3,000 metres from terror to relaxation

Back in La Paz we spent a day catching up on sleep and relaxing after our time in Uyuni. We also managed to book ourself in for the bike ride down the ´world´s most dangerous road´.

We headed off early with 12 other nervous tourists. We drove 45 minutes out of La Paz until we reached the snow clad peaks that mark the start ofthe "death road". We were given our safety briefing, took a swig of some alcohol to honor the earth mother and then we were off.

Our 70km mountain bike ride took us down 3,000 metres in altitude. We started on sealed roads, where we kept to the right which also happened to be the side with the 1,000 metre drop. A bit nerve racking but we were so busy focusing on what was ahead you didn´t have a lot of time to admire the scenery. We sped down the hill at about 50km an hour without even having to peddle.

Every so often we would stop and the group would regather so our guides could make sure we were all still alive. The guide would then keep us nervous by telling us the many tales of the many people who had lost their lives on this leg of the the road. At one stage they were averaging 1.5 casulities a day. Lots of crosses to remind you that this road really is dangerous!!

We quickly made it to the unpaved section, which was a was where the fun really begins. If you fell off the penalty was you had to buy the guide a piece of cheese cake. He ended up with 4 by the end of the ride but none from us. Anna did manage to get her bike stuck a couple of times once in river, but we happily made it down in one piece.

We ended our ride in an animal refugee (La Senda Verde) where we had lunch and a shower. We ended up staying here for a couple of days with an Australian couple (Tony and Shannon) we met. It such a nice place to relax as it is definitely a more tropical climate than we had experienced so far in Bolivia. We also had some great food, there was a French run restuarant in Coroico the small town above La Senda Verde which is apparentnly the best restuarant in Bolivia and I think we would have to agree. A huge meal with drinks and desert for $12 a head, amazing Llama steak and chocolate filled crepes. Yum.

La Senda Verde is only 75km ( 3 and half hour drive) away from La Paz but it feels like it is a world away. It was created as an animal refugee for injured and abused animals.

They have two spider monkeys and 1 howlermokey which we were lucky enough to get a cuddle with. They also have an wild cat, wild pigs, tortises, cats, dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, guinea fowl and many different colourful parrots. It was so nice just to be able relax and see all the animals up close. There were a couple of friendly battles puppy vs spider monkey and spider monkey vs mawkaw but none got hurt.

We went back to La Paz on the new road, which shouldn´t have felt as scary as the old road. The new road was meant to curb the death rate but with the combination of Bolivian engineering and driving I thinkthey have onlysuceeded inmakingthe worlds second most dangerous road. Our driver was crazy, no need to check what´s coming the other way when passing around here. The ride up was more scary the ride down!!

Would you like salt with that??

From La Paz we took an overnight bus to Uyuni in the southwest of Bolivia. The bus ride was a bit bumpy and chilly. Yes, that pic below is our bus window had frozen over!!!!

Arriving in the early hours of the morning we searched to find the right tour company to do a tour of the Uyuni salt flats. We had heard some horror stories from other travellers of dodgy 4 wheel drives and drunk drivers so we were a bit picky. We found a great company Estrella del Sur and had a really experienced driver called Valero. We spent the next three days with 6 of us (Pablo, Anya, Tom, Emma and us) roaming the Uyuni salt flats in a four wheel drive. Our first stop was a train graveyard where all the old steam trains have been left which has turned in to a bit of a tourist attraction.

The salt flats are absolutely amazing they have houses made of salt blocks which have to be covered when it rains but luckily it doesn`t rain too much there. The house inthe pìcture below is made out of salt.

The salt flats themselves are kind of a cross between snow and a desert. They have the whiteness of snow but are all cracked like you find in the desert. The great thing about the salt flats is there is no perspective so we managed to do a few music video style shots.

In the middle of salt flats is this crazy cactus island. The slat flats used to be under the sea until the tectonic plates decided to move and shunt this place 3500m above sea level.You can still see the remenants of coral and it is covered in these huge cacti, which seems really surreal in the middle of the salt flats.

From here we stayed a night in a salt hotel, surprisingly warm. But it was a pretty early night as the lights are solar powered so they go out at 8pm.

Day two started with a visit to some pre Inca mummies dating back to something like 800 AD. It´s a bit creepy as they are really well preserved and many of them were sitting up still clothed. They were placed in these coral tombs where they still remain today.

The rest of the day was spent driving through some of what must be earths most dramatic landscapes. This was accompanied by a Bolivian soundtrack with the only english song a rolling stones cover of Angie, who would have thought?




Our day finished at the red lake, which is true to its name. The contrast of the red lake against the desert landscape was amazing. To add to the surreal landscape the lake is also home to flamingoes. Normally there are over 4,000 flamingoes but as it was Winter most had headed North for the warmer temperatures but seeing pink flamingoes in a red lake is pretty amazing.




That night it was another early night but a bit harder to sleep with the temperature getting down to minus 15. We had an early start as we were off to see the geysers at sunrise. Amazing to see but hard to appreciate as it was so cold. Luckily from here we went to some thermal pools to warm up our frozen bodies.

The scenery on the last day of our tour didn´t disappoint. Among the dessert landscape there were crazy rock formations like the ´tree rock´. Perhaps one of the most beautiful places we visited was the green lake; the green colour comes from the high quantities of arsenic and copper in the water.

From here we dropped the rest of our group on the Chiliean border and managed to spot a few foxes as well. We then picked up another group whose jeep had broken down and headed back to Uyuni. Our plan was to head to Sucre, however, due to bus strikes we couldn´t get there and caught the bumpy overnight bus back to La Paz.

Flight on the Condors

From Arequipa we headed out to the Colca Canyon on a 2 day tour. The Colca Canyon is the worlds deepest canyon at 3400m. The landscape here is very dramatic, much like you would expect the moon to look like. Along the way you pass the odd oasis fed by snow melt from the Andes. It’s damn cold up here, the highest point we reached in our journey was 4800m. The locals wear Alpaca and Llama wool clothing to keep warm. The women wear the most brightly coloured skirts which are rather oddly complimented by a bowler hat to keep here heads warm. We saw lots of Llama’s, Alpaca’s and Bequinias along the way. Bequinias are a relative of Llama’s and Alpacas but are endangered as they have the best wool and were almost hunted to extinction.

We spent a night in the town of Chivay, soaked in some thermal pools there to defrost then headed out to the Canyon at 6am the next morning. The Canyon is very impressive and is home to Condors. These are one of the largest flying birds and have a wingspan of up to 4m. We waited very patiently in the freezing wind to get a view of one of these huge birds. Not surprisingly they don’t like gliding round in the wind, so we only saw a couple of Condors but they were very impressive.

Next we headed down to Puno, a town on the shore of Lake Titicaca. It’s a very pleasant little town that gets very cold at night due to the fact that it is 3500m above sea level and right beside a big cold lake. We took a boat out to the Uros floating islands which are home to 1200 people whose ancestors have lived on these islands they have made from reeds for the last 1,000 of years. The whole experience is a bit too touristy but is very interesting and worth a visit.

We are off to Bolivia tomorrow but we’re looking forward to returning to Peru to do the Inca Trail in 3 weeks.

Peru Part One

Our journey to Peru was quite a long one. We spent 36 hours in buses, planes and airports before arriving in Nazca. Nazca is a little town in the southern Peruvian desert and is home to the puzzling Nazca Lines. Nobody knows exactly why the lines were made by the ancient Nazca people 200 AD. The area only has 40mm of rain a year and the soil has a high gypsum content so the lines are still clearly visible from the sky.

We did a flight over the lines, which is a must if you ever visit Nazca. They take you up in these little planes and then test out your resistance to motion sickness by flying the plane with the wings pointing the ground so you can get a good view of the lines if you don’t blackout. The flight was good but Anna was very pleased to make it onto the ground looking a little worse for wear. It also didn’t help that the American guy on our flight told us about a plane going down the week before we flew!!

From Nazca we headed down to the city of Arequipa. Arequipa is a great place to visit, it has amazing history and is set beneath a couple of big active volcano’s which makes for a rather dramatic backdrop. We saw a 400 year old mummy that had been found at the top of one of the Volcanoes when it erupted and blew her out of her icy tomb. The mummy, Juanita as she is called is really well preserved and was clad in some very impressive Incan clothing. She was sacrificed when she was a 14 year old girl by a blow to the head!!!

Arequipa is also home to the Santa Catalina Monastery which housed nuns in isolation from the outside world for 350 years till they were forced to open it to the public in 1970. This place is amazing, going in there is like going back 400 years. The architecture is very impressive and the walls are decorated with murals and 100’s of rather spooky religious paintings and statues. The Monastery is a must see if you are ever in this part of the world. It still houses nuns but they are allowed to go outside the Monastery these days.

Winter in Brasil

From Rio we headed a couple of hours South down the Costa Verde, that is the green coast for all you gringos to Ilha Grande. Ilha Grande is the third biggest island off the Brasilian coast and is a beautiful island with over 100 beautiful beaches. The island has rather an interesting history, it used to be an old pirate hangout and then it was used as Brasil’s answer to Alcatraz and housing the countries most dangerous prisoners. The prisoners have now been replaced by tourists.

We stayed in a really nice hostel the Overnativa Green Hostel which had comfortable rooms and really good breakfast. Each morning we would wake up to fruit platters, fresh baked bread and home made juice and jams.

The town itself is really small, the main street is cobbled and the rest of the island’s streets are compressed sand. There are no cars on the island apart from the police who drive a golf cart. The streets are also home to numerous dessert carts, much to Anna’s delight they even had lemon meringue pie!! Phil wasn’t so much a fan of the dessert carts but definitely rated the fresh seafood.

The main draw card was the beaches, which we made our day time home. It was meant to be winter here in Brasil, 27 degree, sunny days is our kind of winter. The island is pretty big and the majority of it is covered in vast bush. So we took the lazy option and took a boat to the beach each day. Our favourite beach was Lopez Mendes, which had squeaky white sand and beautiful blue sea. Phil was tortured by having to watch some pretty fun waves come in as he couldn’t surf as his ankle is still buggered.

The island also has some cool wildlife. We spent a day snorkelling with turtles in the blue lagoon and saw dolphins from the boat on the way back from Lopez Mendes. We also saw some friendly monkeys on the way to the beach each day.

From Ilha Grande we headed down to Sao Paulo stopping in Paraty for a day. Paratay is another one of those towns that makes you feel like you have stepped back in time. Especially when you stumble upon a film crew filming an old pirate movie. We almost made a guest appearance and had to be ushered from the set we had aimlessly wandered into the middle of. The town has also has an old fort, which has canons from the 1750s which were used to guard the gold from the pirate ships.

We loved Brasil and if you have the opportunity be sure to pay a visit!! Just practice your Portuguese before you arrive.