La Paz (Days 3 - 4)

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Days 60 - 61 Both days are free days. We said goodbye to 9 of our fellow tour group as this was the end of one section and the start of a new section. 3 new travellers joined the tour for the next leg to Santiago, 2 Australians & 1 Scot living in Australia.

Lazy morning & recovery from our big day yesterday. Went out for a nice breakfast instead of the usual hotel continental breakfasts. Being Good Friday most shops & attractions closed so took a tour to the Moon Valley which is close to La Paz. The valley is so named as it is an eerie area where erosion has worn away the majority of a mainly clay based mountain leaving a whole valley of weird spires & shapes that resemble moon craters. Nice enough to see but not to spend too much time.

Next day another lazy morning to repack & to steel ourselves for a long overnight bus trip to Sucre. Got a $7 hair cut & beard trim that looks just fine before a late lunch & shopping for some bus snacks & a final wander around the town.

Our nightmare bus to Sucre started all right leaving on time at 6.30 pm but arrived 2 hrs late at 8.30 am. That was the only thing that was all right. The bus was bad, the seats badder, & the continuous road repairs baddest & that's before considering the bus heating which was stifling. The delay is common as all traffic now go through control points along the way & police check the time elapsed between each check point to ensure drivers are sticking to the speed limit. It's a good thing as just after dawn we saw our only real bad accident since our arrival with a mangled car on the wrong side of the road smashed into the front of a bus only minutes ahead of us. No emergency vehicles passed us from the Sucre direction & our guide said they don't exist & it's just your time to go to god.

The route climbed to 4700 mtrs during the night before descending to 2700 mtrs at Sucre during which time I had some sleep but Ruth had very little.

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