Report from Uyuni (you-you-knee), Bolivia:
First off, I don’t do Facebook, Twitter, LinkledIn, Etc. so I don’t know what’s been posted there.
Okay. You are just going to have to deal with it. There are simply no words to describe this place and no photographs can do justice to the scope. Sorry. I’ve taken dozens of pictures and videos but they just don’t communicate the reality.
The humidity here stays in the teens to mid 30’s and average rainfall for the two or three winter months is Zero. Temp outside during the day, when you are standing in the sun, is delightfully sunny and a bit chilly. Really cold in the morning (it IS Winter here) warming to nice shirt sleeve weather around noon. And incredibly, there is almost no wind. You could stand around in your fire suit and helmet most of the day and not mind. In the shade… well it gets cold in a hurry.
The salt is so dry NONE of it sticks to anything. There’s like a ‘48 Dodge flatbed truck in town that has been working on the salt for 40+ years and there is no salt on it. It’s somewhat rusty, but nothing like A Bonneville “resident”.
And the salt itself is like white asphalt. I bent five #22 spikes over trying to drive them in, and the model babes who showed up for the opening ceremonies walked around in their stiletto heels with no problem. Again it is like white asphalt. BTW the pics of their heels are on the "raw" salt, not the course.
It was remarked you could land a 747 on the race course with ease. True, but it misses the point: you could land a half dozen 747’s, in formation, all at the same time on the race course (and on the salt along side it) with tons of room to spare. You could even land them all in a straight line, right down the course, each with its own “private” runway.
As to the enclosed screen shot - The hotel is at the east end of the red line. It’s eleven miles across the salt to the fifteen mile race course, the green line. That’s right the entire usable portion of the Bonneville Salt Flats could fit within the drive to simply get to the track. Then it’s fifteen miles of the most amazing salt surface I’ve ever seen.
As an aside, a few days ago, starting from the hotel we drove in a chartered bus for an hour across the salt (40-45mph) to visit this amazing cactus covered island (The magenta arrow in the middle of the picture), which, upon closer inspection we noticed was actually covered in coral. Again a lot of pictures and a few videos were taken, and again they fell short. The salt, even from the 300 or so foot summit of this “island” simply is the horizon in almost every direction.
For a lot of photos type Uyuni, Bolivia into the search box in Google Earth. There are hundreds there.
Anyway, the biggest problem facing the event is… no motorcycles. Only two have shown up so far. The stories are many and varied about where they are, and what’s holding them up, peppered with frequent, even daily, “No problemo, Senior. A las dies horas manana.” (“At 10 tomorrow morning”)
At the moment it’s For Sure tonight at 10PM. Time will tell.
Oh, and we’re staying in a Salt Junky’s Heaven. A four star hotel made out of, what else, salt. Google Palacio De Salar.
My prediction is the first car to go 500+ will do it at Uyuni. It’s just beyond belief how PERFECT a race course it is.
And I cannot believe what went on yesterday. There was a HUGE celebration on the salt for us racers, attended by the President of Bolivia. All sorts of folk dress and bands, and dancing. Probably 2500 people attended. And for, at that moment, two motorcycles.
The President finally arrived and spoke about how us racers were going to help promote Bolivia in the eyes of the world, along with a bunch of other stuff. Right after he spoke he asked to meet with us by the starting line where he posed for endless pictures with many of us. That's him in the white serape in the foreground. Not me though, I was off “talking” Spanglish with his wife for a while.
Anyway, then Ralph Hudson, who runs a VERY fast motorcycle, started his bike up, and with spectators along the course for a quarter of a mile cheering him on, made a pass.
Okay, that’s enough for now.
The adventures continue.
(Trying to upload with the overloaded internet here - can't show pics right now)