Peering down into La Paz (photo just does not do this city justice)


Lake Titicaca


Deciding if we should bail and swim


The archway to Bolivia


View from our hotel in Copacabana

Hello Bolivia Hello!

We are so excited to be here in La Paz Bolivia. Somehow for Merilee and I it is our last major stop. We are planning on volunteering here and we are helping out at a little cafe that is run by the owners of the Casa de Ciclistas where we are staying. It is exciting too because we are coming upon our one year anniversary on the road! It is pretty amazing. Anyhow....

The ride to La Paz from the border with Peru was pretty spectacular. We rode around a section of Lake Titicaca that was just beautiful farmland and bright blue sky with terrific clouds. We stayed our first night in Copacabana, a very touristy town filled with travelers from South America. Our hotel had a lovely view of the lake. And Merilee and I saw bags of mana (giant puffed corn...kinda like popcorn but not really) the size of 3 sumo wrestlers. Needless to say we stopped bought and ate some.

The next day we rode along the lake until a small town where we had to take a small ferry crossing. The ferry was little more that planks of wood hammered together run by a small outboard motor on the back. Miraculously, it held a truck and a car and two laden bicycles. Thank goodness I did not have to swim Titicaca. We continued along really quiet back roads through small towns on the lake with grand brick houses and towards the late afternoon we came around a bend in the road and got a view of the Cordillera Real. It is a nice snow capped mountain range that runs from northern Bolivia to La Paz. That night we stayed in Batallas, a small town that had festival on it's mind as everyone appeared partially intoxicated from celebrating the Virgin del Candelaria. We waited at the main church to ask the Pastor if we could stay there. He never showed up despite the church being completely open. Perhaps too much celebrating. Instead, we found two missionaries who kindly opened their school doors to let us rest. They had seen us leave Copacabana that morning and we happy to hear about our story and help us out a bit.

The next day we had our big ride into La Paz. Thankfully, the road was very flat and we got to the cusp of the city very quickly. The edge of La Paz is amazing because you can look down 500 meters more or less over a cliff and see the city clinging to the hillsides all around. There are even some snow capped peaks to top it off. The city is tiring just to even think about. It can be snowing at the high end of over 4000 meters and a warm sunny day at under 3500 meters on the low end. Anyhow, Merilee and I began our descent into town flying down a bumpy poorly maintained road. We finally got to the Plaza de San Francisco with sore forearms from griping our breaks.

Now, we are just enjoying ourselves a bit, and trying not to be sick. Both Merilee and I have been suffering a bit more from stomach problems here in the start of Bolivia. Yay!