The road was first made out of copper stone which was after the first kilometres pretty easy to drive. Thereby, the road lead me through more and more beautiful landscapes which left me speechless after every new curve.
Soon the road conditions were getting worse and gravel was more or less determining the rest of the drive. I had to be careful since also sometimes there was even sand which I did not expected. This was minimal however and I made it successfully in one piece to the town of Torotoro.
Arriving there I was checking out a couple of guesthouses where I could imagine to possibly stay and decided to stay in the Hostal Eden. What a great name 😀 And the hostel was also really nice… nothing to complain… I initially thought, haha. However, since I had a long ride at 36°C behind I was taking my obligatory shower 🙂 While turning on the shower I figured out that the shower head was not correctly fixed to the water tube and while I was trying to put it back again I suddenly felt an electrical shock going through all of my body. I cursed out loud, stepped back and my hand as well as my arm was in pain and partially numb. Fu*%&!!!! Luckily, I got back in shape a day after. I will never touch this sh*! again!!!!!
While exploring a bit the village I got hungry and decided to go to one of the restaurants next to the hostel, which turned out to be an excellent decision. Not only had I an amazing dinner but I also met Balther from Iceland who gave me great recommendations for activities in the area.
After another beer with the Northman I went early back to my room and felt exhausted to bed.
