It took quite some time to come down to earth from the high of climbing Huayna Potosí, and almost no time to decide that the sapphire waters of Lake Titicaca were a more appealing place to spend our last days in South America than the grey streets of La Paz. Copacabana, on the southern shore of the lake, is only a few hours' drive north of La Paz, and we set off crammed among the locals in a small van, a common form of public transport in Bolivia. For part of the way the road ran parallel to the Cordillera Real [View Full Entry]

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Climbing Huayna Potosí, one of Bolivia's highest mountains, was to be our last big challenge before heading home to the realities of jobs, mortgages and a privileged western life. At 6,088m (19,974ft) above sea level it breaks the 6,000m point, and is only 26ft short of the magic 20,000ft mark. And why not? We were certainly fit enough and having spent the last 2 months at an average altitude of 4,000m we were definitely acclimatised. This climb is not the sort of thing you can just fly in and do. It was now or never! On the first day of our [View Full Entry]

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Claire started dreaming of Machu Picchu after reading Tintin's adventures about hunting down Inca gold during her primary school years. So being in La Paz, only 12 hours by bus from Cusco, the launching point for visits to Machu Picchu, proved too great a temptation, and abandoned our bikes to head north on a bus. Not that it was that simple. It took three ticket changes to leave La Paz because of a strike (understandable) of drivers of inter-urban and regional micros, buses and trucks. The strike action included blocking the road to Perú; road blocks are a normal event in [View Full Entry]

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Oruru took a bit of getting used to after the freedom and emptiness of the Altiplano roads: the narrow streets choked with vehicles and pedestrians; and footpaths that petered to nothing, or taken up by vendors with a blanket or table spread with goods for sale, forcing pedestrians to walk into the road to pass. Given how atrociously Bolivians drive, this is risky business! Many of the streets don't have names displayed, which makes for a good joke to play on strangers trying to find their way around. It is a mining city, and not a tourist destination, and we appreciated [View Full Entry]

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[url='/Videos/3128.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3128.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'] Drunken Bolivian Party[url='/Videos/3268.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3268.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'] Riding the Salar "You should be carrying a gun..." was the friendly advice of the owner of a restaurant in Oruro where we were treating ourselves to a slap-up meal after spending 8 days cycling through a remote part of Bolivia. A journey involving a salt desert, bad roads, an adopted dog, witchcraft, a drunken party and surviving a violent sandstorm. It all started out in Uyuni, the last large town before we rode into the remote Altiplano. We rushed around the town buying last minute supplies, ending up with: * 10 litres [View Full Entry]

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Crossing into Villazon (Bolivia) from La Quiaca (Argentina) is so laid back that Claire missed it, wheeling her bike past passport control and a man in a green uniform lounging against a lamp post, and into the main trading street of Villazon. Despite the uniformed official's lacked of interest, Claire decided to turn back to indulge in her share of border bureaucracy. Even though words in capital letters at the top of our entry forms were blunt about the need to answer all 22 questions, no-one bothered to check the forms or the information on them against our passports. A [View Full Entry]

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We so liked the laid-back capital of Jujuy province that we stayed for several days. The formal name of the capital is the fantastical San Salvador de Velazco en el Valle de Jujuy, although it is generally referred to — thankfully — as San Salvador or Jujuy. The city has a strong Indian presence, and its colonial architecture gives it a colour and architecture that contrasts markedly with the urban areas of the south. We sauntered around town enjoying the atmosphere, replenished our supplies, enjoying our last Argentinean wine, and wandering up the hill behind town to visit a fascinating small [View Full Entry]

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The first few weeks touring on a bike is hard. Your legs and bum hurt, you're constantly stiff across the shoulders and you're completely stuffed at the end of the day as you set up camp, cook dinner and crawl exhausted into your sleeping bag to enjoy the sleep of the dead. After 8 months of riding smooth paved highways, rutted dirt roads, climbing high mountain passes, hauling bikes and gear around washed out bridges and unridable walking tracks, the benefits are showing. It's like spending 4 hours a day in the gym, 5 days a week (yes, we manage [View Full Entry]

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Our holiday with Erin in Buenos Aires and north-eastern Argentina has been a radical change in mode of travel for us, as we took to buses and did the trad backpacker thing for almost three weeks. Buenos Aires is a crazy city! It is vibrant and lively and full of art museums and movies and other cultural things we've been starved of in remote areas, but also polluted enough to hurt our throats and eyes. We noticed that people had a pressed, tired look that we had become unused to in the west. Erin's first day with us happened to [View Full Entry]

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Leaving the Caraterra Austral was a bit of a big event for us as it had always been a big part of our trip to travel this remote and isolated road. However we still had to ride up a small pass and once again cross the Andes to get into Argentina. Our route from the Caraterra would take us East along a dirt road 77km to the small border town of Futaleufú which is famous for it's world class rafting and kayaking on the Rio Futaleufú. The road itself was very scenic as it twisted and turned around large mountains and [View Full Entry]

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