Day 43 Coroico

Coroico was in fact paradise. We took the day off to swim in the pool, eat plenty of good food, roast in the sauna, check out the town, and to generally enjoy not operating large machinery.

Day 42 La Paz to Coroico, Bolivia

La Paz is a big city and we were in the wrong part of town. After the border crossing the day before, we arrived too late and worn out to find a better place to crash for the night. I was booked to DJ on Saturday night, but that was three days away and we wanted out of the craziness. That morning we read in our travel book about the world's most dangerous road; La Paz to Coroico. Perfecto. This road has a elevation drop of around 12000 ft in 60 miles of twisty, pot holed, and partially paved road. It claims over 100 lives a year. At the end, a little town tucked away in the edge of the rain forest that caters to those trying to escape the big city. Mike and I had a killer time (sorry...I had to say it) riding this road. Unfortunately, most of the way down was through the clouds. You knew that the drop-offs over the side were thousands of feet below but you couldn't really see that well. The first photo is the only one I got from top and the second is just below the cloud line towards the bottom.

Day 41 Puno to La Paz, Bolivia

The rout leaving Puno that morning took us around lake Titicaca, which is one of the highest lakes in the world and the largest in South America. Within a hour we reached the border crossing into Bolivia. After multiple pay offs to get out of Peru, I then spent the next couple hours in a small room with a immigration official and a police officer trying to get our visas into Bolivia. At 135.00 US per person, we had to give part US and part Bolivianos. The problem is that they want to give you really bad exchange rate for using there own money. It took some negotiating to make sure we weren't getting completely taken, but we had come to far not to enter Bolivia over the usual shady border crossing practices.

Day 40 Canyon de Coca to Puno, Peru

The following day was an easy ride on the high plains of eastern Peru. Paved roads were a welcome change and a long stretch of straight away even let me get a couple photos while on the move. Once again, another day of just phenomenal scenery......you almost become desensitized to it. Then again, turn the corner and something else comes along to remind you of the endless beauty that exists in this world.

Day 39 Ocona to Canyon de Colca, Peru

With Machu Piccu still closed due to mud slides, we decided to go see Canyon de Colca. The journey there was an epic trek, as it took a solid 6 hours of climbing dirt roads into the Andes Mountains. The first photo is of just foothills, this was a completely deserted road. I don't think we saw another soul the whole way there.
The canyon was absolutely breathtaking, it is around two and half times deeper than the Grand Canyon. As you can see by the cloud behind Mike, we were once again at high altitude.

Day 38 Nazca to Ocona, Peru

After the flight over Nazca we headed out towards the coast. Within a hour we encountered extremely high winds that were blowing 4 feet high sand dunes over the road. At one point, there was only 2 feet left the road to ride on. Two full sized plows were trying to keep this section clear. Even the 18 wheelers had to alternate from each direction on what little was left of the road.This photo was taken just before reaching the area that the desert was reclaiming.

Further south, we carved through endless twisty coastal roads that split the mountain side, towering over the ocean below. The rest of that day proved to be some of the most spectacular riding I've ever done. The photos below don't even do it justice.

The Nazca Lines

The next morning we took a flight over the desert to see what is known as the Nazca Lines. These giant images were made to been seen from the sky by god(s), aliens, fox news, ????. These were made sometime around 500BC by the Nazca Indians.




During take off, I looked down to see that the brake line had both duct tape and a zip tie on it.... quality workmanship is abundant around here.
















The photos below are of a humming bird, a tree, and a triangle. There were many more, but the images are not that clear.