Copacabana
In Kasani we have already crossed the border from Peru into Bolivia. The formalities were done quickly, but we were only given a 30-day permit to stay in our host country, Bolivia. The traffic has dwindled to a few vehicles of uncertain origin and age. Another 10 kilometres to the Bolivian Copacabana (not to be confused with the one in Brazil) lie ahead of us.

Copacabana, a town geared to tourism, lies at 3,800 m above sea level and has 20,000 inhabitants. This town was once an important cultural centre, and today, together with the Isla del Sol, it is an attractive destination for tourists and pilgrims. The biggest attraction is a boat trip to the Isla del Sol or the Isla de la Luna on Lake Titicaca. In a slow, heavy wooden boat with 30 other passengers, we reach the Island of the Sun, 20 kilometres away, after 3 hours (!). This island is said to be the birthplace of Inca culture, so here too there are a few terraced slopes and ruins. The 3-hour walk along the island's high ridge to the boat landing gives us one more impressive view over Lake Titicaca.

The road on towards La Paz is a scenic route at 4,300 m above sea level, with one sensational view after another of the snow-capped mountains over 6,000 metres high. This stretch is one of the most beautiful in the Andes. A narrow strait of 800 metres at Tiquina has to be crossed by ferry. Between San Pedro de Tiquina and San Pablo de Tiquina, wooden ferries with undersized outboard motors go back and forth. We have the "luck" of being taken across together with a tilting coach. This adventurous crossing cost us 10 bolivianos (CHF 1.50).

The remaining 110 kilometres to La Paz, with a pass at 4,250 metres, keep offering us impressive views of the Cordillera Real. On the way, at Huatajata, we come across the highest yacht club in the world and lots of restaurants offering "trucha" (trout) in every possible variation. What stands out is the local "architecture", which may well be the work of the one and only village architect.

Across a wide altiplano (40 km) we head dead straight towards La Paz. We notice the first signs of Bolivia's lively capital as we ride through "El Alto", the poor upper city, 8 kilometres long. This is also where the airport is, which at 4,082 m above sea level is one of the highest in the world.

La Paz
We have to cross a tangle of minibuses, wheelbarrows and hurried pedestrians before we can make out the houses of La Paz. On the 12-kilometre city motorway, which winds down into the valley basin like a worm, we find our way into the centre of this metropolis of a million people. As in most big cities in South America, looking for somewhere to stay in the evening traffic becomes a nerve-racking test of patience.

A stroll around the city the next day shows us a hectic, noisy business city with a strong Indigenous character. Remarkably little tourism, lots of fast-food corners along the main street, and again and again steep side streets and stairways leading up to the next parallel street.

We explore:

The "Witches' Market", where herbs are sold against evil spirits and illnesses, and for happiness and a long life.

The market, where you can buy everything from textiles, sausages and meat and vegetables to stolen goods.

The most beautiful car-free cobbled street in La Paz, Calle Jaén, with its old 18th-century house fronts.

The "Plaza Murillo", where the freedom fighter Murillo was hanged by the royalists in 1810, the parliament building, and the presidential palace, "heavily guarded" by the palace guard.

Almost everything your heart desires is traded here. There is pushing and shoving, you come across quarrelling dogs, and buses packed to bursting squeeze through the streets, honking.

Carretera de la Muerte
What interests us most, though, is the "Carretera de la Muerte". An experience of a special kind! We are going to ride the most dangerous road in the world, also called the "Death Road", on downhill bikes. The company "Madness" offers the tour for a maximum of seven riders with a professional guide. At 07:00 in the morning the participants are kitted out with full-face helmets, reflective vests, gloves, goggles, nylon trousers and a full-suspension Rocky Mountain downhill bike. With all the bikes on the roof, a support vehicle takes us up to the pass "La Cumbre" (4,655 m above sea level) in the Cordillera Real, where we start.

Over a distance of 64 kilometres we drop 3,345 metres down to Yolosa, which lies at 1,295 m above sea level. This spectacular downhill takes us through banks of fog, waterfalls and subtropical jungle and along sheer rock faces. On this unsecured gravel track, 4 - 6 metres wide, traffic keeps to the left side of the road, both uphill and downhill, as an exception. During this 4-hour ride we are supplied with snacks and drinks from the support vehicle. Before the transport back to La Paz there is a chance to shower, a swimming pool, a buffet lunch, and a Madness T-shirt as a certificate. After this perfectly organised tour, led with the greatest possible safety, we reach our hotel at 19:00.

An experience we can highly recommend under "Downhill Madness".

Route info: La Paz – Uyuni – Potosí
From La Paz via Oruro to Huari, the 350 kilometres of paved road could be ridden without much effort. From Huari onwards, however, the road conditions are disastrous. The remaining 180-kilometre stretch, in an extremely remote area, runs through a vast desert. A sandpit as far as the eye can see! The wheel tracks are partly filled with fine sandy dust. Where they aren't, the corrugated surface provides variety, like being in a cocktail shaker. The road crosses dry and water-filled fords several times, forcing even motor vehicles down to walking pace. The terrain has changed too. Steep descents and equally steep climbs make progress even harder.

To say it straight away: from Uyuni to Potosí the same miserable conditions currently apply. With few exceptions, the 210-kilometre sandy track winds through an "inhospitable" region, with 2 passes (4,200 m above sea level) thrown in. There are few places to buy supplies, and water is correspondingly hard to come by! Along the whole route, heavy construction machinery is currently widening the road. Here and there, rocky obstacles have to be blasted away and laboriously carted off. The Uyuni – Potosí stretch is supposed to be paved by the end of 2010.

Because of the extremely bad road conditions, we decide to cover the 2 sections in a "comfortable" coach. From La Paz to Uyuni, we board the "first-class coach" at 22:00, to reach Uyuni at 08:00 the next morning. A hot meal is served, we watch the film "Indiana Jones" to the end, and the bumpy track begins. The passengers are asked to move all sensitive items under their seats. Pillows against the "shaking" and blankets against the cold (down to -10 degrees is possible) are handed out. Even the comfortable reclining seat can't rock us to sleep. The night becomes a 10-hour ordeal through dark, unlit desert to Uyuni.

Salar de Uyuni and the lagoon route
As soon as we arrive in Uyuni, we go into one of the many "tour offices" to book a 3-day classic tour by 4x4 jeep. Organised trips around Uyuni, led by the driver, are on offer. The price of 140 USD per person includes a Toyota 4WD jeep, food, simple accommodation and (in our case) excellent guiding by the driver. Everything is already loaded onto the roof of the jeep, covered with a tarpaulin (against the dust) and strapped down. We, 4 other guests and the driver set off on the 800-kilometre adventure at 10:30.

We would rather tell the story of our experiences with photos than with text. Even so, below we try to pass on these unique natural scenes in a few key words.

Day 1
The Cementerio de Trenes (train cemetery)

Table salt production in Colchani (houses made of salt blocks)

The Salar de Uyuni: at 2,000 km², the largest salt flat in the world. The salt crust is up to 28 m thick. 60% of the world's salt needs. Mineral salt was washed down from the surrounding mountains over more than 1,000 years. Impassable during the rainy season from November – April.

A unique salt hotel, where you sleep on llama skins

Incahuasi (Isla Pescado), 100 kilometres from Uyuni. Cacti up to 1,200 years old, growing 8 – 12 metres high.

Dinner and a night in San Juan: 400 inhabitants and 2 football pitches. Simple accommodation (no heating, but a hot shower).

Day 2
The active and dangerous Ollagüe volcano (5,980 m above sea level). Severe earthquakes on the Chilean side.

4 small lagoons and wild vicuñas (the domesticated ones wear ribbons in their ears)

The Siloli desert with the Árbol de Piedra (stone trees). Snow cover of up to 10 cm is possible in June. Sand and dust everywhere, even in the jeep.

Laguna Cañapa, rich in minerals and still partly covered by a sheet of ice from the night.

Laguna Colorada (4,274 m above sea level), a 60 km² lake whose colour changes depending on the wind and the sunlight. The lagoon consists of fresh water, minerals, algae and white islands of borax. 3 different kinds of flamingo breed here. At night the thermometer drops as low as -20 degrees.

Dinner and a night in a simple dormitory

Day 3
Getting up at 05:00 at -20 degrees! It's freezing cold (there's no heating or hot water here)

Sol de Mañana, a geyser basin at 4,850 m above sea level, and the Termas de Chalviri with water at 30 degrees (you can bathe).

Breakfast at 08:00, back at the Laguna Colorada.

The Salvador Dalí desert, with volcanic rocks thrown out by an eruption. Surreal!

The Laguna Verde at the foot of the Licancabur and Juriques volcanoes, 17 km² in size and at 4,850 m above sea level, with high levels of lead, calcium and sulphur. No life is possible here.

The Salar de Chiguana (borax mining)

The Laguna Blanca (white lagoon)

The Chilean border (a fellow traveller is dropped off and takes a bus to San Pedro de Atacama)

The active Uturuncu volcano (6,010 m above sea level). A road goes up to 4,000 metres, and you can hike to the crater lake at 6,000 metres.

Lunch, brought along in the jeep and prepared on the spot by the driver.

Dancing rocks

From afar, the 5th-largest silver mine in the world, San Cristóbal, can be seen.

Excellently led and without a single breakdown, the tour ended at 19:00 in front of our accommodation, the Hostal Tonito. The natural variety of south-western Bolivia thrilled us. An experience we could never have imagined in South America.

Note:
The accommodation is very "basic" and run by locals. Electricity and light from a generator are only available after dark. Dormitories and shared bathrooms. Dinner and breakfast depend on the tour operator and on what the driver has been given to bring. And…. as soon as the last rays of sun disappear below the horizon, it gets bitterly cold. Even inside the accommodation, the thermometer drops to a bitter -20 degrees because of single glazing and gaps. A good sleeping bag is priceless. And….. don't forget, you are always between 4,000 – 5,000 metres above sea level, so breathing can become laboured at the slightest effort (lack of acclimatisation). It can get quite dusty inside the vehicle. You have to reckon with about 20 hours of driving for 800 kilometres, and you need a good backside.

Potosí
Because of the miserable road to Potosí (already described above), we decide on another "transfer". In a packed 48-seat regional bus, we leave the unpaved, dusty streets of Uyuni.

This day's journey of 200 kilometres should only have taken 6 hours (!). Shortly after leaving at 10:00 there is an unplanned stop. A flat tyre! A rear wheel is losing pressure. No fuss: the passengers watch in amazement as the 2 "mechanics" who travel with the driver do the repair. During a general check of the tyres, they find that the tread on a front wheel is coming away and the valve seems to be leaking. So a 2nd wheel change is carried out. After an hour the journey can continue, to our astonishment without a single stop (5 hours), so the lost time can be made up. We leave it to your imagination how you go to the toilet on a moving bus. At 18:00, by which time we no longer knew which "cheek" to sit on, we reach the city of Potosí, with 170,000 inhabitants.

At 4,067 m above sea level, this city is the highest in the world. Thanks to its mining (underground mines), in the 16th century Potosí was the richest city in the world, bigger and more important than Madrid, Paris or Rome, and once the treasury of the Americas. To this day, almost 50,000 tonnes of silver have been taken out of the "Cerro Rico" mountain. The veins have since been exhausted, and now mainly tin and zinc are mined. The inhuman working conditions (altitude, mercury poisoning, black lung, etc.) had claimed 8 million lives by the 18th century! Currently the world market price of the minerals is at a record low, and hardly anything about the situation has changed to this day.

It's hard to imagine that such exploitation of human labour still exists today. To get 1 kilogram of ore, many tonnes of rock first have to be mined. According to the information we were given, the Potosí ores are exported, not processed into silver bars as they once were in 1850. All that remains of the city's former wealth are 36 churches (some of them in ruins). The historic centre was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Silver mining once gave this city great importance through the making and minting of coins and medals. A visit to the museum "Casa Real de la Moneda" gives an interesting insight into the art of coin making.

Many agencies offer guided tours of a mine (10 USD). This attraction is considered the highlight of a stay in Potosí. As a group of 2 with an English-speaking guide, we are picked up to collect overalls, boots, helmets and headlamps. In our mining gear we buy presents at the "Calvario miners' market" to hand out to the workers on site. For 35 bolivianos (5 USD) we get a bag of coca leaves, 2 dl of 96% sugar cane alcohol, cigarettes, mineral water, banana concentrate and dynamite for the road. A minibus takes us to a viewpoint overlooking the city and the mining area. Then comes a dynamite-nitroglycerine blast with a fuse, demonstrated by a tour guide.

On the way to the mine entrance we meet women smashing rocks by hand and sorting them by quality. A 79-year-old woman (photo) works 16 hours a week and, depending on the yield, gets 500 bolivianos (70 USD) a month, and a handful of coca leaves from us.

A "miner's" wife, who is usually already a widow, works and sorts 7 tonnes of rock in 3 months. They are all "trapped" by the family tradition of having to work as miners. Mine tunnels are passed down over generations. Around Potosí there are still 180 active mines, currently worked by 5,000 miners; 3 years ago there were still 8,000. Because the mineral content is poor today, family earnings are poor too. 12-year-old children are made to work outside the mines, go to school at night, and earn 30 bolivianos a day. At 14-15 the hard work begins inside the tunnels, as labourers earning 50 bolivianos a day. Promotion to machine operator, where one is needed in that tunnel, brings in 140 bolivianos a day. As a mine owner (who pays rent to the state), the miner works at the dangerous rock face and, depending on the quality of the ore, earns 200 - 300 bolivianos a day.

A miner's life expectancy is 40 – 50 years. The cause of death is usually asbestosis or black lung, collapse from excessive alcohol and pill consumption, or premature ageing. The working conditions are extremely hard. All the workers, women and men, chew coca leaves non-stop, taking them from the wad they keep in their cheeks. Coca leaves suppress hunger and keep exhaustion and pain at bay. For a mine to be profitable, 1 tonne a day has to be dug out by hand, or 20 tonnes with the help of machines. Profitability depends on the quality of the mineral content. A working day lasts 8 hours, with no food and no breaks. Depending on the job, the work consists of pushing carts weighing 1 tonne, driving blast holes into the rock with a hammer and chisel, moving and sorting chunks of rock, and…. chewing coca leaves all day.

By now we have handed out our presents, left the mine and said goodbye with a "Gracias por la visita". We will remember the faces of these workers for a long time.

Potosí to Puerto Suárez
Delighted by the fully paved main road, we set off from Potosí to Sucre. The road runs through a fertile valley, and it gets noticeably warmer with every kilometre. As we have come to expect, there are a few hills in between. The first 35 kilometres after Potosí are given to us free, as a fast descent. But over the whole 160-kilometre route there are 2,000 metres of climbing in total, which should not be underestimated. The last part in particular takes it out of us. You think: yes, there's our destination up ahead, but no, there's one last hard climb to Sucre.

Sucre, the capital of Bolivia but not the seat of government (that is in La Paz), looks very well kept, and we feel at home straight away. Sucre (just under 300,000 inhabitants) is celebrating its 200th birthday this year, and the 50th anniversary of its motor race. Yes! An annual race like the one in Monaco, where the track runs right through the streets of the old town. No side street is closed off, there are no barriers, and the spectators follow the action from the pavement. When a "racing car" approaches at up to 170 km/h, the police blow their whistles so people get off the road. The most dangerous bends around the "Plaza 25 de Mayo" are made safer with sandbags filled by women. To our amazement, a few "old bangers" don't make it round the corners and thunder straight into the sandbags. Incredibly dangerous! Surely this only happens here in Bolivia, but apparently there has never been a serious accident. Most of the racing cars look to us as if they have been cobbled together from surplus car parts and sent onto the track without silencers.

Because of the race, all the surrounding roads are closed, so we couldn't visit the famous Sunday market in Tarabuco. This market, 65 kilometres from Sucre, is said to be one of the most beautiful in Bolivia. The city of Sucre is named after "General José de Sucre", who began the fight for independence here in 1809, hence the 200th anniversary. In 1992 Sucre was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Alexandre's toothache forces us to stay for several days. The tooth, already badly treated in Cusco, is causing big problems again, so a crown had to be made. Successfully, as it turns out! We spend the time between the "dentista" and strolling around town at the "Hostal de Su Merced" www.desumerced.com , an address we highly recommend. A hotel in the middle of the city, in a quiet spot, with a friendly atmosphere and a lovely breakfast buffet. The owner invites us to the Espectáculo Origen, a 2-hour show of Bolivian Indigenous dances and traditional costumes. At first we were a little sceptical about shows like this. We had already seen something similar, not very imaginative, in Cusco. But we really enjoyed this attraction here in Sucre.

With our teeth back in working order, we leave Sucre heading for Santa Cruz. A tough 600-kilometre stretch lies ahead of us. Bolivia showing cyclists its most extreme side. After Sucre, first 300 metres of hard climbing, followed by countless bends downhill to about 2,000 m above sea level. At Puente Arce, 97 kilometres beyond Sucre, the fun stops! The finest asphalt turns into a stony, dusty mountain road. The remaining 67 kilometres to Aiquile are exhausting! In places we push our narrow tyres (excellent on asphalt) through sand and dust. The route runs through bleak, dry mountains, with some steep climbs and bends. As a precaution, in the last village after Puente Arce we filled our 5 bottles and the 2 water bags (20 litres), so we have enough to drink. In Aiquile, a rather inhospitable place where the north-south and east-west roads cross, we find somewhere to stay with a shower. A "caliente" (hot) shower here means cold water pushed through an electric instantaneous shower head. With a lot of delicate fiddling you find the right flow rate, so that you get the feeling of warm water. They aren't too fussy about electrical installations here. If the earth wire isn't connected properly, your caliente shower comes with a tingling feeling.

There are still 450 kilometres to Santa Cruz. The information from locals about the state of the road ranges from "todo plano" (all flat) and "todo asfalto" (all paved) to "empedrado" (stone-paved). The well-meant motto is: better to give wrong information than none at all. That's why route descriptions are often useless to us. Empedrado roads are made of rough fieldstones joined together with cement to form a surface. Highways like this are one of the worst things there are for bicycles, cyclists and panniers! We feel the vibrations through the chattering of our upper and lower jaws, so speeds of more than 5 km/h are unthinkable.

Supposedly the whole stage from Aiquile to Epizana (90 kilometres) is paved like this. That is why, after 8 kilometres, we leave the "empedrado experience" and want to ride across the mountains to the highland road (near San Isidro), to carry on from there to Santa Cruz. The highland route Cochabamba – Santa Cruz is generally considered more varied than the newly built, less spectacular lowland route over the Sacaba pass at 3,660 m above sea level. At first still enthusiastic about our short cut, we soon lose the desire to push our bikes through the sand and dust yet again. We don't want to turn back to the empedrado route. At the dusty roadside we wait for a lift that meets our "requirements".

In fact the road from Aiquile to San Isidro is used by very few vehicles, but... as if we had ordered it, a powerful lorry comes towards us. It's easy to see it's a ride: several Indigenous people's hats are already poking up over the sides of the trailer. Load everything on! Great: the 70-boliviano ticket (10 USD) for over 400 kilometres to Santa Cruz is sorted. We make ourselves comfortable on about 400 bags of cement and chat with the others, who don't quite understand all our gear. They all have sacks of onions, potatoes or vegetables with them, bought at the market in Sucre. The long-distance drivers earn a welcome extra income from carrying passengers like this. People hop on and off along the way with "stop on request". Babies, children and the elderly, everyone can benefit from this cheap way of travelling. The men stand stiffly at the sides, the women lie in woollen blankets sleeping or breastfeeding their babies, and the children play on the loading platform.

The heavy load and the wide tyres of the 5-axle vehicle push the fine sand, several centimetres deep, out of the wheel tracks. We marvel at the barren, mountainous, dry landscape and are relieved to have chosen this way of getting around. With passengers getting on and off, there are regular chances to stretch our legs, go to the toilet behind a bush or visit a kiosk by the road. By now we have already spent 12 hours on the loading platform, and at 22:00 we reach Mataral. Because it starts to rain, the delicate cargo (cement bags and passengers) is covered and protected with a tarpaulin. The driver says goodbye and disappears into the bunk in his cab for the next 7 hours. An unusual situation for us. Nobody can get in, nobody can get out. For the locals it's no problem; they lie snoring in the blankets they brought along. On our "Therm-a-Rest" mats, covered with a dusty lorry tarpaulin, we try to keep the cold at bay.

5 o'clock! Engine noise, the smell of diesel and squeaking wheels: our journey continues. The last of the biscuits and a bottle of Coca-Cola calm our rumbling stomachs for now. Rain all night long has turned the dust and fine sand on the road into a sticky mass. For the remaining 6 hours we have to sit tight on cement bags without seeing anything of what's going on, and after a total of 28 hours we reach the outskirts of Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz (2,100,000 inhabitants) lies at 420 m above sea level in the lowlands of Bolivia. A tropical climate lets the vegetation flourish right into the city centre. During the winter (the dry season) from May to August it gets quite cool at night, but it stays frost-free. With the building of the road to Cochabamba, Santa Cruz became more and more important, and today it is Bolivia's most important city after La Paz. Soya and maize growing and cattle farming are practised intensively, making Santa Cruz Bolivia's economic capital. Santa Cruz also has a reputation as the hub of the cocaine trade and is therefore also called the country's drug capital. For us this big city had nothing out of the ordinary to offer. The townscape and the outskirts are often full of rubbish, and the houses look neglected to us. So after 2 days it's easy for us to head for the border with Paraguay soon.

Already while planning the trip, we realised that with bicycles it would be easier to enter Bolivia from Peru than to leave it towards Paraguay. The "Ruta Trans-Chaco" (Paraguay) runs from Sucre via Boyuibe (border control) to Mariscal Estigarribia. The road is unpaved and very muddy. By now the section from Espinola to Mariscal Estigarribia (100 kilometres) should have been completed. The 530 kilometres to Asunción are paved. The long sandy stretches are difficult, and there are hardly any places to stock up on food and water. As far as we know, the only option left is to reach Asunción by boat on the Río Paraguay.

The road from Santa Cruz to Puerto Suárez (660 kilometres) should by now be paved. The surroundings are pure wilderness, endless dust and sand, and there are few places to buy supplies. We take the chance to travel on the "Expreso Oriental" from Santa Cruz to Puerto Suárez (on the Brazilian border). For this adventurous night journey we pay 15 USD per person, 2 bicycle supplements of 4 USD, and an extra tip of 4 USD to have our gear treated with care. Departure 16:00, arrival at 08:00 the next morning. We are looking forward to the comfortable reclining seats, the food service and the films to while away the 14-hour train ride.

The train, pulled by a diesel locomotive, slowly leaves the safety of the station. We soon realise that the tracks and the railway bed could do with an overhaul. The carriages sway, and you can't miss the gaps between the rails. Are we on a roller coaster? You quickly get used to your new surroundings: the 2 films have finished, the lights are dimmed, and the train rattles on, swaying through the night. The heating in the air conditioning has broken down, and the longer we travel, the cooler it gets in our compartment. Once again we don't have the blankets we need. The locals are used to breakdowns like this and have brought their pillows and blankets as a precaution. Necessity is the mother of invention, so we help ourselves to the covers of unused seats and use them as "sleeping bags". Arriving on time in Puerto Suárez, we collect all our luggage and the bikes unharmed. The tip was worth it!

We decide on option 2 (the boat) and spend the rest of the day dealing with the border formalities for Paraguay. We take a taxi to the Bolivian border, 11 kilometres away, and have our exit stamp entered for the following day. A Brazilian driver takes us to the bus terminal in Corumbá, 7 kilometres away, where we get our entry stamp for Brazil. It all sounds very long-winded and complicated, but it's necessary if we want to cross the "green border" into Paraguay.

Nothing turns out the way you plan it! As we leave the terminal, we notice a map of Brazil stuck to the wall. Following the course of the Río Paraguay, which forms the border between Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay, we spot a Porto Esperança (Brazil) and a Puerto Esperanza (Paraguay). Very confusing! As everyone confirmed that the place in question was in Brazil, we spontaneously decided to head for Porto Esperança in Brazil.

And firstly, things turn out differently, and secondly, not the way you think.

More about that in the next travel report, from Paraguay.

After 670 kilometres we leave Bolivia with these memories:

Lots seen, lots experienced, and not much cycling

Crossing on a ferry with a tilting coach

The Carretera de la Muerte, a spectacular downhill from 4,465 m to 1,295 m above sea level

The train cemetery, the Salar de Uyuni and the salt hotel, Fish Island and the cacti

The Laguna Colorada, Verde, Blanca and Cañapa

Alpacas, vicuñas and flamingos

Geysers, hot springs, stone trees and dancing rocks

Sucre, the capital, reachable only by dirt roads

Road conditions mostly unsuitable for cyclists

Empedrado roads, surfaced with rough fieldstones

Potosí, the highest city in the world, at 4,100 metres

Miners, dynamite and coca leaves

The night train from Santa Cruz to Puerto Suárez

The coach journey La Paz – Uyuni – Potosí

28 hours on bags of cement

Dust, fine sand and dried-up riverbeds

Wild, barren landscapes with savanna, steppe and lush vegetation

Tropical, temperate and subpolar climates

Temperatures from -20 to +30 degrees

Biker info for the route

-	Active (11 days of riding)	550 kilometres
-	Transfer (bus, car, train)	1,900 kilometres
-	Total climbing	5,200 m
-	Average speed	18.3 km/h
-	Riding time in motion	30 hours