Curried Haggis in the Andes: Copa to La Paz

Heading out of Copacabana heading for La Paz, we climbed an unbelievably smooth tarmac road ascending into the freezing air of the low lying clouds. When not in a cloud, the road offered great views over both the upper and lower lakes of Titikaka, and we commented it would be ideal for road cycling (turns out this leg is used for the Tour of Bolivia race each November!). The only downside of the road were the piles of squashed, used nappies strewn across the road at frequent intervals - we took care not to slip on these rather unpleasant obstacles! A 20km, chilly decent in the rain followed the climb and brought us to the Tiquina Strait, which separates the Copacobana Peninsula from mainland Bolivia. Sunny and Toby had a near miss with a dog going at 60km/hr downhill!

In the lakeside town of Tiquina, we found a large number of flat bottomed barges powered by comically small outboard motors which were used to ferry cars and buses across the 1km stretch to the mainland. We boarded a barge and our very own "captain" (see previous blog post) assured us that this vessel was seaworthy as it appeared to be fully watertight (although due to the lack of a pointed beak and fiberglass wings, his title may not have been valid). The ride across was enjoyable, and we shared the boat with a bus plastered in massive letters with the words "Diplomatic Scorpion". Due to our lack of Spanish, the drivers motive behind this message is still unknown.

As we reached the mainland, the clouds cleared, and we were treated to wonderfully clear views of the snow capped Potosí mountain range, about 100km away. We carried on riding along the quiet, lakeside road, and happened to meet two cycle tourists heading in the opposite direction. The first was a Dutch man, with a top of the range bike and matching, color coordinated panniers. A few km behind him was a bearded Argentinian with what looked to be a pile of junk on the back of his rickety bike. We had a chat with both of them.

Along this leg, Trek suffered a minor mechanical failure in the form of a snapped front gear cable. This was fixed at a speed which would make an F1 team jealous, and the incident warrants no further mention.

Having cycled to within 80km of La Paz, the road became very busy so we decided to catch a ride the remainder of the distance into the city. After much unsuccessful flagging of combies (taxi mini-vans) we met a friendly family who were on their way back from a day trip, and they offered us a ride in their van. This turned out to be a hilarious journey, with many stops along the way for group photos/landmark pointing out/picking up bits of the van which had fallen off! We arrived on the edge of La Paz at dusk, just in time to take photos over the city which is impressively built into and up the sides of a basin surrounded by snow caped mountains.

We have spent the last two night in the comfortable Cruz de los Andes hostel, and (for a change) have been making the most of the luxuries a large city has to offer. On our first night we enjoyed a interesting mix of Japanese, Thai and Indian food, as Miso soup was unexpectedly served with our Chicken Tika Masala! While trying to buy beer in the supermarket yesterday I was refused, as it turns out you need to bring back an empty bottle before you can buy a new one! I asked at our hostel reception how you can start buying beer in the first place, and was told "a long time ago!".

Later today we will be setting out to ride through a section of the Yungas, the mountain range in which the Altiplano drops off into the rainforest! We are all excited for this leg, which will bring us down to what feels like a ridiculously low altitude (1000m), which is the lowest we will have been since leaving Lima. We will then climb back up onto the Altiplano (Toby can not wait for this section) and carry on directly to Sabaya, where we will commence the final leg of our journey, crossing the Salar de Uyuni by bike!

Finally, after much scratching of beards and worry over lasting tan lines, Sunny and I borrowed Toby{s razor and have joined that elite club of mustache bearing adventurers. Sunny has a very dirty looking, drooping handle bar, which looks like it is straight out of a joke shop (it took all morning before Toby and I could look at him without bursting out laughing) while after a schoolboy error on the sideburns, I have done for for a simple, clean copstash. What effect (if any) our three upper lips will have on the people we meet remains to be seen!