Hard times on the Altiplano
Motorcycles, depression, and an utterly failed attempt to cross the high plains of Chile.
I used to have times where I would get very very sad. I still do, but I used to as well.
When the times got very bad, I would fantasize, as many do, about ending my own life. After years of flirting with these sorts of thoughts, the logical part of my brain had a lightbulb moment.
“Hey Didier, if you don’t care if you live or die, why don’t you just buy a motorcycle?”
And so it began.
Now, when the times got bad, I didn’t just lie comatose on the couch for hours, days, on end. I waited until 4 in the morning, slipped into my leather jacket, and hit the empty California freeways.
In the black of the night, the only reality is the small headlit cone of asphalt and concrete whizzing by at a velocity man was never meant to achieve. Doubt its veracity? Reach your foot down and brush it. At every corner, Death whispers flirtingly, tauntingly, from the concrete barriers.
“How about now, pussy? Want to join me now?”
“Not now, Death; I’m cornering.”
“You’ve fantasized about this for years. Just push your left handlebar a millimeter farther, see what it’s like.”
“Maybe the next corner, Death. I’ve got this one.”
And so it continued.
After hundreds, thousands of corners, some executed with precision, some with misjudged entrances necessitating quick manoeuvres to avoid Death’s open-armed welcome, I eventually realized — I don’t want to die. If I did, I’d be dead already.
And so it improved. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to do one of those early morning runs, and they’d started to disappear from my memory — until the events of this week in Chile brought them rushing back.
Alex’s voice crackles over the intercom. “Guys, my clutch is slipping again!”
“Knock it off Alex, you just got a new clutch a week ago.”
“I’m serious, give it a try!”
The three of us are riding around Arica, unsuccessfully trying to find jerrycans suitable for a six hundred kilometer unsupported motorcycle expedition through the desert. Alex and I exchange bikes, and I’m unable to reproduce his clutch issue — but within 50 meters of the swap, he’s managed to put a puncture in my rear tire. And so it begins.
The bike is put-putted to a local vulcanizador. He is un-keen to help, and I dismount the wheel on my own while Tibet and Alex wander the neighbourhood looking for bidones para la gasolina. The vulcanizador brutishly removes the tire from the rim using a tire iron meant for trucks. “That’s a bit rough”, I think to myself. “I hope he doesn’t damage the tire.”
The other guys figure out a fuel solution — duct-taping together four-liter Mobil-1 motor oil bottles and strapping them to the bikes — sixteen liters each. We share some jokes with the locals about our impending cremation. The next day, Alex’s clutch is fixed again and he stops complaining so we pack up and leave Arica for the mountains.
Road works between Arica and Putre result in the main road being closed for hours at a time, so we follow an alternative route through the mountains recommended to us by some locals we met at a gas station. Within short order, we’re in the mountain town of Putre, the last outpost of civilization before the deserted Chilean Altiplano. We top up on gasoline at a restaurant and headed out into the dirt at 4,200 meters.
The Altiplano is harsh. The sun can burn you in minutes during the day, but the air goes down to -15 Celsius at night (before wind chill). The volcanic activity in the area has resulted in hot springs dotting the national parks, so we resolve to spend the night next to one of those instead of dying of hypothermia. Excellent progress is made, before my rear tire goes flat again — the valve has been ripped off.
Panniers off, bike balanced on a stack of rocks, wheel removed, tube replaced. Wheel re-mounted, panniers on, and we’re back on the road! Travel another 30km, and the rear is flat again. It’s burst under pressure — the tube we’ve been sold is an absolute piece of trash.
Panniers off, bike balanced on a stack of rocks, wheel removed, tube replaced once again. We’ve only brought two rear spares — having had very few flats, this had seemed like ample. The sun starts to set, and the regrets rapidly roll in with the cold. The temperature drops below freezing and the rubber tire toughens, losing its malleability. We bend both of our steel tire irons mounting the tire back on the rim, before discovering that we’ve pinched our last tube. Words cannot describe the misery of that moment.
Unmount the tire, patch the tube, re-mount the tire with the help of a cacaphony of swear words. Wheel re-mounted, panniers on, and we’re moving again. Back in the black of the night, but it’s loose gravel beneath the wheels instead of asphalt, and Death’s preferred lurking spot is the rapidly freezing river crossings instead of the concrete barriers. Finally, the three frozen adventurers arrive at the Termas de Chiriguaya and pile into the little stone hut surrounding a 46 degree hot spring. Emotions rebound!
The next day starts with cheer. We wash the dishes in the volcanically warmed stream, rush around taking pictures and packing the bikes, looking forward to our day of adventure. We get on the road, and the excitement continues for around four kilometers.
“Hey Tibet”, I ask over the intercom. “Can you take a look at my rear tire?”
“You, Didier, have a flat.”
We pray that it’s not the valve, and our prayers are answered — just a regular, patchable flat. A half hour of labour in the hot sun and thin air, and the trio is back on the road. Thirty kilometers later, however, we’re not so lucky — the valve is ripped and the tube is destroyed.
And so it worsens.
“I can’t take much more of this”, I mutter to Tibet.
“Me neither.”
Each flat results in at least a half hour of physical labour in the hot sun, cold air and dust, and a battering to the morale. We find the last tube we have with a working valve, patch it, unload the bike as much as possible, and I limp slowly while trying to avoid any rocks. This feat proves impossible on the gravel road, and before long, the rear goes flat again. Team morale is dying, but mine is already six feet under. It’s clear that the tire itself is the problem, for which we have no solution.
As the day progresses, I eventually lose track of how many flats have occurred. The day is a blur of extremely cautious gravel riding, morale-crushing disappointment, hard labour in a simultaneously hot and cold oxygen-depleted environment, and increasingly desperate measures.
Our final attempt to fix the issue is to fill the tube with a pressurized “magical” fix-a-flat concoction and drive very slowly. Within one kilometer of washboarded gravel, the tube is flat again and we’re stuck in the middle of the deserted Altiplano with a rapidly approaching sunset, a dead bike, and no more ways to fix it.
Fuck.
Tibet and Alex ride off to find help, and I’m left to descend into depression on my own. In a twisted stroke of fortune, the tire has destroyed its final tube a mere handful of kilometers from the park ranger station, so they return in short order with the rangers and a pickup truck. While the arrival is early enough that we’re able to get back to the station before sunset, it’s too late to prevent my spiral into self hatred. A spot of subtle racism from one of the rangers is enough to sink the final bullet of the day into my mood, and I rapidly return to my old ways of comatose reclination, fantasizing about hanging myself from the ceiling. Where is Death when you want him?
The depression must be tamped down in order to organize an escape the next day. We’re really out in the sticks. The nearest town, Colchane, is 80km away. Both rangers have excuses for why they can’t drive the bike there — the truck has a problem with its axle, and the van has a radiator leak. They refuse increasing offers of money, and offer extremely unhelpful suggestions (“I will go to Arica in four days, so I can bring you then. But not the motorcycle.”) There are two other outposts of civilization in the area — an extremely industrious borax mine tearing up the once beautiful Salar de Surire, and a police station. Neither group of people are willing to go out of their way to help us out of the desert, instead offering more unhelpful suggestions (“they can fix your problem in Colchane, why don’t you just ride there?”).
A year ago, I did a similar trip in South-East Asia on an even more unreliable bike. Between myself and my friend Josip, we had our bikes in six pickup trucks in six weeks, and not once did anyone refuse to help us when we were in need. An extreme hatred of Chile is fertilizing in my head, catalyzed by the knowledge of how different things are on the other side of the world. Eventually, the cancerous hatred’s growth is halted by a miracle — in the late afternoon, after exhausting all of our options and resigning ourselves to a death by exposure in the desert, the first vehicle of the day comes down the road. A tourist van, full of Germans, headed back to Putre. They have room for me but not the bike. I climb in, Tibet and Alex follow on their bikes, and we speed down the gravel road back to civilization. The injured motorcycle is abandoned in the desert, its negative feelings hopefully allayed with promises of our eventual return.
In Putre, the driver of the tourist van makes some calls, and the next day I find myself in the passenger seat of a pickup truck headed back into the nature reserve. My driver — Alfonso — leaves the closest city — Arica — at 6AM to pick me up, and we arrive back there at 5PM with the bike. Eleven hours of driving — that’s how far away we’d gotten from any sizeable human population. Meanwhile, Tibet and Alex have procured a new tire in Arica, and a mechanic confirms our suspicion that the previous one’s bead was shot.
Tire replaced and spare tubes replenished, we relax, secure in the knowledge that nothing more can go wrong, and we could easily make it to Bolivia the next day. Moods start to rebound over pizza and pisco sours.
“Man, that was a rough few days, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, glad that’s over!”
“Smooth sailing from here on, eh boys?”
“Don’t jinx it, haha!”
The next morning, we jump out of bed, and excitedly start loading the bikes for the run to the border. We then make a discovery. After 18,000 kilometers of uninterrupted safe travel from San Francisco to Chile, one of my panniers, containing all of my (highly specialized, very expensive, mission critical) camping gear, has been stolen out of our hostel’s “secure” parking area overnight.
I may have to revive the 4AM freeway run.
For more stories of the trip as they happen, check out https://www.facebook.com/thelongwayout/
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