So death road was really cool. Its so named because it used to be the most dangerous road in the world. Its a gravelly road cut into the cliff face of this massive valley. Its not very wide (certainly not for cars and buses to pass each other, and occasionally one would fall off the road. A few years ago they built a better road and the original road is now mainly used for mountain biking.
When we got to the top of the road, we got all kitted out into our nice windproof outfits, goggles, hats etc etc and set off. The first bit was on tarmac so that was fine to get all warmed up and used to mountain biking again, then we had to enter the national park and drive a little way up to the start of the road. We started driving along the tarmac and then there was a slight gap in the barrier and it looked like the edge of the cliff, but no, that was where we were heading!
The scenery was really spectacular, the valley is its own little micro climate (I think) and its really green with some small waterfalls coming down the cliff face. We hardly had to pedal at all as it was all down hill, but my hands hurt by the end of it from gripping onto the handlebars and the brake all teh way down! But it was very fun and I really enjoyed doing it.
At the end of it, we went to a little place at the bottom of the valley to have some food and a dip in the swimming pool. Unfortunately, it wasnt all that warm so the swim was short lived! But it was fun.
The next day we headed out to this English Pub in La Paz called Oliver´s Travels for lunch... we frequented this place quite a lot, it was nice to have a greasy fry up or two while we had the chance! And then had a look around the markets that line the streets in the centre of town. Everything is so cheap and there was loads of cool stuff so I bought quite a few bits and bobs to send back home.
That evening was our las evening together on the trip *sniff*, and we went out to a bar called Mongos which does nice food and has a dance floor for afterwards. We danced until the club shut at 3, and then headed to another club that opened later and ended up dancing til around 6am which was very fun! There was a wierd local guy there who insisted on taking pictures of everyone all the time - odd, but other than him, it was a good night.
Getting up for breakfast at 9 the next morning was a bit of a struggle! Then I had to change rooms. Me and two scottish girls, Clare and Heather, from the GAP tour palled up to get to Cusco together and we planned to leave the next day and managed to get a triple room in the hotel for the night which was good. In the afternoon (after another trip to Olivers for a fry up), after a bit more shopping, I went on a city tour with Toby from the group. It was quite nice, saw some stuff we wouldnt have seen otherwise and went up to a good viewpoint to see the whole of the valley of La Paz which was cool.
That evening, the gap group had their new meeting with the new group and me, Heather, Clare and Barbera, our tour leader, went out for a meal together which was really nice. THen we met up with the gap group in Mongos again for a drink, but everyone was quite knackered and didnt stay out too late.
The next day (12th Jan) we got the bus to Copacabana. We managed to get on the same bus as the gap group again so it was nice to see them again. Copacabana was a lovely little town on the edge of lake Titicaca. We found a nice cheap hotel that was up a hill with a nice view of the town and the lake that had a nice garden with hammocks and deckchairs that was very nice to sit out on.
After we said goodbye to the group and dumped our bags in the hotel, we had a nice dinner of trout that was caught from the lake - it was really good! Then we had to book our transport to get us accross the border into Peru to Puno and then onto Cusco. It took us all of about 15 minutes, there were so many travel stalls up the main street to choose from, all offering the same package. We also managed to book a tour in Puno to go to the floating islands which was good as we were only going to be in Puno for about 6 hours so it would save us time trying to book that when we got there.
After we had booked everything, we had a look down the main street with lots more market stalls... this one had lots of nice jewelery... I had been quite disciplined up until then with the buying of shiny things so I treated myself to 3 nice pairs of earrings and a bracelet :)
Then we had to book our lake titicaca trip for the next day. We went to the Isla del Sol. That day was a bit of a disaster to be honest... it started out raining a little bit and the sky out on the lake looked even blacker! We had to get a boat ride accross the lake to the Island. It was supposed to take about 2 hours, but the water was really choppy and it took closer to 3. It was not a pleasant journey!
The idea of the trip was to get to the north island, go adn see some ruins, walk down to the south island and get the boat back at the end of the day. Unfortunately, because teh boat ride took so long to get there, we didnt have time to do the visits and the walks because we would have missed the boat back, so we ended up having to wait for the boat at the north of the island to take us to the south pier, have half an hour there before going back to shore. THe journey there was so choppy, noone really wanted to spend any more time on boats, but we didnt have a choice. Shame.
But I guess days that dont go quite to plan will happen...
The next day we got our bus to Puno. The walk from the bus station to the centre wasnt the nicest, but once we got to the main square and around, it was quite nice. We had lunch and then me and Clare headed off to our Uros floating islands tour.
I liked the floating islands. There were many more of them than I was expecting. About 1000 people live out there apparantly. The boat trip to get there was much calmer than the day before fortunately!! We got there and had a talk by one of the families about how they make the floating reed islands and then we had a look at some of the things for sale there that are made locally by the people that live there. Then we had a little boat trip accross to another island on a boat made from reeds.
We just had time to have a quick bit of tea before getting on the night bus to Cusco. We had a really nice meal, I had a baked potato and stir fry - I hadnt had a baked potato since going on my trip, it was great!!
The night bus to Cusco wasnt so great! The seats were quite uncomfortable and they didnt provide blankets so it was cold. We were also told that the journey would be from 9pm to 5.30am and that we would be able to sleep on the bus until 7am. The bus arrived at 4.30am and we were promptly booted off the bus! Our hostel reservations werent until the next night :( But after a little discussion about what to do, we ended up just heading to our hostels anyway. Mine had 24hr reception so I could get in and go on the internet until 7 when I could ask about a key. Fortunatley, Heather and Clare managed to get into their B&B straight away so it wasnt too bad.
Ill write more about Cusco later... bye for now. xx
No comments:
Post a Comment