On Friday I moved to La Paz with short stopover in Copacabana for lunch. The ride was fast on Peruvian side, but incredible dusty roads from time to time on main connection between the countries and ferry was quite savage too. Buses going on a ferry over the wooden lodges. It looked like from one of the Top Gear series. Most of the people left the bus to go by small boat. I somehow wanted to experience this and stayed with bus driver on a ferry :-) The Bolivian side looks really more poorer. As I was approaching La Paz I started to see more villages and suburb of La Paz. The blocks looked like ranches from western. Very enclosed with brick walls. You could distinguish them only by colorful entry gate.
I met Jana on bus Terminal again as she went by other bus. The good one was sold out and I went by some local one. I bet it was very old one, really smoky and VW would be superstar here. :-) We took the hostel close to terminal which was actually very good micro brewery with very good kitchen and friendly staff. Parties were organized every night with some free drinks. The first night was Mexican theme and chicks there had very nice moves, but I escaped as I was tired from previous party in Puno already.
Next day we went for biking tour on a famous Bolivian Death Road which is 60km downhill with descent of 3400m. I got a fancy downhill bike and overall with a lot of armor. And I know why. The cliffs were huge. But I'm not certain if the armor would save me there. Few cyclists fall here every year. We found quite a good party on the trip. But unfortunatelly most of the people were tourists, not a bikers. First 15km or so were on the road with a start in 4600m and that was quite nice warm up to get familiar with the bike. It was fucking cold anyway. But then the fun began. Unfortunatelly from biker point of view it was hard to find a limit on the road. The road was very stony and the bike was very easy to skid in the corners even with 2.5 wide tyre. But there were some nice bumpy technical parts or passages like going under small waterfall. And especially the views were amazing. There were few guys I joined for faster rides and we waited like every 20mins or so for others. I let the service team exchange my rear brake in the middle as it got worn out very fast. I nearly felt twice and once I was lucky to handle that close to the cliff. Two other guys felt and one of them got to the hospital with broken nose and finger and based on last information I got he will have to go for operation in Germany immediately. One other guy from different group fell even more terribly and broke his leg. I would assume they didn't knew how to fell or had very bad luck. There were more felts without injuries though. We finished by the hotel for excellent lunch and pool with the beers. It was well organized at the price of 90 usd (2100 czk) including 15 usd (400 czk) extra for better bike (160 suspension and better components).
There was a karaoke party in the evening. I went just for couple of beers as I was tired from drinking during the day. But ended up with Chilean girl Francisca till the morning with couple more beers and caipirinhas. Beers in general are not cheap at 20 bol (3 usd, 70 czk) per pint but caipirinhas were cheap at 30 bol (4 usd, 100 czk) for two drinks.
On Sunday after recovering I did a small trip to Valle de la Luna on the edge of city where are nice views over erosion reduced clays. Later I took one of the cable cars to go to the top of the city. Those cable cars actually function as public transportation for 3 bol (0.5 usd, 10 czk) a ride. There are 3 lines and more are under construction. There was nice view over the huge city positioned in the huge hole. There was also carnival in the city for our luck and the costumes were just perfect.
I the evening I took 40 min flight to Uyuni (160 usd, 3800 czk one way) to skip the night 11 hours bus ride on bumpy Bolivian roads. There won't be much seen anyway during the night. I will do 3 days tour around famous Bolivia salt lakes in Uyuni.
See you
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