North to the border of Bolivia

Today we are headed to the border of Bolivia. The border town of Yavi is 391 km north from Salta.

Gassing up on the way out we took this picture of the very cute gas girl to add to Trevor Angel’s collection of cute gas girls. There was this crazy huge armadillo sculpture on the edge of town too.

The ride north from Salta on the 9 is fantastic. The route thru the valley is on a very curvy paved road that is only 4 meters wide and about 30 km long.

A great stopping place for a snack is the cute town of Pumamarca in the valley of the seven colours.

There is a very old church here with a 700-year-old tree.

Arriving back at our bikes we found this police man “ guarding” our bikes. He told us we had left them alone too long and they could go missing. He was not at all worried about this guy parked next to us with all his gear. He even has a long board skateboard.

Just up the road is an artisanal shop with a huge Llama and a cactus with a nice rack (Andi). This is the first time we had issues with gas and altitude. The 650 especially did not like it and several times the power failed and twice the bike died at 3900-4200 m. Phew and we have not even got crappy Bolivian gas yet.

Arriving at the border at 4 pm we had lots of time to get to the Bolivian town of Tupiza in 65 km. Driving up it was eerily quiet. This was because there was a roadblock on the Bolivian side and the border had been closed all day. They said it would open at 7 the next day. We drove 38 km to Yavi Chico because we had been told it was a nicer place to stay then Yavi, it’s not. So we headed back to town and found a hotel. Luckily there was a room with the border closure and there was also a large tour here with 12 bikes.