Eva Palace Hotel La Paz

After cancelling our trip to the jungle, we decided to mountain bike the Death Road. We took a bus up to 4,800 meters. The total trip is 65 km and drops 3,400 meters. The first part is on a paved highway where you pass all kinds of slow cars, trucks, buses, etc. The second part is on the official Death Road, which is similar to a logging road. There are shear cliffs on the sides that drop up to 800 meters to a river. Dad and I were the fastest in our group right up to the point where Dad wrec...

Dad and I booked a 3 day tour in the jungle of Bolivia. We got a taxi to the military airport. We got boarding passes and sat in the waiting area for 1.5 hours. We watched them take our luggage to 3 different planes. Then, we watched them unload the plane. They told us in Spanish that the flight was cancelled and another flight would go in 3 days. We got our airport fees and baggage fees back from the airline. We took a bus, walked, and two taxis to get back to La Paz. The first taxi ran out ...

Dad and I went hiking in the Cordillera Real range, which means the Royal Range. There are 15 peaks over 6,000 meters. We started hiking in a small town, 3 houses, called Tuni. The hike started at 4,300 meters and went to 4,900 meters. The hike circled through a valley with a series of three lakes. The final lake called Condorina something, was at the base of a peak called Huayna Potosi. The glacier from Huayna Potosi looked similar to a condor, which is how the lake got its name. The glacier...

We had to be at the bus station in Puno by 7.30am as our bus was travelling through from Lima and could arrive any time between 7.30 and 8.30am. Luckily for us the sun was shining and the bus arrived on time, so we were underway to Bolivia by 8am. The country side was very similar to what we'd already seen around Puno, as it is all part of the Altiplano. It was generally very flat, with grass and a few rolling hills around it. There were many potato fields and local people working them. After...

Wednesday

Took an 8 hour trip via 3 busses and a ferry from Puno in Peru to La Paz in Bolivia.

It was a fun day, but rather eventful. We didn't arrive till 5pm. We all got through the border crossing successfully, except that our guide got detained and refused entry, so our bus took off without him. Some anxious minutes for the worriers in our group.

However, to cut a long story short, he caught 3 taxis and went to the next border crossing 50 kms away and walked through ...

Well after a gruelling 7 hour bus ride from Puno, we finally made it to La Paz. This place is pretty cool. It is a VERY large city built into the side of a mountain. As with peru and the rest of the area, none of the houses are finished. Everything is a mess and there are still heaps of dirt roads. Well after a few recommendations I booked in to mountain bike the famous DEATH ROAD which was spectacular. Yesterday I biked 64kms downhill mostly on gravel pathways starting from 47500km above sea...

So from Ecuador we made our way down to Lima, Peru to join up with our 2 week organised tour the included the jungle and Inca Trail, taking us through to Bolivia. We arrived in Lima (Peru) after about 15 hours from the border. This wasnt an ordeal though as it was a quality bus- leather reclining seats, movies, decent food.... it was more like business class on a plane than being on a bus. The Ecuador- Peru border was quite scary- very disorganised and loads of dodgy guys trying to exchange m...

10am and we said bye to Cynthia and the group and headed back to the airport for the quick flight to LaPaz. We'd left all our luggage at the hotel and were travelling just with an overnighter so all was easy. It was good to get a second look at LaPaz - always so much more relaxing when you are orientated. So we hit the shops and markets with a lot of window shopping as its so good just to wander and sit and watch everyone going about their business. Rob and I found ourselves a good viewing ba...

A couple of hours in a comfy bus through lovely countryside before we hit the Bolivia border crossing... no big problem apart from the fact that 2 buses arrived at once so about 100 of us needed the one guy sitting at the little card table to stamp our passports.... ho hum.. Back on to a different bus.. I guess the Peru bus wasnt allowed into Bolivia.. and it was another couple of hours until we reached the lovely lakeside town of Copacabana. Cynthia tried to head us all to a restaurant for l...