La Paz to Lake Titicaca

We´ve spent the last week and a half in noisy, busy La Paz.  The capital is a crazy place, not just in terms of it´s location in a huge bowl where the houses cling to the sides of the steep hills and the streets are so steep you almost feel like you might fall off them but also the general chaos and traffic.  Every street is lined with market stalls selling anything from freshly squeezed juices to dried baby vicunas (a bit like a llama but smaller).  I don´t think I´ve ever seen so many buses and mini buses crammed with people, hanging out of every window and clinging to the roof racks.  Most of the buses look like they´re on their last legs but they seem to defy gravity by hauling themselves up the precipitous hills.  Must be the Virgin Mary figurines stuck to the dashboard.  Every bus has a tout that hangs from the door of the bus shouting out the route.  They have an amazing talent for talking unbelievably quickly, I think they´re all South American football commentators in the making.  The micro touts, the endless honking horns and the bustling markets make La Paz an unforgettable, noisy and smelly place.

We left the bikes and all our luggage in La Paz last weekend to fit in a quick side trip to the beautiful whitewashed colonial city of Sucre.  Sucre used to be the capital of Bolivia and a as a result has many grand old colonial buildngs and a beautiful cathedral.  It´s called the white city of Bolivia as all of the houses and buildings are whitewashed making it seem far more civilised than bustling La Paz where haphazard houses seem to grow out of the steep hillsides.  Our trip to Sucre coincided with the first vintage car rally so the main square was crowded with vintage cars from all over the country.  All of the streets were closed off to traffic  and for two days a variety of vintage cars in varying stages of decay raced around the streets of Sucre.  It was a bit like being in Monte Carlo, except most of the cars seemed to have a maximum speed of about 30kmh and were forced at regular intervals to give way to packs of stray dogs lounging in the middle of the road or very old Bolivian ladies with huge bundles on their backs crossing the road very slowly.

After a great weekend in Sucre we bussed it back to La Paz for one final night before jumping back on our bikes and heading for Lake Titicaca, apparently the highest navigable lake in the world at 3800m.  The border with Peru runs across the lake and we´re not sure if this is why the lake is dotted with Bolivian naval bases or because they´re still seriously bitter about having their bit of coast stolen by Chile and Peru and are plotting some extravagant naval manoeuvre to get it back.  The only problem seems to be the lack of any serious military vessels.  As far as we can tell the full extent of the naval training that goes on here is running tourist cruises across the lake on catamarans with on-board restaurants. 

The Inca´s believed that Lake Titicaca was the birth place of the sun so it is considered a sacred lake and it´s not hard to see why.  Backed by the huge snowy peaks of the Cordillera and with deep blue waters it is absolutely beautiful and so, so peaceful after the constant noise of La Paz.  We´ve been looking forward to cycling Lake Titicaca for a long time, not just for the scenery but we imagined we´d be ambling along the shore side on gently rolling roads.  Yeah right.  Yesterday was an absolute killer.  We had to take a bus 50kms or so out of La Paz to avoid being run over by one of the maniac bus drivers and were droppped off in Huatajata, a sleepy little fishing village on the shore of Lago Menor, the south eastern leg of Titicaca.  We were hoping to make it to Copacabana, the main stopping off point on Titicaca, 70km away.  After about 20km my visions of the gently rolling road were shattered.  The next 50km saw us cycling up to 4300m and then being sent back down to 3800m to cross the Tiquina straits on a very rickety raft before going back up again to over 4300m.  You cannot imagine how hard it is to cycle uphill against a headwind at over 4000m.  It´s hard to breath let alone move your legs.  We had to push our bikes in some parts as our legs had turned to lead and refused to pedal.  We literally pushed for 100 metres and then stopped wheezing to catch our breath.  I was seriously beginning to doubt whether we would make it to Copacabana that night and was less than amused at the thought of camping at over 4000m.

Luckily for us 7km from Copacabana and just as the light was dissapearing we had a long downhill into town, arriving just before sunset,  Freezing cold and exhausted but relieved at narrowly escaping a chilly night in the tent we found a cheap hostel and a bowl of steaming quinoa soup.  Copacabana is a sweet lakeside town, a bit like the real Copacabana only less bikinis and more Gore-Tex.  Tomorrow we head off on a boat to Isla del Sol, the actual birth place of the sun.  The island only has 200 inhabitants and there are no roads and no cars so it should be a lovely place to spend a few days exploring the many Inca ruins.

Next stop is Peru, the border is just 10km down the road.  It´s our fourth and final country and we´re now something like 600km from Cusco and the finish line ....