Hey, does anyone know what the road into Bolivia from Calama in Chile is like? According to maps it is unpaved, but I just wanted to get an idea of how unpaved and tough it is from anyone who may have done it.
Thanks!
Road to Bolivia from Calama, Chile
There are several routes from Calama, so I don't know which road you have in mind. Most people go via San Pedro de Atacama and enter Bolivia at Laguna Verde. A more direct but rather boring route is approximately to follow the railway line, crossing the border at Socompa. There are other places you can cross. The turistel.cl site which shows maps is not responding at this precise moment, and I haven't got my paper copy of the Turistel Guides to hand, so I can't be more cogent than that.
The only paved route from Chile to Bolivia is the Arica to La Paz road.
All other routes from Chile to Bolivia are unpaved on both sides of the border. Chilean unpaved roads are notoriously bad. SW Bolivia is very remote and difficult touring for the most part on tracks which are just beaten into the ground by passing traffic. Given the altitude and the conditions, 50km a day is good going, and at times you may not get that far. I haven't seen an accurate map of the tracks in present use (on the Bolivian side of the border), so beware of whatever map it is you are looking at. Signposts are rare. Except on the paved route mentioned above, for a Chile-Bolivia crossing you typically need to carry about 10-12 days food and have the facility to carry a couple of days water. You need to be aware of the altitudes you will be reaching, and remaining at for extended periods, so you need to provide for altitude acclimatisation. You won't get any decent food supplies until you get to Uyuni or the like. This is very remote expedition cycling.
Some further comments in my Bolivia notes here. About 10 years old now, but much is the same. http://www.geocities.com/thetropics/isl ... /ivan.html
The only paved route from Chile to Bolivia is the Arica to La Paz road.
All other routes from Chile to Bolivia are unpaved on both sides of the border. Chilean unpaved roads are notoriously bad. SW Bolivia is very remote and difficult touring for the most part on tracks which are just beaten into the ground by passing traffic. Given the altitude and the conditions, 50km a day is good going, and at times you may not get that far. I haven't seen an accurate map of the tracks in present use (on the Bolivian side of the border), so beware of whatever map it is you are looking at. Signposts are rare. Except on the paved route mentioned above, for a Chile-Bolivia crossing you typically need to carry about 10-12 days food and have the facility to carry a couple of days water. You need to be aware of the altitudes you will be reaching, and remaining at for extended periods, so you need to provide for altitude acclimatisation. You won't get any decent food supplies until you get to Uyuni or the like. This is very remote expedition cycling.
Some further comments in my Bolivia notes here. About 10 years old now, but much is the same. http://www.geocities.com/thetropics/isl ... /ivan.html
I also strongly recommend looking at this site, under "Off the Map", which mentions several routes in the area and gives better details than me.
http://www.irisentoreopreis.nl/offmap.shtml
http://www.irisentoreopreis.nl/offmap.shtml
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Roddy.cordeiro
- Posts: 16
- Joined: 16 Oct 2008, 5:41pm
I was actually thinking of Ollague, where the old coal train crosses and then south of the Salar de Uyuni. I think I'll have to look at it when I'm there (currently in Southern - Mid Chile, heading north) and decide, but it may be a bit beyond my capabilities as this is my first tour and I'm on my own. (I'm actually considering jumping on the train as it takes passengers at this stage, but no heating and -20C at night is proving a bit of a deterrant).
The turistel doesn't exist anymore by that name, it is now Guia Turistica Copec as it is published by petrol station chain Copec. They do three info listing guides with road maps (north, south and centre) and one road map for the whole country, which isn't great but fairly usable.
By the way, I notice from your page that you've cycled in the Falklands, that's where I'm from. Trained there before coming here, but couldn't imagine doing a full blown tour in that wind.
Thanks for your help and the great website, very useful!
The turistel doesn't exist anymore by that name, it is now Guia Turistica Copec as it is published by petrol station chain Copec. They do three info listing guides with road maps (north, south and centre) and one road map for the whole country, which isn't great but fairly usable.
By the way, I notice from your page that you've cycled in the Falklands, that's where I'm from. Trained there before coming here, but couldn't imagine doing a full blown tour in that wind.
Thanks for your help and the great website, very useful!
Had a look at my map now, and I see I mixed up Socompa, the border post on the Antofagasta-Salta railway with Ollague, the border post on the Calama-Uyuni railway. Ollague is a bit more of a place than Socompa, which is hardly a place at all. But although it is shown on the map in rather large letters, it only has a population of 300. You ought to get some sort of supplies in such a place, but nothing too special. You can find occasional travelogues of people cycling Chile-Bol via Ollague, from which I get the impression it isn't a very interesting route. One travelogue I recall showed the cyclist cycling over the sleepers between the rails as that wasn't as bad as cycling on the Bolivian "road"...
Far better is to cycle on the Salar de Uyuni than south of it, assuming it is the dry season. But if you are talking about going there very soon, it probably isn't. But when it hasn't dissolved into a puddle of very concentrated brine which will do a lot of damage to your bike, it has much a better surface for cycling than an unpaved Bolivian road.
Also I'd forgotten quite how close the paved Paso de Jama road from San Pedro de Atacama to Salta (Arg) gets to the Bol border, just 5km, so it is to all in intents and purposes a paved route to Bolivia, on the Chilean side, that way, though a very tough ride on the Bol side.
I have all three (former) Turistel guides from 2007. The maps in those volumes are rather more detailed and have a larger scale than those in the single vol, which are the same as those on the web.
This seems to be the page on the Copec website showing the maps which formerly appeared on the Turistel website. http://www.copec.cl/extranet/wps/wcm/co ... utasflash/ They've put some "clever" programming on it, which of course doesn't work as well as the simple pdf download it was before, and the maps are not as clearly visible. It is educational to observe the contrast between the roads on the Bol side of the border shown in the map there, and the "situation on the ground" indicated by irisentoreopreis.nl website. Also the more detailed map I have in my 2007 guide seems to show a rather different road network from that in the cheap mapping.
The other thing that is a little curious is that when I went (in a jeep tour, I confess) from San Pedro de Atacama to El Tatio geyser there was, on the way, and not very far from El Tatio, a signpost to Bolivia at a road junction. But no such road is shown on the map. Again, I have read of people going to El Tatio and crossing to Bolivia in the vicinity. The Copec/Turistel map would have you believe that there is no border crossing between Laguna Verde and Ollague, but I believe in practice there are several.
Far better is to cycle on the Salar de Uyuni than south of it, assuming it is the dry season. But if you are talking about going there very soon, it probably isn't. But when it hasn't dissolved into a puddle of very concentrated brine which will do a lot of damage to your bike, it has much a better surface for cycling than an unpaved Bolivian road.
Also I'd forgotten quite how close the paved Paso de Jama road from San Pedro de Atacama to Salta (Arg) gets to the Bol border, just 5km, so it is to all in intents and purposes a paved route to Bolivia, on the Chilean side, that way, though a very tough ride on the Bol side.
I have all three (former) Turistel guides from 2007. The maps in those volumes are rather more detailed and have a larger scale than those in the single vol, which are the same as those on the web.
This seems to be the page on the Copec website showing the maps which formerly appeared on the Turistel website. http://www.copec.cl/extranet/wps/wcm/co ... utasflash/ They've put some "clever" programming on it, which of course doesn't work as well as the simple pdf download it was before, and the maps are not as clearly visible. It is educational to observe the contrast between the roads on the Bol side of the border shown in the map there, and the "situation on the ground" indicated by irisentoreopreis.nl website. Also the more detailed map I have in my 2007 guide seems to show a rather different road network from that in the cheap mapping.
The other thing that is a little curious is that when I went (in a jeep tour, I confess) from San Pedro de Atacama to El Tatio geyser there was, on the way, and not very far from El Tatio, a signpost to Bolivia at a road junction. But no such road is shown on the map. Again, I have read of people going to El Tatio and crossing to Bolivia in the vicinity. The Copec/Turistel map would have you believe that there is no border crossing between Laguna Verde and Ollague, but I believe in practice there are several.