the last of Bolivia

Hi!

I haven't written in a while, and plenty has happened.

We stayed nearly a week in La Paz. For a city of its size, it's a pretty pleasant place, the dazzling blue sky had no trace of smog. Despite the stern admonitions in our Lonely Planet book about it not being very safe, it felt fine to us. We stayed in a hostel about ten blocks out of the core of downtown and the big central market wasn't far and we did a lot of walking. 

La Paz is really striking because it's in a deep basin of valley.  During the day the red brick buildings climb steep cobblestone streets with towering cliffs above. At night those same buildings are transformed into a glittering amphitheatre of lights.  It's really pretty, and although we never got a perfect unobstructed view, magnificent Mount Illimani presides over the city at the end of the valley in her snowcapped glory. Even in the distance, at 6438m, she towers over the city.

On one Saturday afternoon we walked clear to the other side of the city, through the loud bustle of the downtown and out the other side. On a quiet leafy street in the university neighbourhood we discovered by chance a little nook of a Korean restaurant. It was a bit of a splurge but it presented a nice change of culinary pace as the food in Bolivia isn't particularly memorable and is very repetitive, so we ate lunch.  The food was spot on! Stuffed full of rice and kimchi we kept walking and found an incredible expanse of park.  We sat at the top of a hill and had a clear view of no less than 6 soccer fields (smaller than a standard field size) and we watched a men's recreational league playing their games. They were amazing! Unsurprisingly, in a country that takes the game very seriously the calibre of the recreational athletes is impressive.  Our walk continued through a huge arts complex with galleries and exhibition halls and we were transfixed by an amazing mural of the history of Bolivia. A memorable day.

The tough thing about La Paz was the altitude...we were both taken aback by how winded we were. Our hostel dorm was up four flights of stairs and we would always huff and puff.  Headaches and general fatigue persisted for days and I eventually went to the pharmacy to obtain some altitude sickness pills. An instant transformation - the relief of being able to breathe normally.

Feeling healthy again, we were ready to tackle the World's Most Dangerous Road. Sound scary? It certainly was. Being a single lane highway that crawls along the wall of a deep valley with sheer drops of up to 600m, it was coined that gruesome name because of the terrible traffic accidents that occurred.  There are pullouts every few hundred metres or so, but the hairpin turns were lethal, on average 300 deaths a year.  There is now a new, safer road, and the while the old road is still in use by the people who live in the villages along it, it's mostly used for cycle tourism now.  This bike trip starts up in the mountains in chilly winter conditions and ends 64km later, after descending 3600m to the warm and humid valley floor. As an avid cyclist riding this road had been on Nate's priority list since we started planning our trip many months ago.  We had a plethora of cycle touring companies to choose from and they are mostly using old substandard bikes and underqualified guides - we had budgeted for the best.  Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking was amazing - we were riding on Kona full suspension mountain bikes that are maintained daily and our guides were excellent, it's apparent why they have an unblemished safety record.  They were the company that started the bike tours on this road and the rest of the companies came after.  I was nervous - obviously I can ride a bike but I don't very often and this road is really technical.  The first 20km is on paved highway but the official "old road" is 44km of rough downhill gravel and no protection from going over the edge.We spent the first hour on safety and technique and I felt fine and ready when we started.  The views changed throughout the day, from towering snowcapped peaks, all the way down to the lush valley floor. I'm so glad I decided to do it, initially I was sitting on the fence but several girls I've met along the trip who shared my trepidation loved it and were really reassuring.  It was an incredible day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yungas_Road

Our La Paz hostel dorm room turned into a little enclave of Canadian awesomeness. We met a really nice group of people. Emily Tufts and Ben Gamble of New Brunswick were great, and loved our photos and stories of Parque Machia so much they made the decision to change their flights, extend their trip and they arrive tomorrow at the park to volunteer with the animals for a month.  Carly Rudolph's dear friend Blair from Vancouver was a total surprise of small world coincidence...it was upon discussing Lake O'hara that we realized we shared a common friend.
edited to add: received news from Emily and Ben, Emily has been placed with Gato and Ben will be walking Balu, the Andean bear! They're very excited.
We made the decision to ship our camping gear home and the boxes were pricy, but it was a relief to lighten the load of our heavy packs as we won't be using that stuff anymore. 

From La Paz we took a series of buses to take us to Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titikaka. A humble little fishing town of kind and welcoming people, we made it a short pit stop on the way to Peru because we wanted to get a good look at this massive lake.  It was picturesque and relaxing and you could get an amazing meal, a pan fried whole trout with rice, salad and potatoes for just under $3.  This was without question the tastiest trout we'd ever eaten.

The Bolivia-Peru border was the most relaxed border crossing yet...there was barely a fence. I have never seen a border with so little formality.

And to Cuzco we went, the famous headquarters of the Inca.