Blogs from La Paz, La Paz Department, Bolivia, South America - page 5

After Cusco we headed to Peru´s second city Arequipa, which feels much more Peruvian than Lima with colonial architecture in the centre of the city. Following our theme for big cities we didn´t see much in the way of sights as such but spent a pleasent couple of days pottering around the city, walking up through an older neighbourhood for a view of the city with snowcapped volcanos in the background and enjoying the in house roasted coffee that Chris had tracked down in his endless quest to find good coffee in South America. Then we headed to the regions big hitting sight, the colca canyon, which is twice as deep as the grand canyon. We decided to skip the guided tours, so took ourselves off on the local bus 6 hours to the village of ... read more

La Paz, ça aura été notre base arrière pendant un bon mois, grâce à l’accueil chaleureux d’Alizée et de tout ses collocs d’Achumani, Cosi quartier du sud, où l’on oubliera pas de pousser les décibels jusqu’aux petites heures du matin. Tout d'abord il fallait y arriver... Premier bus de nuit en Bolivie pour nous, depuis Sucre. La gare routière est un vrai folklore, ou les "Voceadores" crient jusqu'à deux rue a coté les prochaines destinations. Ca semble fait, on embarque dans la compagnie qui nous semble la plus fiable (ou la moins douteuse...). Le bus est plein, on embarque également deux cercueil (ici c'est précaire et les bus servent parfois de corbillard, "Bolivian solution"). On pense que c'est bon, mais le bus a l'air d'avoir du mal, il s'arrête toute les deux heures jusqu'à lâcher au ... read more

On the 20 hour trek to Bolivia I met two girls. Before I get into that, why was the trek 20 hours? Well, after the eight hour bus ride to what I thought was to Copacabana, it actually was to Puno, the other side of Lake Titicaca -- the Peru side. I scrambled, half awake, to find out my next move. I was in a bus station full of non-english speakers. Body language goes a long way, I find. After an hour and a half layover, I finally was on the bus — rather van— to Copacabana. That’s where I met the two girls. Ferdanine (Fer) was from Mexico, she has long wavy brown hair and black eyes. She is just 19. Mikaela is from Sweeden, quite the opposite look: dirty blonde with blue eyes. They ... read more

Give yourselves a well-deserved pat on the back, folks, for enduring our incoherent ramblings that could lately best be characterized as a how-not-to-do-it guide for bike touring in South America. As a reward for your perseverance in following us on our circuitous, often directionless route (literally) that one fellow long-haul cyclist kindly described as "complicated", this will be our last journal entry that you'll have to suffer through. After having completed a 4,100 mile (6,600 km) bike trek that included over 200,000 vertical feet of total ascent, the loss of every ounce of body fat that either of us had (and one trip to a hospital in Salta that looked like a stage scene from 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'), we've decided to end our ride in Bolivia and carry on our travels in South ... read more

Na Hánisovu radu jsem jsem se rozhodl sjet si na kole takzvanou Death Road, Cestu smrti. Sešli jsme se v půl osmé ráno 10 chlapů a 4 holky. Já jsem byl asi nejstarší. Náš průvodce byl asi 25letý Američan. Moc milý kluk a očividně blázen do sjezdů na kole. Vykládal něco o sportu zvaný “heliskiing“, kde lidi se nechají vynést vrtulníkem na vysokou horu, kam by se jinak nedostali, a pak ji sjíždí na lyžích. On tvrdil, že je jedním ze zakladatelů sportu „helibiking“, kde lidi dělají to samé, jen na kolech. Prostě magor bez pudu sebezáchovy. Silnice smrti začíná asi ve 1200 metrech nad mořem a v nejvyšším místě kousek před La Pazem překonává sedlo ve výšce asi 4600 metrů nad mořem. Vybudovali ji zajatci z krvavé války mezi Bolívii a Uruguají, bylo jich asi ... read more