Titticaca, Copacabana, La Paz

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School´s Out!

Well we finished school on August 3rd. We had a final dinner as a class out at one of the nicer restaurants in Cuzco. Some very interesting meats were served (kidney, heart, etc.) but very good none the less. After a late night of drinking and saying our goodbyes seven of us set off for a 22 hr bus ride to La Paz, Bolivia. Along with an absolutely insane border crossing, a flat tire on the bus and chasing down buses in a city without a bus station, we made it to the capital of Bolivia where we stayed for 3 nights. Included in our stay was our third independence day in just over a month (USA, Peru and Bolivia). Honestly it ended up causing us more problems than anything, but that´s life in South America.
Our first day in the city we mostly just spent exploring. La Paz is the highest capital in the world and absolutely breathtaking in more ways than one. We found the prices of everything to be even cheaper than Peru, which was great.
Our second day was spent mountain biking the World´s Deadliest Road. Kind of a cliche name, but the entrance sign to the road definitely made the name much more resounding. We were welcomed with a flip score counting the deaths for this year alone. The number stood at 43 but didn´t include the 18 that died the day before. Comforting ha. It's mostly vans and buses and not mountain bikers.
The ride began on tarmac at 15,000´ then turned into the old Death Road, which is dirt, only 9´feet wide, and an 1,800´sheer drop off the side. It ended in the jungle 40 miles later. After riding for three hours we descended an absolutely mind boggling 10,000´.
Ironically though, the most scared we were was on the ride back in a little minivan with like 5 feet of visibility (up the death road) in the fog.
We're heading north up the west coast of Peru now for some sand boarding and chillin next to an oasis, cheers.

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Photos

Bye bye Peru...
Border crossing.

Copacabana
Resort town on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Celebrating Independence Day.

Lake Titicaca
In all it´s glory.

Montañes
The lake with the towering mountains in the background.

Ferry ride
Bus catchin´the ferry for the ride across the lake.

Sunset over the altiplano
One of my favorite pics of the entire trip.
Copyright Galen Bradford.

La Paz, Bolivia
21,000´ Mt. Illimani in the background.

Mourning
Locals mourning the death of the 18 people that had died the day before.

Narcotics Checkpoint
Funded by the USA. Made a deal to fund 70% of the road construction in exchange for the rights to have a drug checkpoint.

Comments

[Brady]

more info
I need more info on Death Road....much more...