Riding onto the Salar de Uyuni is a dream, but for some it can turn into a nightmare. The corrosive salt famously ruins motorcycles. Not only does it accelerate rust, and lock up bolts and nuts, but it has been known to cause unexpected disasters, like total electronic failure. We’d also heard of riders getting stuck without water or food, when their bike suddenly gave up the ghost. And apparently, it is surprisingly easy to get lost. Unsure what exactly to expect, we hungrily absorbed any information pertaining to riding the notorious salt flats. Stories of unfortunate moto travelers abounded. But so did the stunning photos of people speeding into the white emptiness and camping with literally nothing around.

We wanted that too. It had been at the top of our bucket list since first leaving London, UK, on what we then thought would be a straightforward round the world trip. Almost ten years later, we finally reached Bolivia, and the Salar de Uyuni came within reach. But could we justify catastrophically damaging our motorcycles? My partner’s 2004 BMW F650 GS had taken quite a pounding over years of travel, and my little 1991 Honda NX250 was never designed to lug all that heavy gear halfway across the continent. Mildly put, both bikes were in well-used condition, and they were yet to make it all the way to the southern tip of Argentina

How bad could it really be? We had ridden onto lesser salt plains before, and they had thrown up nothing we couldn’t wash off afterwards. We knew that this was a little different, but that was the whole point! How gorgeous would it be, to wake up and zip open the tent to a pastel sunrise over the snow-white expanse, with nothing but us and our trusty steeds for miles? And when would we ever be back here? The Salar de Uyuni may not even remain accessible for much longer. Who knows if we would be permitted to freely braap across, when the large, previously untapped deposits of lithium lying underneath become too valuable, not to be mined.

We were asking a lot of Lady Luck, but we just had to do it. We’d heard somewhere that it helps to spray the underside of the bike with cooking oil to form a protective layer, and went to hunt for supplies. The shops in Uyuni are tiny and sparsely stocked with whatever random items make it to this far-from-anywhere town, and I had already envisaged smearing the stuff on using an old rag. To my surprise my partner Aidan appeared from behind a half-empty shelf, triumphantly waving a dusty can of cooking oil spray!

I’d always imagined a sort of dried out lake, and until I experienced it for myself, I could never really fathom just how big and empty the Salar de Uyuni is. With just over 4,000 square miles, you can drive for miles and miles and miles, until the hills around the edge dissipate in a purple mist and it’s just white below and blue sky above, with nothing to orient yourself by or to indicate how far you’ve gone. Suddenly the stories of people getting lost seemed much more feasible. Surely you can just ride in a straight line until you reach the edge. But how would you know you haven’t steered a tiny bit to the side and are in fact going in a huge circle?

Being prepared is the trick. There is no cell reception, so we made sure to download Google offline maps, which clearly shows Isla Incahuasi, the island in the middle of the Salar de Uyuni, as well as a few landmarks, like the flag forest and the Dakar salt statue. We charged our phones, and our power banks, and made sure the auxiliary plugs on the bikes were working. We also brought canisters of spare fuel. The Salar is so vast, it is surprisingly easy to run out of gas, if riding around with abandon, or getting lost. And we had enough food and water for a couple of days. The plan was to camp for a single night, but we brought tools and spares, in case our bikes did break down and we were stuck out there a little longer.

There is a debate about the best season to visit. In the wet, a layer of water forms on the salt, creating the gorgeous mirror effect. If there are clouds in the sky and there’s no wind to ruffle the surface, you can take the most spectacular photos that look like you’re riding in the clouds. Those optimal conditions are rare, though, and we were here at the start of the dry season, during which driving onto the salt and camping is possible. Before setting off in the morning, we sprayed the bikes in cooking oil, adding a bit of WD40 to all the bolts for good measure, and headed to where all the vehicles were entering the salt flats.

The entry was still knee-deep under water. But the cars were going through without sinking, so we followed suit, slipping and sliding in the slimy top layer of melted salt, lifting our boots high into the air. To our horror, the salty slush was dousing the bikes, splashing high up under the tank and past the steering stem. By the time we reached dry ground, the bikes were crusted. Now I understood how the salt could seep into connectors and cables, messing with the electronics and I had my doubts as to how much good the cooking oil would do.

Either way, it was too late. The only way out was through the salty soup, so we might as well delay that until tomorrow, and enjoy ourselves as planned in the meantime. The engines were still humming as if nothing had happened, and the unimpeded freedom of the big, white nothingness was beckoning. We spent the entire day blasting in random directions across the salt and popped to Isla Incahuasi to hike among its giant cacti, which are hundreds of years old.

At just under 12,000 feet above sea level, the Salar de Uyuni is bound to be cold at any time of year and we were prepared with sleeping bags and pads designed for sub-zero temperatures. But something we hadn’t anticipated were the strong, ice-cold winds. Blasting unhindered across the expanse, they threatened to blow the bikes over, and our tent would not withstand such force. So rather than camp in the romantic middle of white nowhere, we ended up pitching in the relative wind shade of Isla Incahuasi. It wasn’t quite what we’d envisaged, but we found a spot from where we could watch the golden sunset.

Getting there wasn’t without drama, though. Circling the island to find the least windy side, I suddenly felt the strange sensation of my rear wheel disappearing. I panicked, opened the throttle and flew out of there faster than I could sink. My partner, on his heavier bike, was not so lucky. It sank to the axle and we had to unload it and drag it out. With the rest of the salt so dry, I’d forgotten about the sinkholes, known to swallow vehicles beyond a simple push to get them back out. It seemed run-off water from the island had melted the salt underneath the treacherously thin crust, creating a hidden bog.

Munching on dinner cooked with salt from the ground, we made plans to get up for sunrise, then ride to a place called ‘the Mirrors’ where the water usually lingered longer into the season and take some photos before the wind would pick up and ruin the effect. I did indeed get up for sunrise. But we had underestimated the distance, and the water was already rippled under an unexcitingly cloudless sky when we got there. We blasted around and took some photos anyway.

What people don’t usually talk about, is having to stand very still, while freezing salt water is slowly filling your boots, waiting for the ripples your steps made to dissipate, before you can get the reflections shot. So I was glad that these were my well used, soon-to-be-replaced boots, and the salt couldn’t do any more damage to them than years of adventure hadn’t already caused.

Sodden and shivering, and with our fuel tanks nearing empty, it was time to leave. Approaching the entry point from the side, we unwisely took a slightly different exit route and realised far too late that here the slushy salt water was much deeper than on the path we’d taken on the way in. Luckily it remained above the air intake, and we managed to stay upright (If we had fallen in, our bikes surely would have died).

There are dozens of vehicle washing stations and we didn’t have to ask twice before they began power washing the bikes. Unloading at the hotel, I spotted more salt, so I returned for a second wash, pointing to all the hard-to-get-to places. Not too keen on an exasperating you-missed-a-bit scenario in my broken Spanish, the guy handed me the trigger gun, leaving me to splash about to my heart’s content. And this time I did get pretty much all the salt off, apart from maybe a crumb or two, which I only found when taking the fairings and tank off, for the extensive cleaning session in preparation for shipping back to Canada at the end of the trip.

It had been a tad riskier than originally anticipated, but the bikes had survived unscathed, and we were elated at having fulfilled our dream. For those who don’t want to put their own vehicle through it, there are tours that cross the Salar de Uyuni in big 4x4s. But for us the uncompromised freedom of being able to ride about wherever we wanted, was what made it unforgettable. Not to mention the altogether different feel of braaping around on a motorcycle.

With hindsight, I’m now quite convinced that the rookie oil bath did make a big difference after all. The bolts still come loose easily, and my bike has sustained no more corrosion than the trip would have done otherwise. Miles later, somewhere on a high mountain pass between Chile and Argentina, I heard a singular loud ‘ding’. But I couldn’t identify the cause, and it did not reoccur. Then, at lunchtime, pulling over in a gravel car park, my bike almost fell over. The side stand was sinking in, because it had lost the iron foot we’d welded to it back in Canada. Not wanting to get oil all over the floor, it had been the only thing on the bottom end of the bike, which I had not sprayed excessively with cooking oil.

Photos by Aidan Walsh & Maria Schumacher

Author: Maria Schumacher

Inspired at a book signing at a motorcycle show in London, Maria Schumacher and her partner Aidan Walsh decided to ride around the world by motorbike, even though they had never sat on one before. Since then, they have led a life of motorcycle travel across Europe, India, Australia and the Americas. Based in Vancouver, Canada, Maria writes articles and provides photos of their journeys and experiences for several international magazines and blogs. She also contributed a chapter to Sam Manicom’s collection of motorcycle travel short stories – The Moment Collectors ASIA.