La Paz - hikes and bikes on deadly roads

We arrived in La Paz at about 5:30am. With the help of the lonely planet’s write up and going on other people’s off the cuff comments, we had managed to form quite a bad opinion of the place before even arriving and were viewing it purely as a stop gap to better, safer destinations. The station consisted of a roadside on a dark street and with no pre booked hostel we headed down the street trying to seem confident and assertive whilst making our way to an area about 15 minutes’ walk away where we knew a number of hostels were located. With absolutely all our belongings with us at this point, we hoped and prayed for no confrontations! 

The route to the hostel area followed a main road. At the roadside there were already many little Bolivian ladies starting to organise their stalls for the day, so it all felt fairly safe and easy going. We located a hostel, asked for a double room and luckily for us we could check in straightaway, so by 6:30am we already had a bed!

Before anything else, we investigated online our options in the area. In summary, the hikes we’d have loved to do were mostly closed due to it being the rainy season, as we had anticipated. The one hike we thought would be a potential, turned out to actually be for novice climbers, so wasn’t really an option for us and any previous thoughts of going anywhere near the jungle were soon dismissed after reading about the amount of mosquitoes and bugs you are likely to encounter at this time of year in particular. With common stories of people suffering over 200 bites on their legs alone, I feared, due to my frequent sufferings even in areas where apparently there are no bugs, I would probably be eaten alive and never return. So we knocked that idea on the head too!

Still in the confines of the hostel and listening to the constant sounds of what appeared to be gun shots outside, we decided to book a ticket to Bogata for as soon as we could, which was 3 days’ time.

However, on leaving the hostel we were pleasantly surprised. The streets and alleyways were lined with the most colourful shops and open air market stalls. Everything from packets of nuts through to alpaca shawls were on display. All the women were sat on little stools or the ground next to their goods, some shouting what they had to offer, others just dozing. An old Bolivian man came up to us mumbling ‘fossils, fossils’ trying to entice us to buy one of the 2 rocks he was holding in his hand. We wandered down the road in the direction of the tourist info and the colour continued wherever we went. A man was selling shoelaces and was wandering up the street with at least 5000 different coloured laces attached to him. There were shoe cleaners and people pushing around trolleys of empanadas and other baked goods and the smells were great. 

The urban chaos of La Paz

These amazing vehicles are used as the locl buses

The famous flower market

The colourful women seemed to merge into their stalls. They had obviously leant to exist in the tiniest of spaces and were happy to sit there all day, only ever moving the top halves of their bodies and all of them wearing the distinctive little bowler hats on top of their heads. Most had at least one gold tooth too which was visible due to their big friendly smiles. They were extremely gracious when you bought anything, even a 10p bag of dried broad beans. The poverty were clearly notable but still they all seemed like really amazing, hard-working and friendly people. We found somewhere to eat and orientated ourselves across the day, finding a few nice places to have a beer later into the evening. 

Much to our surprise, we were both really struggling with the altitude and found it really tough just walking up an incline. So to put ourselves to the test, the following day we decided to do a hike just out of town up to a rock formation called Muela del Diablo – Molar of the Devil. It was hard going but it took us through a beautiful little village up in the hills to the south of the City and we made friends with a donkey along the way and at the top. All the locals were really friendly with acknowledgements and smiles. It was also a fantastic vantage point for watching the storms organise over the nearby mountain range of the Cordillera Real and sweep through La Paz, luckily missing us! It was clear to see why most mountain hiking was not recommended at this time of the year!

Looking over La Paz from the hills in the south

Donkey friend number 1

All the local kids were really friendly

Muela del Diablo - Molar of the devil which we could hike up to

Donkey friend number 2

The backside of Valle de los Animas - valley of the spirits with weird organ shaped spires

As a reward for our day’s effort we returned to one of the previous night’s bars and treated ourselves to a big dinner. I tried lama steak which was really succulent, but I can conclude I still prefer chicken! This particular bar also offered bike tours down Death Road – the famous road in La Paz which is apparently the deadliest road in the world due to the number of lives it takes with people driving off its narrow cliff edge corners. This we thought would be a great thing to do on our last day. We had heard many other people rave about what a great day it was and so we booked ourselves in for the 6:30am start the next morning, for a whole day of fast downhill cycling along bad conditioned roads with sheer drops!

Toasting our decision to do Death Road on bikes

Lunar tours were fantastic and we had such an awesome day. Often these tours can have up to 16 people in a group, but when we turned up in the morning we found out it was only going to be the 2 of us and the guide. For me, I wasn’t so sure if this was a great thing because I had been planning on staying at the back and merging in with all the other slow people. However, the lack of people meant I was always going to be near the front! I was a bit scared. Particularly in the van driving up through the misty cloud forests of the yunga region of Bolivia. However, as mentioned, the guide was amazing and the views were magical and dreamlike and my nerves were soon calmed, especially after being kitted out with an awesome bike with hydraulic brakes, super suspension and enough protective gear that I probably wouldn’t have even noticed falling off. Now, all I had to do was stay on the road! The guide also took photos and videos throughout the day, so we have some really great moments captured.

The morning of the ride

Let the race begin

Part of Death Road

Another scary part of Death Road - in fact it was all scary!

Trying not to slip off the sheer drop

Statutory dangly leg shot. Then I nearly fell over getting up. Oops.

After 63km of downhill we arrived in a village where we could buy a beer.

Beer time with our guide Omar

We then stopped at a hostel with a pool for some lunch and finally made our way back to La Paz, via bloody death road again! 

Much more relaxed times!

They did give us the option of taking the newer asphalt road back but when you’re here, you can’t say no. I would look like a chicken. So back we went and again we survived. My nerves were pretty wrecked though. Luckily I didn’t hear their concerns about the approaching storm that would make the driving conditions particularly challenging. Tim only told me that bit over a beer later that evening!

We then had a further challenge. Arriving back in La Paz at about 6pm, we had to stay awake until 11:30pm when a taxi was due to pick us up and take us to the airport for our 4:25am flight to Bogata. 

We managed it and at 4:00am wearily made our way onto a plane to take us to Columbia. Bolivia had been a short but sweet experience. Uyuni had provided some spectacular natural wonders of nature and La Paz had been a colourful and friendly city, way-exceeding any pre-defined expectations. There is no doubt we will return one day in the dryer season to explore everything else it has to offer. But for now the focus shifts to Columbia with an arrival time of 7:30am on only 2 hours sleep across the last 27 hours. Here goes!

Back on our own, then into Bolivia

After a teary goodbye to Mark and Hols, we left for hostel number 2 in San Pedro. After comments such as ‘well, yeah, sometimes we like to walk around naked’ from the owners of our current hospedaje, we felt it was time to leave. It seemed the more comfortable they became in our company, the less comfortable we became in theirs! Unfortunately our new hostel ‘Backpackers San Pedro’ had all the hallmarks of a good hostel but absolutely no character, but it provided us with somewhere to chill and have a beer and make some plans. We decided the most economical and fun plan would be to take the 3 day tour to Bolivia to visit the salt flats in Uyuni, then get a bus to La Paz where we could perhaps spend a few days and then fly into Columbia and jump the ITCZ (the intercontinental convergence zone – a belt of rain that shifts hemispheres with the seasons). Unfortunately this would mean skipping Peru and a lot of Bolivia, but due to them currently experiencing their rainy season many of the roads and hikes would not be open anyway. We will have to leave that for another time! 

We booked the start of the Uyuni tour for in 2 days’ time and arranged mountain bike hire for the following day. With plans now made, we headed off to a party we’d been invited to by our guide William for his birthday. The party started at his hostel and ended up somewhere in some sand dunes with people drinking and dancing around a fire. A common late night occurrence in this town it seemed. Needless to say, we woke up feeling rubbish and were late taking the bikes out. In fact we only made it a distance of about 50m before we decided to stop for a coffee. Due to the coffee shop not having a toilet, we then opted to move on a bit to the bar at the end of the street that did have a toilet where we then had pizza and a beer! 

The helmet made it as far as the pub

Now feeling much more ready to take on the world, we headed into the desert to Death Valley where we cycled around, unsuccessfully tried to climb a huge sand dune and clambered around amazing desert landscapes. We felt completely in the middle of nowhere – it was very surreal. We successfully managed to keep the rest of the day beer free and made sure we ate well and drank lots of water for the following day’s big journey into the even higher altitude plains of Bolivia.

Cycling through Death Valey, San Pedro, Chile, fealing pretty deathy

Swealtering in the desert

Taking an easier route up the sand dune

Things didn’t go to plan though and we didn’t go to Uyuni because I woke up unable to breathe. Whether it was a bug, or repercussions of the previous day’s party (probably the latter), having my sinuses flair up was not conducive to being able to cope at altitudes of over 4000m. I was so ill that morning that I even managed to acquire the sympathy of one of the hostel’s cats who curled up with me in my bed. He stayed with me all morning, although thinking back, he may have actually been stuck to the bed with the amount my nose had been running. Tim was amazingly sympathetic too and we cancelled the tour. We lost the bloody money though. 

Instead we found a hostel, hostel number 3, in the middle of nowhere where we would not be bothered and I could recover from my current snot monster status for a few days. After 2 days of no beer, healthy food, coca tea, stolen dry snacks from the communal kitchen, some downloaded films to watch and 4 loo rolls, I was starting to feel better.

View outside our hideout in Coyo, San Pedro, Chile

View inside our hideout in Coyo

So we headed back to civilisation and to San Pedro hostel number 4! Although run by an amazingly sweet lady, unfortunately this hostel was up there with the worst in terms of facilities, so we kept our stay there brief. Just long enough to find a place to rebook our Uyuni trip and find another hostel for the following day! 

If all went according to plan, we would only be in San Pedro one more night. But could we find our pre booked 5th hostel? Absolutely not. After google maps first placed it at one end of town, then the other, then in the middle of a football field, Tim eventually despaired and it was only by luck and some help from the locals that we managed to locate it. The frustration however was lessened by the most amazing atmospheric optics in the sky that morning. There was a rainbow halo around the sun and this colour was also apparent in some of the clouds that had gathered above my new favourite volcano – Licancabur. Absolutely stunning and the whole town was out taking photos. 

Spectacular halo

Rainbow clouds above Licancabur, San Pedro

We made use of the rest of the day by hiring bikes for the afternoon and this time cycling further afield to Valley of the Moon where the scenery is breath taking, there are caves to explore and amazing craggy escarpments to climb. 

On the way to Moon Valley, San Pedro still

Exploring the caves around Moon Valley

Crazy rock formations in Moon Valley

Needing a few dextro energy sweets to get ready for the uphill back - thanks Dad!

My favourite rocky bit

Windswept in the desert

Views across the desert valley

We had to have the bikes back before dark, so unfortunately were unable to stay for sunset, but it did mean we were able to make it back for happy hour at our local for our last San Pedro pint, before heading off to sample a bit of Bolivia.

Back for happy hour in San Pedro

Luckily our hostel served breakfast early, so we got a good feed in before our bus to Bolivia picked us up. There were only 4 other young guys in the minivan already and as it turned out, this was the grand total of our tour. They were from Brazil and were studying environmental engineering. They were all really great guys and with one, Lucas, speaking fluent English, it helped with communications, especially as he was able to translate for us what the solely Spanish speaking guide, Ernesto was saying at times. They also had music which they plugged into the car stereo, so we cruised around Uyuni to the sounds of Led Zep and Pearl Jam, mixed with various Brazilian songs and some other eclectic tunes. It was great.

Some companies offering this tour have a really bad reputation for the Bolivian guides drinking on the tours, driving too fast and generally acting like prats. However, our guide, Ernesto seemed really calm and genuine. It was also his first time doing this, so he latched onto the jeep of another reputable company to be shown the way and took his time with us.

Getting the jeeps ready at the Bolivian border crossing

On the first day, we visited a couple of altiplanic lagoons. The colours looked unreal, and it looked like a painting, especially against such pastel mountainous backdrops.

Lago Verde (i.e. green), Bolivia

I love the fluffy clouds

We then visited another thermal baths and geyser field. This time however, I wasn’t lucky enough to find my fortune in the water. It was beautiful though – just like stepping into a hot bath.

A really stinky geyser

Everything appeared in greyscale - eerie

But wth the stinky geysers, come the hot pools! And at that altitude (4850m) a dizzying experience!

We arrived earlier than we thought at the simple lodgings of our accommodation for the night, located out in the desert and within the confines of a tiny village and run by Bolivians. We were fed a bit of lunch, snoozed a beautiful snooze, had some tea, went for a walk into the desert with Lucas for sunset, came back, had dinner and played cards with a few of the other guests before hitting the hay. I stupidly didn’t adhere to the tour operator’s suggestion of using my own sleeping bag, because I thought the mountain of duvets would keep me warm. It was only when I woke and counted 25 bites or so on my legs, arms and even neck that I realised the suggestion may have been made for other reasons. Oh well, I guess you live and learn!

Simple but comfortable and unfortunarely bed bug ridden lodgings of the first night

Bolivian baby in a bath!

A friend I made the next morning

We were so close, I let him borrow my hat

The following day we visited Lago Rojo. Parts of this lagoon are red due to the crustaceans that live in the waters. This also attracts a number of flamingos that half the people we meet say, are pink because of this eating habit. We are yet to be convinced however. We then visited 3 more lagoons, and a whole bunch of rocks in the desert - one of which looked like a tree. We saw more flamingos and luckily when we were starting to get a bit lagooned out – stopped at a place where the rocks looked like mushrooms and I found a mouse. 

Lago Rojo

Arbol de Piedra (tree of stone)

Another lagoon

The lagoon we lunched next too

Mushroom rock

A mouse under a mushroom rock

Also, excitedly for us at this point, storm clouds were starting to build in the distance. Sadly however, one of the other guides had spotted a baby ostrich I think, or it could have been a duck at the side of the road and he chased it down and put it in a box as apparently he raises them for food, so has a keen eye for such opportunities. Luckily the storms distracted me from the painful cryings of the small chick in the box which they placed in the boot of the jeep just behind me. It couldn’t go in the other guide’s jeep because he had, coincidently, a car full of vegetarians so didn’t think it appropriate. Poor chick. It even subdued the feelings of excitement of seeing a landspout just ahead of us. I thought about helping the chick escape but we were far from where he had been caught and I know he wouldn’t have survived without his mum. The other Bolivian chap would have probably slapped me up a bit too. He looked like he could turn a bit nasty and had too many gold teeth. Poor chick.

Storms approaching, woo hoo!

We even saw a pretty decent landspout

Into the evening, the storms only grew more amazing and before we knew it we were storm chasing, South America style!

This storm was reflected in the water of the salt flats

Storm chasing Soth America stylee with the gang

We arrived at Uyuni that evening where we ate out as a group, courtesy of the tour company and excitingly for us there was a powercut because of the thundering storms above us and we had to eat by candle light! We were so happy! Food-wise, the choices were chicken and pasta or chicken and rice. So after dividing out our dinner, Tim had some pasta and bit of rice and I had double chicken!

Compared to the previous night, the hostel was a touch more modern and luckily I suffered no extra bites that night. It was an early start to get to the Salt Flats for sunrise and we left at about 5:30am. The scene was spectacular. Due to it being wet season out in Bolivia, the majority of the salt flats are covered by a thin film of water, mirroring the sky and causing the horizon to become almost lost due to the reflection. As the sun rose, the scene became even more beautiful. It was shallow enough to walk on, do an uncomfortable headstand on and I ran out 2 batteries taking photos. Bolivia is hosting Dakar this year so there is a huge Dakar statue made of salt in the middle of the flats which also made a beautiful subject.

Uyuni salt flats for sunrise

This really was for real - never seen a sight like it!

Searching for a horizon

Sunrise

This one's for my yoga buds!

The 2014 Dakar salt statue

Tim eating our tour mates

Some late morning reflections

Later in the afternoon, after a yummy lunch prepared by Ernesto’s wife, we all went our separate ways. It had been a wonderful tour in really good company with absolutely stunning sights. Later that evening me and Tim headed north to La Paz where we were going to spend a few days, maybe do a few of the hikes around the area if the rain wasn’t too bad and by this time we were even contemplating a small trip up into the jungle further north, but we needed to do a bit more research. 

With it being wet season the unmade road to La Paz can be particularly precarious so we opted for the more reputable and less risky travel option of a slightly more modern tour company to get us there. The bus left at 6pm giving us time to have a few beers and coca teas in Uyuni to help us along the way.