Blogs from Yungas Road, La Paz Department, Bolivia, South America - page 7

Welcome back again bloggers, the last week or so has been fairly action packed so i have chosen a few highlights to keep this blog of mine ticking over. Having left Cusco, Peru and headed to Lake Titicaca on the Bolivian border a day after the rest of the lads but accompanied by Sarat, Laura and Ciara.....we were left fairly underwhelmed by the place. Sure, its beautiful and the Cathedral there is awesome for a small town, but other than that and possibly the worst meal i have ever paid for there was little else to see or do. That in mind, we headed back to La Paz, Bolivia in order to find some semi decent nightlife and to arrange some more adventure. So, we leave Copacabana on Lake Titicaca we hop on a bus ... read more

Monday 19th March 2007 La Cambre to Coroico by the “Most Dangerous road in the World” on a mountain Bike The road from La Paz to CoroicoThe road was first built by the Americans and finished in 1931/32 it had taken 7 years in the incredible hostile environment and dangerous mountainside It s the only link to Coroico and from then 7000 people have fallen off the road and been killed hence “The Most Dangerous road in the World” It was an early start, had to be at the place by 7-45am, lots of milling around, there were 33 people on today’s run. Each was fitted out with over trousers, florescent jacket, gloves and a full crash helmet. As we were starting at 4600 metres it wasadvised beforehand to bring a warm jacket and waterproof, ... read more

Our journey to La Paz was filled with excitement as we were finally stuck in the middle of a strike. We had been promised that Bolivia might be a bit difficult to travel in but as of yet our trusty guide hadn´t delivered. We took a night train from Uyuni leaving at 11 pm. We had to spend a bit of time in the train station and I nearly packed a little mangy looking dog into my backpack, it was a real scrappy looking thing with dreadlocks and just looked little and scared. Anyway after a long night train we arrived at another town to get a bus but there were only people calling CochabambAAAAAAA not La Paz so we were a little concerned. We found out there was a strike and we wouldn´t be ... read more

After our incredible mining tour I didn´t think that Bolivia could get any better. Ahh, once again I´ve managed to prove myself wrong! We did an overnight bus from Potosi to La Paz (conveninently saving having to pay for a night in a hostel) and arrived just in time to watch the sun rise over the city. La Paz is amazing - the highest capital city in the world located at over 3600m above sea level, it sure makes it hard to climb around the valley´s walls. The whole city is located in a bowl - with the central street running down the middle and the barrios extending all the way up and over all sides of the hills. The rising sun danced from one redbrick/mud house to the next until the whole city of over ... read more

So the title pretty much says it all. Not sure if you´ve heard of death road before but it is, literally, death road. We got up fairly early in the am and took the bus for about an hour into the hills, and we were greated with a spectacular day. The tour set me back $40u.s. but was well worth it. The company supplied bikes, helmats, pants, coat, lunch, transportation and first-aid. The beginning was a little chilly but I adjusted quickly and it wasn´t long before I was sweating up the hills. We started at La Cumbre and the first 10kms was on pavement and mostly down hill it took us just about an hour to get to the start of the trail. Trail isn´t really the right word for it. It used to be ... read more