How to Escape from Uyuni Roadblocks
 

For anyone who gets caught in Uyuni because of roadblocks, here is how i got around them:

I got caught in Uyuni in 2014 by roadblocks which were set up during the early morning the day after I arrived in the town. Road blocks on the road to the salar, road blocks on the road to Chile, and road blocks on the new toll road to Potosi. There were probably road blocks on every road out of Uyuni, but i didn't check them all. It's very important that if you can ( you have extra tanks) that you fill up with as much fuel as you can carry before heading to Uyuni - in the event of a roadblock, you will have a next to impossible time to get fuel in Uyuni since the fuel trucks will be prohibited from entering the town.

At one of the road blocks, i spoke with some local bolivian guys who had 4x4 trucks. They said that there was a way around the Uyuni-Potosi roadblock by taking 'the old road'. So i followed them. It was not exactly an 'old road', but instead it was mostly a dry river bed. We drove about 30kms in it until we were able to intersect the highway and bypass the blocks. The entrance to this 'old road' is southeast of town -20.468053, -66.810808 near what appeared to be a garbage dump. Like all things in Bolivia, i recommend that you don't try to do this without a local as there are many 'trails' and it is certain to get you horribly lost. You will need a 4x4 or a bike to do it as the route is very rough. We got back on the highway at about this point -20.444259, -66.613458. The idea is to bypass the mountain pass that is directly east of Uyuni on the highway, because it is in that mountain pass that the roadblocks are impossible to skirt around by driving in the ditch. I know this from experience as i skirted around two roadblocks before i got to the third which had steep drops on each side of the road. The protestors usually block the toll booths east of town, then another block about 1km later, and then about 13 more blockades in the mountain pass zone. A word of caution about driving in the ditch to get around a blockade, the protestors will throw rocks at you.

I am attaching a kml file of the paths to take to circumvent the roadblock. Sorry if it's not professional quality, but it should suffice.

If you look at the area with Google Earth you can see the general route one would need to take to bypass the mountain range. There are three main ways, which i have detailed in the kml file. Route A is probably the most difficult. Route B a little less difficult, and Route C is the easiest. The routes intersect at a few points.

I would also add to not "escape" a road block on the La Quaica / Villazon border crossing. I did this in 2013 when the actual bridge over the dry river was blockaded, by riding my m/c round a small footpath. Upon presenting myself to Argentinian customs, they told me that the border was officially closed due to the road block, which meant I had entered Argentina illegally and so they had to confiscate my bike on account of me importing it illegally. Took me 4 days to get sorted and a small fine..... Ironically the roadblock was lifted on the 2nd of those 4 days...

A few weeks ago I just rode around the blockades of rocks, downed trees etc etc, giving the thumbs up to the protesters as I did. This worked on over 5 different blockades. Police did not know what to make of it

Glen

I am not surprised that you successfully rode through a road block. As a foreigner to are generally not part of the local fight. I am not advising this technique willy-nilly as events in Bolivia turned very ugly a short time back. Per international news, government forces killed two strikers and the strikers killed a government official.

I got through a road block leaving La Paz by slowly riding along with pedestrians. At the risk of confrontation...but it didn't happen. Like you, perhaps I just got lucky. Its so hard to say. Feel the atmosphere with your gut is my best advice. In Brazil I smiled my way through five road blocks (count'um five) in one day. Brazilians are more easy going, IMHO.

Adventure starts when the unexpected occurs. =)