Andes to La Paz

We left the Amazonian jungle behind, again an 11hrs bus journey back to Cusco, from the green carpet to the green mountains, on the Interoceanic Highway, a controversial project due to its environmental impacts to the rainforests. It aims to connect Brazil with Peru and the Pacific Ocean thus with the Chinese markets. This time we had surprises on our way… We got in the bus, very happy it was half empty so we got two seats for each one at the back. Really cool, we thought it is going to be an easy one this time. After 3-4 hours driving in the night, our bus broke down. They told us to get off and wait for another bus which was coming after us. We didn't understand much, we were half asleep, so the people got out, got in the next bus and gone! It was us, the driver, the attendants and 2-3 more people. We spent sometime contemplating our next moves. No bus, no next bus, in the middle of nowhere, and another 4-5 hours to Cusco. They told us they will come to pick us up but that would be in many hours. We tried to hitch-hike but there were only heavy trucks going slower than walking speed! As all 4 of us are engineers, we tried to fix the problem by replacing the broken belt in the engine with one of the attendant’s tights. It did work! For 5 minutes... We were condemned! We started hitch-hiking every passing car! Luckily enough, about an hour later two relatively modern small trucks stopped and we got on the back, open air. It was freezing but the views of the landscape, the snow peaks, the valleys and the villages were well worth it. In fact, the delay made this trip a day trip which otherwise we would have missed in the dark. Four five hours on there it was exhausting but rewarding at the same time! Unfortunately, there are no photos from this part as all our camera batteries were flat. In our minds only…


We stayed another couple of days in Cusco, to recover and get ourselves sorted to leave for Bolivia. After five days in the rainforests and the open air journey, we were kind of exhausted! On top, we had to acclimatise ourselves again, travelling from sea level jungle to 3450m in only few hours, some of us got sick (not me) :)This time we took it easy and we had some nice relaxing days, with good food and sleep…

We arranged our tickets and got in yet another bus towards lake Titicaca and Bolivia. We changed bus at Puno and from there to the border, went through customs and head towards Copacabana, a touristy village on the shores of lake Titicaca, at the Bolivian side. We exchanged our Peruvian Soles to Dolares Bolivianos and got boat tickets to Isla del Sol.

Peru - Bolivia crossing

Peru - Bolivia crossing

Lake Titicaca_Lago sagrado

Lake Titicaca was beautiful. A high altitude lake, with a landscape that reminds Greek islands! Even Lonely Planet says so! Certainly wasn’t as beautiful as lake Yamdrok Tso in Tibet, even if the setting was very similar. We got on a boat for a 3 hours sail to the north part of the island. The boat was full of hippie travelers seeking a place to relax and take it easy. Titicaca is one of most sacred lakes in the Incas civilisation. We explored the Bolivian side.     

Lake Titicaca_Traditional (touristic) boats

Lake Titicaca_Snow peak mountains surrounding the lake

According to the Inka legend, Isla del Sol is the place where the sun was born. Indeed, there was plenty of sun here but during the night it was freezing! At an altitude of 3600m, the night is cold whatever the season of the year might be. In fact it was freezing, and very windy. We didn't even dare going outdoors, even if we wanted to. Not much to do in the island villages apart from couple of basic restaurants. We did not get too excited about the place and next day we got in (last) the boat and back to Copacabana shore.

Isla del Sol_Sandy beach

 

Isla del Sol_Elafonisos looking like beach

Lake Titicaca_Ferry boat

We left Titicaca behind on a bus ride to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. The 3 hours journey took us through some more amazing landscaping. The altitude from here did not go lower than 3200m until the day we departed Bolivia. Snow peaks were visible from literally any angle you were looking from. 

 

From Titicaca to La Paz

 

La Paz from above

 

La Paz is the highest in altitude capital in the world (3,650m). Again our breath was sort, getting tired in the smallest effort. The city centre was beautiful, with lots of churches and flea markets. The local buses were old american Dodge, really cool but noisy and dirty. Here there were only very few people speaking English so we had to try even harder to communicate. Bargaining artifacts and t-shirts was such fun especially when none of the involved parties could speak each other’s language! We managed to achieve some good bargains!

La Paz_Dodge bus(1)

La Paz_Dodge bus(2)

 

The architecture was pretty similar to the previous cities we visited, like Lima and Cusco. There were lots of colonial buildings and churches. The city center was buzzing, very busy and our city tour walk was breathless, not really because of what we were seeing but because La Paz is not on a flat plane and it was really difficult to breath especially when you go upwards.. :) We did some nice sightseeing. We also visited Coca Museo, a small exhibition about coca leaves, the powder as well as information about its cultivation through the centuries and other controversial stories about the drug use in US and elsewhere.

 

La Paz_Atrium within the hotel we stayed

La Paz_Catedral

 

La Paz_Coca museo(!)

La Paz_1st of May demonstrations

La Paz_Hail stones

La Paz_City architecture (1)

 

La Paz_City architecture (2)

 

La Paz_Local periptero

 

La Paz_The struggled rooster

The following picture is from San Pedro’s prison main gate. This is one of the weirdest institutions in the world! Prisoners in here pay their own cells, they have to work to earn their living, and they even do tourist tours inside the prison! This is the book I was reading through this trip, Marching Powder, written by Rusty Young. It tells a real story of an Englishman drug trafficker who was convicted for trying to sneak 5 kg of cocaine into Europe. He became the prison’s tour guide, he had a restaurant and a small shop. The book shows the dark side of life in such place, someone cannot believe these situations exist. We didn’t get in for the tour, the guards did not even allow us to take photographs, but I manage to sneak one. If you wanna read more about or see some photos check http://www.marchingpowder.com/

La Paz_San Pedro prison

As they were only few days left, we sadly decided that we cannot visit Salar De Uyuni, unfortunately. We needed another 2-3 days to travel south of Bolivia and return to La Paz to get our flight and simply we did not have enough time for this. Instead, we decided to do the mighty Death Road! A 63km downhill bike ride into the most dangerous road in the world!

 After a ‘heavy’ night out, we got up at 7am, got in the van with all the gear and head to the mountains. We went up to 4700m, had a brief from our instructor and we started the downhill ride.

Starting point

 

Death Road_Tarmac section

 

Death Road_We can make it!

The landscape was amazing! The first section was on tarmac so it was easy to drive and at the same time to look around and use the camera for some short filming (!) There was our instructor guide in front and the support van was following behind us. We had clear instructions not to overtake our guide. We asked for an ‘aggressive’ ride and we pushed him to his limits!

Death Road_Action preview (lower your volume plz)

 

Death Road_Pare!

The gravel section was a dangerous, adrenaline high activity! We had such great fun! We drove our bicycles through a narrow road, with no barriers whatsoever and cliffs over 300m high! There have been numerous fatal accidents (deaths, thus the name) including buses falling over. Today the gravel section is not used by the traffic which is now diverted to a newly constructed road. There were many groups cycling the Death Road. Sometimes it was even more dangerous when we had to overpass them. I loved the activity from the beginning to the end! It was grrrreat and we couldn’t believe it when our guide said this is the end of the route. We wanted to get the van and go back to start over again!

Death Road_Majestic views

 

Death Road_Narrow crossing

Death Road_Steep hills

 

Death Road_Survivor

 

Death Road_In style..

Death Road_On the edge

 

Death Road_Waterfall passage

Death Road_Messy

 

Death Road_Our downhill group

 

Bliss on the way back to La Paz (1)

 

Bliss on the way back to La Paz (2)

Back to La Paz the same evening, none of us was too happy about leaving. We did our last minute shopping and prepared our back packs for the long return flight. Our flight was early in the morning and again we manage to sleep only 2 hours so we sleep in the plane. I was flying with Angelos to London and the other two back to Martinique; all of us through Miami where we separated.

It has been an amazing journey, a journey of landscape contrasts, from dessert to lush green mountains, to snow peaks (well we didn’t climb them though), to the jungle and Amazon by-rivers, to high altitude lakes and capital cities! Additionally, the food was great, the culture, the history, people were friendly and even with our limited Spanish we did not face any problems throughout the trip. It was a journey of a lifetime to remember, a journey I would recommend to everyone to do it at some point in their life! I wish I could stay longer to do Uyuni, then Chile and Argentina, but I don’t want to be greedy. I had great time, great moments and I believe I am very very lucky having the opportunity to do something like this. I wish to all of you reading this that one day you make it happen! And if so, please let me know, I can give you some really good tips!

That was a nice trip guys! 

Hasta luego amigos!

Nektarios~