La Paz, Death Road, & Copacabana

The road from Potosi to La Paz on the overnight bus was much better than the one from Uyuni, though not the most comfortable night bus I've been on. Not a huge city compared to others in South America, but the setting of La Paz is pretty impressive where buildings and houses creep out of the valley floor and out over the rim.

The 'Death Road' of Bolivia, or the Yungas Road as it's also known as, was quite an experience. Equipped with full suspension bikes, disc brakes, and helmet of course I felt a little better starting the 65km journey. Almost all downhill, with a total descent of almost 3600m, good brakes were definately needed. The first half of the trip is actually on a paved section of the "new road" and you can bomb it down pretty fast with only the wind slowing you down. The second section is where it got a little tricky, used as the main highway to the jungle from La Paz up until a year ago, this road is only about 3m wide in many parts - with up to 600m drops on the one side! There was no 'bombing' down this section, especially after hearing that an American tourist died just a few days earlier doing this very route! Views were incredible throughout (when the clouds weren't there) and it was really interesting to travel through 7? different climate zones while we decended from 4800m to almost 1200m.

Copacabana was a small, very touristy border town I spent a night in on my way to Peru. Not a lot to say about this place, except that it was on Lake Titicaca and it had an interesting church.