My first day in Bolivia will be a rest day. There is enough to do in Copacabana. The tourist gem is beautifully located. Little mountains in and around the lake make Copacabana a spot that everybody loves. The beach of Rio de Janeiro is named after the Bolivian Copacabana, not vice versa!

Another highlight is the strange white cathedral. For me the good food can surely be called a highlight. And have I forgotten to mention the beautiful sundowns in Lake Titicaca?

The best thing about Copacabana however is its proximity to the Isla del Sol, the Island of the Sun. Early in the morning I am waiting on the beach for the boat. I am chatting with a nice french young woman called Helena. We decide to wander together on the Island. There is a small half day trek right over the hill ridge on the island. Some inca ruins can be visited right along the way.

It is a brilliant day. The sun is very strong on these altitudes. It feels like 25 degrees although it will probably be colder. Everything on the island seems Greek. fierce sunshine, blue skies, blue water, ruins with archeologically respectable past, mediterranean like hillslope vegetation. And of course Helena could not have a more apt name.

This is a really relaxed day. No headwinds, no steep ascents, no stomach problems, no fatigue. This day is filled with lazing around, chatting and smalltalk, picknick and laying in the grass. Female company surely makes a difference. Helena proves to be an intelligent and sensitive woman. She tells about her work in Cochabamba. She is helping the locals in setting up cultural activities. A hell of a task, because Bolivians are not especially blessed with a grand reputation in the field of planning and logistics.

This sunny day also comes to an end. The boat brings us back to copacabana. Helena goes back to Cochabamba. I will go in the direction of La Paz tomorrow. My bicycle cannot wait another day. I wish Helena all the luck and good things in life.

Day 32: Copacabana - La Paz 156 km

The romantic Greek atmosphere of yesterday is replaced by a grim Siberian ambiance today. As I wake up, everything lays under a thin blanket of fresh snow. It is still snowing lightly. The road climbs steeply above Copacabana, into the hills, into the clouds. After a few minutes everything around me is cloud or snow. No sound can be heard in the dimming clouds, only my own breath. Time seems to stand still. Slowly I am moving on, careful not to slip away on the sometimes icy road.

After a long time I descend under the clouds. An icy view over icy Lake Titicaca is whatsoever really beautiful.

Slowly the weather is improving. The snows have stopped but the clouds still cover the skies. I am unfortunate to miss the views over the 6.000 m high mountains of the Cordillera Real, Bolivias most spectacular mountain range.

After more than 200 kilometer along Lake Titicaca I am leaving the lake, this time for good. I am not leaving the Altiplano however. Along the Cordillera Real, hidden in clouds, I move on to La Paz, one of Bolivias capitals (Bolivians do not agree if Sucre or La Paz should be their capital). La Paz is the worlds highest capital. Its center is situated on an elevation of 3.700 m.

After a long day I reach La Paz just before dusk. I am having a problem however. The city is getting busier and busier but the streets are not corresponding with my map. Everyone is telling me to keep going straight forward, so that is what I do. It is really strange. I am cycling for kilometers through the city without any sign of direction and without seeming to come closer to the center. It even looks like I am leaving the city now. As I follow the road in a bow around a hill ridge, things finally become clear. I am standing above a wide valley which is completely filled with houses. All the time I have cycled through a huge suburb and only now I am looking over La Paz, down below in the valley.

Day 34: La Paz - La Cumbre - Death Road - Coroico 102 km

After a day of sightseeing in La Paz, it is time to move on. I want to cycle into the Yunga's today. Behind the Cordillera Real, the Andes Mountains fall down into the Amazone basin. Within a relatively short distance the landscape makes a significant drop in altitude. The region between the mountains and the jungle is called the Yunga's. The Yunga's are famous for heavy rainfall, superb green landscape and steep mountain slopes. The most important road between La Paz and the Yunga's has the sinister name 'Death Road'. Lots of fatal accidents occur every year. The Death Road begins at the pass across the Cordillera Real, La Cumbre, at 4.700 m altitude. The Death Road ends in Yolosa at 1.200 m altitude. Most of the tourists however travel a few kilometers further than Yolosa. Coroico lies at 1.700 m high above the valley and has great views over the Yunga valleys and mountains.

So the first thing to do today is the ascent of La Cumbre. It is a sunny day. I can see the mountains of the cordillera Real for the first time, without clouds. I am really lucky about that because of the rainy reputation of the mountains behind the Cordillera.

It is a nervous experience to do a high altitude ascent in the complete chaos of a big South American city. It is impossible to keep moving on in the crowds. My bicycle with luggage is too wide to zigzag in between taxis that stop for clients. From time to time I am stuck in traffic jams. The city of La Paz stretches out untill halfway up the pass. When I have left the city behind, the valley is completely quiet. The last kilometers to the pass are much easier therefore. Unfortunately, nothing is as good as it seems. I reach the La Cumbre Pass but find out that everything is completely wrapped in clouds. I ask myself where they come from this fast.

The descent is remarkably easy. The road is well paved and follows the valley downward. It is straight ahead downhill. It is beginning to rain a bit but I could expect that in a region that is known as very wet. No worries whatsoever.

After half an hour the road starts to climb. The landscape is completely green right now. No little spot is without vegetation. The pavement is gone. In these rains the road is not much more than a dirty mud trail. It is hard work to push myself forward through the mud. I ask myself if I follow the right road. I should descend but this road only goes up. I cannot check on my compass because the road is twisting and turning in all directions. There is nobody to ask the way. My hopes are with the wind.

It never rains but it pours. It is raining cats and dogs right now while the road is still going higher. I am climbing half an hour through deep muds. Curiously the rains stop at once. At the same time I come at the top of a ridge. The view from the ridge explains a lot. Before my eyes lies a vertical, green world. Immense green slopes fall into the depths below. I can see the mud trail go down endlessly along the mountain flanks. Now I finally understand the name and fame of the road.

Within a few minutes the rains return. This time it is for real. The rain comes in merciless measures. The water is everywhere. It is coming out of the clouds, dripping of the trees, falling from waterfalls on the road. All I have, including myself, is dressed in thick clods of mud. My bags, my wheels, my brakes, everything is dirty. The road is slippery. I cannot descend with velocities above 7 or 8 km/hour. The road passes deep ravines so I must not make any mistake at all. When does this come to an end?

Not soon. The status quo is released only after hours. I am soaked untill the bone as the rains finally stop. It is not too far any more to Yolosa, the end of the Death Road. At a lost bus stop I see a colleague cyclist. It is Christian, A young man from Switzerland. He goes back to La Paz. I ask why he does not go down the last kilometers to finish the road. Because he does not have a reason, he decides to join me. Christian is a fascinating mystery. He cycles without luggage, without food, only a bit of water. Also spiritually Christian seems to cycle without luggage. Without goal or purpose. Christian tells when he does not feel like moving on, he just hitchhikes his way back.

Christian and I split in Yolosa. We have made the Death Road. Christian will try to go back to La Paz today. I have a bit more than an hour to reach Coroico before dusk. I have to hurry. I have to ascend 500 m and dark clouds are gathering behind Coroico. After 15 minutes it is raining like I have never experienced in my life. The road is overflowing with water. I am afraid my luggage will be damaged severely by the huge amounts of water today. Then thunder strikes, completely out of the blue. At once my whole world is white, Lightning has nearly struck me! I have to wait untill the thunder has passed. It takes an age and lots of water before I can ride on for the last kilometers. Wet and dirty, a Yeti lookalike cycles to the Plaza de Armas of Coroico. It is me, looking for a hotel.

Day 35: Coroico, La Paz

As I wake up, everything is still soaked. The roof of the hotel is leaking. My luggage has not dried even a tiny little bit. Everything is completely wet. Even my passport, money and other important things. I decide to dry my luggage in La Paz before I travel any further. With a small minibus I return to the big city.

Day 36: La Paz, Tiahuánuco

While my stuff still needs to dry another day, I decide to join a tourist excursion to the pre Inca site of Tiahuánuco. We will not reach the place. We find out that there is a riot going on in El Alto, the twin city of La Paz which I had mistakenly taken for La Paz when I came in from Copacabana a few days ago. Our bus driver is taken out of the bus by force and has to negotiate with a furious crowd. Hundreds, thousands of people are on the streets. The people have blocked the major road and most of the sidestreets. It takes us many hours of waiting, negotiating and good luck before they let us go back to La Paz. Of course we did not see anything of the archeological site.

What is the matter? It is the 'gas problem' that causes the strikes. The USA want to transport gas from Bolivias rich resources to Chile via a pipeline. Because the ordinary people of Bolivia do not make any profit, they feel that the politicians take everything for themselves. The fact that the pipeline goes to Chile, really is the limit. Since Chile has won the Pacific War in the nineteenth century, Bolivia has lost its sea harbor Antofagasta and has lost its pride as well. Maybe the people do not have especially good reasons to oppose the plans. It is like Bob Marley sang: a hungry mob is an angry mob.

Tomorrow strikes are planned all over the country. It seems better to wait some time before moving on. I decide not to cycle tomorrow. But mountaineering remains a possibility in this region. The Cordillera Real is just around the corner. In the agency everything is realized efficiently. Within an hour I have a guide, a pickel, shoes, crampons and a cord. Tomorrow I will start the ascent of the 6.088 m Huayna Potosí!

Day 37: La Paz - Base Camp Huayna Potosí

A taxi brings us to the mountain hut where the expeditions to the Huayna Potosí take off. The weather is good as we start to walk to the campsite. Over big moraine walls we go up. The slopes are sometimes slippery with bits of snow and ice between the loose stones. All in all it does not take too long before we reach the campsite. There are a few other groups with guides that will also make an attempt to reach the top tomorrow.

The campsite lies beautifully at the foot of the glacier. We have great views over the nearby mountains of the Cordillera Real. After pitching our tent and having a simple dinner it is social hour between the groups. Two Spanish men and a Swiss man are quite experienced climbers. A young Dutch couple seems to be less used to this kind of terrain. Both of them seem to be a bit worried about things to come tomorrow.

Day 38: Base Camp - Huayna Potosí

The guide wakes me up at half past 12 in the night. I am glad he is waking me. I have not fallen asleep because of the altitude. Being awake brings other problems. It is 25 degrees below zero. Way too cold for me. I am not hungry, probably an effect of altitude and temperature. I know I have to eat something, though. I am chewing some brick hard chocolates. They taste awful.

I am glad that we are walking now. The other groups have been woken up more than half an hour ago and are long gone. my guide is only 20 years and has a good physical condition. He has a steady pace, I am able to follow without too much problems. Within two hours we have passed all the other groups. We have the advantage of being a small group. The Spanish and the Swiss however walk a good pace too. The ascent of the Huayna Potosí is straightforward untill we reach a huge crevasse with a long ladder across. Carefully we cross the obstacle. After the crevasse a twenty meter steep section of sixty degrees is the first serious test for my crampons.

We gain altitude steadily. I see the nearby mountain peaks sink in the depths below. It is still night as we reach a huge plateau at 5.800 m elevation. The altitude is beginning to make life difficult right now. It is heavy work to push forward through the snows with less than half of the oxygen in the air compared with sea level. Like an old man I need the support of the pickel to release my legs of my own weight. I see that my guide is walking in the same way. After an hour we have traversed the plateau and we stand right before the top section. The last two hundred meters of climbing are much steeper than the rest. The slope has a minimum of 40 and a maximum of 60 degrees.

I try to push my pickel as deep as possible into the ice. It will not get any better than a centimeter at the most. My crampons do not perform better. The ice is as hard as a rock. We will have to do with it. I use all my force to stay as still and quiet as possible. I am breathing like a dog. Every step again I have to kick my feet as hard as I can in the ice face. Usually the circumstances should be much better, but usually it is warmer than minus 25 degrees. In deep concentration I go on and on, untill unexpectedly I reach the summit. My guide and I are the first today to reach the top. Right now, the sun is climbing above the horizon and sets the top face in the sun. Thousands of meters below are the Yunga's. A thin cloud cover is already spread out over the Yunga's and the jungle. On the west side the Altiplano can be seen. Two to three hundred kilometers to the west I see the border mountains with Chile including the Nevado Sajama, the highest mountain of Bolivia and nearly five hundred meter higher than here. Could be nice cycling there...

Day 39: La Paz. Tiahuánuco

After the succesful ascent of the Huayna Potosí, I need a rest day. I decide to give the excursion to Tiahuánuco a second chance. This time it is quiet in La Paz and El alto; without problems we reach the site. The Tiahuánuco culture is not only much older than the Inca culture, it also has existed much longer. For two thousand years the Tiahuánuco culture was the most important civilization of South America. Only the last hundred years before the Spanish set foot on American ground, the Inca culture has overthrown the Tiahuánuco civilization.

After an interesting day I hear bad news. Tomorrow widespread strikes are planned in La Paz. It will probably be impossible to leave the city tomorrow. No taxis and buses will ride in La Paz the next days. I have to wait again in La Paz. I decide that as soon as I have the chance, I will cycle straight out of La Paz to the Chilean border. A civil war could be at hand and even if it will not come to that, I am not in South America to be stuck in a third world capital for days or weeks.

Day 40: La Paz

There is a riot going on. Over the highway I see a procession of several kilometers flow into the city. They are all coming from the poor twin city of La Paz, El Alto. The high city has been the center of unrest from the beginning. This time the riots will not be restricted to El Alto. Thousands of people gather at the Plaza de los Héroes, only 150 m from my hotel. After returning to my hotel, I see on the Bolivian television shooting at the nearby square. With a few tourists from the hotel, we are going to a cafe. We walk along the masses. I hear people demanding the death(!) of the president, of the whole government.

The whole day there are riots, shootings, the army tries to control the streets but do not succed completely. On the television I see politicians being beaten on the streets by the crowds. Late in the evening things calm down a bit after the president declares that there is a compromise with the opposition. To me it is not exactly clear if there is any substance behind this statement. The opposition declares a few minutes later that the negotiations have not been succesful at all and that the strikes will be prolonged. For this time the president has succeeded in confusing the masses, for the nearby future we have to fear the worst for the government.

Day 41: La Paz - Patacamaya 110 km

I will not wait in La Paz for things to come. I expect that the protest of yesterday will not be resumed at six o'clock in the morning. Most of the people were terribly drunk yesterday and at this early hour they will surely be less energetic than the day before. Because no buses and taxis ride through the streets, it is probably the best day in ten years to climb the otherwise very busy highway up to El Alto.

I have been right. Nobody is awake in El Alto. I can trespass without any problems. After a week of adventures La Paz and the Cordillera, I am back on the windy but beautiful Altiplano.

Day 42: Patacamaya - Curahuara de Carangas 100 km

Even in this remote western corner of Bolivia, I feel the impact of the political unrest. There is practically no traffic. In fact traffic is virtually impossible because around La Paz and the other big cities, people have thrown thousands of big stones on the road. I can easily circumvent the stones, cars and trucks cannot. The situation causes me problems as well. There is nearly no food available any more. There are only few villages and nowhere I can obtain anything substantial. I have to do with a few biscuits the whole day. The landscape however is as panoramic as I could hope for. Small clouds are scattered across the blue sky, their shadows chasing restlessly over the land. As the afternoon progresses, the shadows grow taller. Unfortunately, not only the shadows grow taller but also the clouds that cause them. The wind is growing too. As I reach Curahuara de Carangas, dust is being blown across the streets. Curahuara looks like a ghost town. Within a few minutes I find a hotel, though. The reason for being here however is to find some food. That takes considerably more time. In the end I obtain a little bit so I can have a good night sleep.

Day 43: Curahuara de Carangas - Sajama 100 km

There is no breakfast available in Curahuara. Because there are no villages untill Sajama, it looks like hunger is ahead. In the early morning sun, trouble however seems far away. Through a small valley I slowly gain altitude. The Altiplano is highest at the border with Chile. Along the border there are several volcanoes and mountain ranges that loom above the plains. After the ascent out of the valley, I am standing on a huge plateau that ends up in the border mountains. The view is phantastic. The road goes straight to Bolivias highest peak, the Nevado Sajama. Behind the mountain, the village of Sajama will be my goal for today. First I have to climb to a watershed that is the extension of the Nevado Sajama. The ascent is not steep but very long. With the late afternoon Altiplano windforce 8 or 9 this is hard work again.

After reaching the watershed a descent of a few kilometers brings me in a wide depression between high mountains. Right behind me lies the mountain range that is the barrier that divides me from Chile. To the right a wide valley lies between the highest mountains of Chile: The Nevado Sajama right of the valley, the twin volcanoes left of the valley. In between is the village of Sajama. To reach the place, there is only one obstacle, a road of twelve kilometer of loose sand. Sajama itself has a respectable elevation of 4.400 m.

I cannot cycle faster than 6 to 8 kilometer per hour. Sometimes my bicycle comes to a halt in the deep sands. This is incredibly hard work. This would have been, even if I had not been hungry or if I had not cycled hundred kilometers on high altitude already. The gain is in the end worth the effort. Between the Nevado Sajama and the twin Volcanoes Pomerape and Parinacota, Sajama is probably one of the most scenically beautiful places in the world. The village itself has an extraordinarly beautiful old church. The atmosphere of the place is grandiose, the mountains, the plains, the church, the smiling people of the village. In the restaurant of the village a few tourists gather. We sit at one table. Among the tourists are the twins Frank and Gary, really good lads. We have a great time in a great place.

Day 44: Sajama - Putre (Chile) 105 km

The trail back to the road to Chile is a tiring start of the day but the landscape is so beautiful I do not really feel the effort. Back on the track, I cross the depression where the last ascent begins. It is a cloudy day. Snow is falling lightly as I am trying to get rhythm. The ascent is not too long. More than an hour of climbing takes me to the pass. I have made it. I have succeeded in leaving Bolivia! I feel relieved and happy. From here it is 200 kilometer straight down to the Pacific harbor of Arica. Chile, here I come!

Read about my cycling adventures in the Chilean Altiplano and the Atacama desert on the next page.