Adventures Around La Paz

As planned we had one night in La Paz before catching a local mini van to Sorata. The hostal in La Paz was great as we could leave our bikes and unwanted bags there free of charge. We had heard really good things about the mountain biking in Sorata so we were both keen to get there. After a 3 hour drive with a very long and windy final descent into Sorata we immediately bumped into our German friends who had arrived a day before. They recommended a great hostal that had no vacancies the night before for them but fortunately for us we were able to secure a room for the next few days.

Views of Sorata from hostal roof


We had a day exploring the town, the landscape was totally different from the last few weeks, warmer and greener, as we were now 1500m lower than the altiplano region. On a clear day the town has great views of two nearby +6300m peaks. We also managed to book a ride with a local mountain bike company for the next day.

The mountain biking in Sorata definitely lived up to its reputation. We did two incredible runs in the surrounding hills, the majority of which was on hand built single track trails with some scree slopes and old farms tracks thrown in the mix. Both runs had approximately 2000 vertical meters of descent each. The full suspension downhill bikes were a nice change from our touring machines although all four people in our group managed to loose control of them at least once!

Unloading bikes at 4700m

Leanne at the start of the descent

Top of 2nd run

Scree slope

Leanne on the scree



Ben hoping this is covered by travel insurance

After a couple days recovering from the downhill expedition it was time to get back to La Paz. We had a couple of kiwi mates returning from the jungle so we caught up with them over some of the hostal’s brilliant home brew. A very last minute decision was also made that night to tag along with the German girls on a three day trek starting the next day.

Slightly worse for wear we meet up with the Germans the next morning and headed off to do the Takesi trail. Our attempts at finding a local bus to the start of the trial failed but we found a taxi driver willing to make the 1.5hr trip out of La Paz for a good price, his poor station wagon bottomed out a number of times on the very rough road but he did not seem too concerned.

Road to start of Tekesi trail

Heading towards the pass

View from summit

The trail climbed up to a 4500m pass before dropping 3000m over the next 2 days to the tropical Yungas valley below . Again the Bolivian scenery was awesome and the weather couldn’t have been much better for us. The first day was spent ascending to the pass then descending on an ancient inca path to a camp spot next to a river in the valley below. We were momentarily in the mist with the llamas and sheep but that disappeared by the time we reached camp.

Entering the fog with the llamas and sheep

Local village

Camp spot

Day two we continued walking down passing a couple of villages, a precarious river crossing and an aqua duct before arriving in a town with a hostal. The final day was a couple of hours walk to the ’main’ road where we waved down a bus headed back to La Paz. We all soon realised looking out the window was not such a good idea as the narrow, one lane dirt road, weaved up the valley with the drop to the side dramatically increasing in size every minute.

Everyone’s legs were destroyed from walking downhill with packs on as opposed to coasting down on bikes so the next day or two were spent relaxing in La Paz. Once the pain had dissipated I (Ben) was keen to hit up some of the mountain bike trails around La Paz. The guide who took us in Sorata recommended getting in touch with a local Bolivian who knows all the best downhill tracks and was someone he described as a very good rider. I meet up with Mauricio the next day and soon found out he was not just a very good rider but one of the best in South America and races on the mountain bike downhill world cup circuit! I had an awesome day riding with him trying my best to stay on his tail but inevitably losing sight of him until he waited up for me.

More mountain biking in La Paz



Sunset over La Paz

Staying in a very touristy hostal it seemed everyone who visited La Paz was either raving about having ridden down the “World’s Most Dangerous Road” or couldn‘t stop talking about how nervous they were because they were about to. We wanted to see what all the hype was about and figured since we already had our touring bikes in La Paz we could give it a go on them and save a bit of money by doing it ourselves.

So early one morning we waved down a station wagon taxi who was more the happy to throw our bikes in the back and drive us to the start of the ride about 45min uphill out of La Paz. We felt a bit cheeky getting dropped off next to at least 5 tour operators and 50 punters.

Initially we had a freezing cold 20km tarseal descent before stopping at a toll gate to buy tickets for the world’s most dangerous road. After a short climb it was onto the famous off road downhill. The scenery was spectacular, the road was narrow at times, there were some big drops off the side but to go off the edge you would have to seriously stuff up. Leanne and I rattled our way down on our touring bikes as groups speed past on nice full suspension downhill rigs. Although, it was satisfying beating most of the groups to the bottom as they all had to stop for their slower less experiences riders.

Start of "The World's Most Dangerous Road"













The valley below was stinking hot as we have dropped from 4700m to 1200m. There was an 8km uphill option to the town of Coroico where buses back to La Paz depart from. Being so hot we took a chance and followed the river downhill for another 6km to another town. As luck would have it a bus was making a toilet stop for its passengers, they had a couple of spare seats and room below for our bikes so we jumped on board for the 3 hour trip back to La Paz on the ’new’ road. We both agreed someone has done a fantastic job marketing the ride as a “must do” in Bolivia. It is nice to say we have ridden the world’s most dangerous road but in terms of “real” mountain biking it has nothing on the Sorata or La Paz trails, having said that, it is still a ride we would recommend for the scenery even if you had no off road experience at all.

Having spent at least 5 days longer in La Paz than we expected it is now time to leave. We have a bus booked heading 3 hours south to Oruro where we then board a train heading 6 hours further south to Uyuni. Uyuni is one of the gateway towns to the Solar de Uyuni (salt flats). Our plan to ride out and camp for a night. We’ll see if that is possible once we get there and no doubt our next blog will explain how we got on…

Cusco to La Paz

After what turned out to be 2 and half weeks off the bikes, we rode out of Cusco. The plan from here was to ride to Puno, on the edge of Lake Titicaca and then on to Bolivia.

We had a nice dinner in Cusco before leaving as it was my birthday the next day, and we didn’t like out chances of finding anything other than chicken for dinner in the next town of Urcos. We rolled toward the outskirts of Cusco for about 40min before my front brake cable snapped, and not wanting to turn around we decided to try our luck at finding a bike shop on the edge of Cusco. No, we didn’t have a spare brake cable, as we had already used that up in Ecuador. So, thankfully we found a bike shop within 10 min of breaking the cable, a bit of a relief as the next few towns were pretty small.

Local bike shop

With that sorted we continued on to Urcos, a very small town. The main feature seemed to be the lake with a fountain in the middle and swan shaped boats floating around, interesting. And of course we had chicken for dinner!

Peruvian strong man

The next day we slowly climbed towards the altiplano, very gradual and pretty easy going with a nice tailwind. We stopped for lunch, chicken again, and met a French cycle tourist heading in the opposite direction. Over lunch we exchanged information and stories and continued on. While we had been enjoying tailwinds, this poor guy had been riding into headwinds for the past few days. We got to the next town a few hours later, just in time for Ben to get really sick. It had to have been the chicken, so with that we had a day off in Sicuani for him to recover.

Tail winds

As we rode out of Sicuani we noticed a shape ahead that looked like a cycle tourist. Sure enough it was, and we caught up to him. Unai was riding with another cyclist up ahead, Thomas. They had met each other in Trujillo at the Casa de Ciclista, and had been riding together since then. We were all heading to the same place so rode together for the next two days until we got to Puno.

We had a big 110km day to Ayaviri, with a gradual up hill over 40km to a pass at 4338m altitude. The best part was, we had a tailwind the whole day, and a huge gradual downhill as we continued on to Ayaviri.


The original plan was to ride to Puno over 2 more days from here, but as we hit the road, and got the tailwind again, we all decided to push on to Puno. This would turn out to be our biggest day yet, and probably of our whole trip, 145km. The ride was beautiful along the sparse altiplano, brilliant weather, many small farms and friendly people. Although, we had to keep our wits about us with crazy overtaking vehicles in the oncoming traffic, running us off the road a few times.

Altiplano

Local kids on the way to school


We will not forget the numerous dogs that decided to chase us several times a day, but thanks to the tailwind and flat road we could get away. Dogs can not run fast for too long, thankfully, but the sprints left us a bit out of breath at this altitude. So, the day was awesome, until the last 5-10km where we hit the one and only hill into Puno and got caught by thunder, lightening, rain and hail all at the same time! We got to Puno freezing and soaked to the bone, but had a few days off to relax and recover.

Storm approaching

Puno is on the edge of Lake Titicaca, and close to the Bolivian border. It is quite a big place but not much to do except visit the reed islands. We just relaxed, wandered around and found good coffee.

Puno

Our German friends Renate and Carmen arrived after a couple of days and we planned to ride to Bolivia with them. After a couple more days in Puno, we were all glad to leave and get on the bikes again. We rode to Juli, a really friendly little town further around Lake Titicaca, for our last night in Peru! Again the riding was beautiful and the people in the small villages on the altiplano are really nice and friendly. Peru has been an amazing experience, the vast contrast of this country, the people and the landscape is something we will never forget.





We had a relaxing ride for our last day in Peru, taking in the sights of the lake along the way. The destination for the day was Copacobana, Bolivia. The border crossing was easy and peaceful, the policemen friendly and interested in our travels, he even asked as to pose in a photo with him.

Boarder crossing to Bolivia

We had a day off in the relaxing little town of Copacobana, on the edge of Lake Titicaca. This place is the nicest lakeside town we have stayed in, and so cheap! Welcome to Bolivia! We sat in the afternoon having a beer at a café and realised we were listening to NZ music, after asking the barman about it he rattled off 5 or 6 NZ bands. We stayed a little longer at this café, it was so nice to sit and listen to some homely music, and relax in the sun.


From Copacobana we rode for two days to reach La Paz. Copacobana to another small lakeside town called Huatajata was probably the most beautiful ride we have had so far in South America. We climbed a bit over 10km out of Copacobana, and crossed the peninsula where we had to ferry across a small section of the lake.


The views of the lake and the mountains where unbelievable, we will let the photos speak for themselves.



As well as this the road was new and smooth, with very little traffic. By the time we made it to Huatajata, we had seen a total of 6 other cycle tourists heading in the opposite direction, again into a headwind.

As we rode the final day into La Paz, Carmen and Renate turned of to head to Sorata. We will see them again in a few days. La Paz is a city with 1.5 million people, and as we got closer to the edge of the city we passed through a part called el Alto where the traffic was thicker and the streets dirty and poor. At the edge of El Alto we could see the city of La Paz, deep in a valley below. To get down into it we took the auto pista, the equivalent of a motorway, for 10km of downhill. It felt a bit strange to be riding on a motorway, and we did see one ‘no cycling’ sign, but had been assured this was the best way to go. We safely made it to our New Zealand owned hostal in La Paz, with its own home brewed beer, good food, delicious chocolate brownie, wifi, and really hot water…luxury.

Road to La Paz

From here we plan to leave our bikes and take a bus back to Sorata to hopefully do some mountain biking, then return to the same hostal and explore La Paz for a while.