Sylvain Mougin, The Boliviana 2006
After an intense start in Autumn (Outdoor Friends Days) we bade farewell to the soft European temperatures, in direction of the high plateaux of the Andes . Eider’s cheerful Adventure crew (Gaël, Alexis and Sylvain), in charge of displaying the team’s potential at the Boliviana 2006, arrived at El Alto under mild Incan skies.
After briefly acclimatising, the event’s doctors made a point of how well the team is adapted to the altitude. Nevertheless, the rigorous schedule will catch up with us, and just three days later the difficult first stage of the raid was in full-swing around Copacabana, on the banks of the majestic Titicaca lake. The lack of oxygen required us to push hard right from the start in order to keep up with a few overly keen competitors. We let them push forward – knowing from experience that there’ll be some damage. Gaël learnt the usefulness of cycling shorts without braces, Alexis learnt the ropes of the local vessels (Balsa de Totora), and Sylvain realised that he really is too old for all this clowning around!!!
So after several days racing, everyone settled down for a big mountainous stage, team Eider had a 25-minute lead to make the most of and once they reached the final and culminating point (5300m) at the Chacaltaya ski resort, it’s game over.
The results are clear: it’s team Eider’s third consecutive victory as the only non-Bolivian team to prevail in these lands. Despite the stiff competition and the defaults in the event’s organisation – that went astray faced with the enormous potential of such sumptuous scenery – the winning machine still runs perfectly. So we couldn’t miss the opportunity to do a little trip, if only to get our bearings back. We headed off with Ramuncho Loeb and his Land Cruiser towards the richness of the Bolivian far west. The girls have joined up with us again and the schedule looks promising: climbing, lagoons and rios served with a pinch of salt. Our guide is surprised to see that we prefer to sleep under the stars rather than the iron-roofed tourist hostels, but he is reassured on seeing the hordes of routards and hikers once at Incawasi Island , so typical of South America . For the remainder of the trip, it was bivouac, caverns and wood, or should we say cactus, fires.
Wherever we set foot, we saw no one, and Ramuncho was happy to discover some new trails. Actually there are some signs of life over there, we saw some powder on the cliffs, no doubt left by some vertical wanderers, you’ll have to ask Dod and Tonio…
Many thanks to Richard Colson from Mercantour Raid, Petzl and Eider.
