Southern Exposure

Tuesday, February 17

We were happy to get moving again, and were looking forward to Bolivia with a mixture of nerves and anticipation. We knew that in Bolivia we would be on the most remote roads of the trip. The road south from Puno was an easy ride along the west coast of Lake Titicaca.

Every 50 miles or so, we stopped to get gas. We were paranoid about long stretches without gas as we’d read that it could be tough, so we tried to top off our tanks as often as possible. It slowed progress down but gave great piece of mind.

We reached the border near Casablanca and exiting Peru was painless. The interesting part was the aduana official telling us we couldn’t come back because we didn’t have insurance for Peru. This is the 2nd time we’d been required to have insurance but no one at the entering border had mentioned the requirement to us. Money saved I suppose.

The Bolivian border worked the opposite of every other border. First we went to the aduana to check in the bikes, and only after that was complete did we go to immigration. Due to the war of words and insults between the US and Bolivia, Americans and Americans only are required to buy a $135 five year visa to enter the country. Inna was bummed she didn’t bring her Russian passport. After we were bled cash and stamped in, the border police held onto my customs documents, demanding a “voluntary” payment. I told them I volunteered nothing several times, but eventually gave them $1 just so we could get going.

Once on the road, the Bolivian people welcomed us with open arms by covering the road with rocks and tree branches. We were not quite sure why. Charming folks.

The ride from the border went through the town of Casablanca. It was a prettier town than Puno, with an interesting Moorish looking church. After a few pictures we were quickly through and on our way. The nicely paved road curved across the hilltops, yet was strangely unexciting.

We reached the ferry crossing across the narrow part of Lake Titicaca and were quickly on board. These ferries were much easier to deal with than the one in Monterrico as they were 4 or 5 planks wide, rather than only 2. We could rest our feet comfortably, and getting off on the other side wasn’t so hard. It was a strange site to see large trucks and buses floating across the lake.

From the ferry it was an easy ride to La Paz. Traffic in La Paz is crazy. Micro buses (basically vans) create parking lots of traffic on every street, and pedestrians fill in all gaps between them like mortar. The only relief was enjoying the view of the spectacular peak of Illimani, overlooking the city from 21,122 ft. We stopped to look at our map, but the city is huge and finding hotels with parking would be tough. It was a very stressful environment so we made a snap decision. It was only 5pm with two more hours of light left, so we decided to bail on La Paz and see if we could find a hotel in a small town south of the town. It would be a win-win, getting us further along while avoiding the stress of insane city riding.

We rode south for an hour, and stayed in the pueblo of Villa Loza, which seemed to consist of two hotel restaurant combos facing each other across the highway. I looked into both, and chose the one with the friendlier, English speaking staff. We parked the bikes around back and had an early dinner. By this point it had become standard for us to skip lunch and only have a light snack somewhere along the side of the road. While Inna worked on writing, I adjusted the headlight on my bike as it was still pointing too high after the last adjustment.

As the sun set, we were rewarded with our first glimpse of the amazing altiplano colors. The hues of blue and orange on the seemingly low sky were intensely vivid and seemed more like an artist’s representation of the ideal twilight sky.