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.

Uyuni & Potosi

Uyuni is located close to the Salt Flats in Bolivia, this town was
little more than a stopover for tourists coming from or going to the
desert. It did have an interesting train graveyard which a sunset
made even better. Some of the best pizza I had on my trip was had in
Uyuni as well, an expat from Boston has set up shop called Minuteman
Pizza.
A 7 hour bone rattling bus ride from Uyuni took me to Potosi, once the
silver capital of the world and the highest city in the world (4050m).
Potosi Mountain is still mined today, but some geologist estimate
what is now a human ant hill of tunnels and precarious mining
practices will collapse within a couple of years. The Mint is a must
see in the city, showcasing the transition from manual minting tools,
to more mechanical means with a donkey (shown above) to the steam
powered machines that were used up until the middle of last century.

Atacama Desert & Salt Flats, Bolivia

From the oasis of San Pedro de Atacama, we headed into Bolivia and continued through the desert on 4x4s for three days. San Pedro was approximately 2500m, but upon entering Bolivia the first day we got up to 4800m and slept at 4200m which is quite a jump in altitude. Combine that with freezing temperatures at night and the smell of diesel fuel (for cleaning the refuges floors) not surprisingly a few people on the tour felt pretty ill. A constant headache at that altitude is common and luckily that was all I had to deal with.

Our third day in the 4x4s was spent on the Salt Flats near Uyuni, Bolivia. You can do some cool camera tricks out there, with no depth perception. Wish I could have spent more time making stupid pictures out there. They harvest and process some of the salt by hand for consumption, so if any are interested the going rate for 50Kg of salt is about 9 Bolivianos (about $1.3 CAD), flight to Bolivia not included.

GAP Tour #2 - Bolivia Crossing

I won't elaborate too much on this tour since the itinerary is online here. This tour takes me from Buenos Aires to Salta, San Pedro de Atacama, Salt Flats, Uyuni, Potosi and finally to La Paz (ending on April 25).