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The bus weaved through the streets of La Paz, then climbed up and out of the canyon.  We passed through the city of El Alto, which is the poor suburb of La Paz located on the altiplano above the city.  We passed north through El Alto, and the road opened into the vast and desolate altiplano.  The dryness of the landscape was astonishing - not a tree or bush was seen.  There were numerous mountains looming to our right - including some of the highlight climbs of the Bolivian Andes - Huayna Potosi, Condoriri, etc.  We stared at the huge glaciers that tumbled down to base of the altiplano.

Within 90 minutes we had reached an inlet of the lake.  There was no road around the inlet, and no bridge to cross the water.  To our astonishment, the bus parked at the edge of the inlet, and everyone got off the bus.  We were loaded into a series of small motorboats - not much larger than a typical water-ski boat.  Our bus was then loaded onto a small flat barge just big enough to carry the bus. The rear end of the barge sagged significantly into the water as it crossed the channel with the bus.  We cruised across the inlet in the small boats within minutes, not far from the bus.  Upon reaching the opposite bank we got off the boat and back into the bus.  The bus continued for another 30 minutes, and arrived on time in Copacabana on the edge of the lake.

Our intention was to find a boat out to Isla del Sol, a small island in the middle of the lake.  We intended to hike around and spend the night on the island.  We found that the next boat was not leaving for over an hour, so we wandered through the town to find lunch.  We stopped in a beach-side restaurant that served us very good trout.  After lunch we boarded the ferry and headed out into the lake.

It was a clear day, and the sun was strong on the water.  We spent the majority of the ninety minute ride on the front of the boat, watching the coast pass by and the islands approach.  We landed on Isla Del Sol in the mid-afternoon.  The island consists of a single mountain, with several small villages located on the top.  We climbed a set of Inca stairs up to the village, where we planned to find a hostel for the night.  After thirty minutes of heavy breathing and switchbacks, we arrived in the small village.  We wandered to a hostel that overlooked the edge of the island, and got a room with three single beds.  The room was very basic, but clean.  No frills on Isla Del Sol.

Our original plan was to spend the day hiking around the island, to see various Inca sites and ruins.  We were all super-tired from the altitude, and did not have much energy to spare.  We decided to merely wander about the the village, and up onto the very top of the island.  The views were spectacular, as we could see far into both Peru and Bolivia.  The mountains on the horizon looked ominous, as we could now see at least a dozen major peaks.

We returned to the hotel at sunset, for another dinner of trout and rice.  It was excellent.  After dark we returned to our room, where we hung out for a bit before going to sleep.  We went to sleep tired from our long day - despite the minimal exercise, we were still tired from the altitude.

That night a strong storm blew across the lake, and for a while I thought that our two small windows would not hold the wind gusts.  The storm, combined with the altitude, made for a difficult night's sleep.
 

Other tourists were waiting at the boat dock, and we expected a boat to arrive anytime within the next hour.  Eventually a small boat pulled up to the dock, and dropped off a few dozen tourists.  We boarded and headed back to Copacabana.  The skies were a bit overcast, and it was a chilly ride back.  We met several Scottish girls on the boat, one who wore only shorts and a small t-shirt despite the cold.  She did not seem to mind.

We landed back in Copacabana and headed to the local bus station.  We caught a bus to La Paz, and returned along the route we had taken the day before.  We repeated the humorous boat crossing of the inlet, and returned to the confines of El Auto just outside of La Paz.  I jumped off the bus early in El Auto, only a mile from the airport.  I planned to greet Cecilia as she arrived from Cochabamba, while Scott and Andy headed back to check in to the hotel.

The airport elevation is 14,200 feet, and I really felt the difference as I walked the long mile to get there.  Once at the airport I sat and rested for an hour until her flight arrived.  I seemed to be acclimatizing very well.

Cecilia arrived on time, and we caught a taxi back to our La Paz hotel.  We had dinner in the restaurant, and prepared for our departure the following day.

The four of us piled into a taxi and headed up to La Cumbre - the highest point on the road between Coroico and La Paz.  There was a religious statue (of Mary) that marked the high point along the road.  The taxi labored during the forty-five minute ride up to the pass, and barely was able to haul us for the final few miles.  The city dropped away below us, and we ascended into a featureless, dry, gray, sandy terrain.  The driver pulled into a gravel area at a seemingly random point alongside the road, and declared that we had arrived.  We saw the statue over a dirt rise a bit further off the road, and we realized that he was not kidding.

It was difficult just unloading the backpacks from the taxi at 15,500 feet.  We paid the driver, and he left us alone in the moon-like terrain.  We made a few final adjustments to our packs, and then debated where the hike actually started.  There were several dirt tracks heading in the right direction, but no markers or signs.  We assumed that they all eventually went to the same point, and started along the track furthest to the right.  We climbed more in elevation for the first fifteen minutes, as we moved towards a pass ahead of us.  We knew that the pass went over 16,400 feet before beginning the descent into the jungle.  As we climbed what appeared to be the final incline of pass, we heard a rumble from the other side.  A sheepdog came running from over the top of the pass, right in front of us.  We watched as the dog passed us without even turning his head, intent on running down the trail.  Seconds later a huge herd of llamas emerged only feet in front of us, thundering down the trail.  We scrambled to one side, giving way for the running herd.  The total herd held approximately 50 llamas, and was escorted by another few dogs on each side.  At the rear of the herd was a woman, who also ran to keep up with the fast pace of the herd.  The llama's white and brown coloring was a stark contrast to the dirty gray landscape beyond.

We regrouped after the herd disappeared over another rise, and continued our ascent over the pass.  Cecilia's pace really slowed, as she labored to acclimate to the altitude.  Cecilia had spent only one night in La Paz (versus three for Scott, Andy, and I), and she was feeling it now.  We reached the top of the pass and sat down briefly to rest.  This was the highest that any of us had ever been - Andy and I walked to the top of a nearby rise, so that we could claim an even higher elevation for our records.

Once over the pass a huge valley stretched out thousands of feet below us.  The trail was easy to follow as it snaked eternally down in the increasingly greener terrain.  The valley eventually turned to the right after several miles, and disappeared as it descended even further.  Cecilia was now feeling even worse at the top of the pass, and was having trouble walking and getting her bearings.  We decided to descend as quickly as possible, before her state got any worse.  We switchbacked several thousand feet down the rocky pass, and hit the valley floor after an hour and at least three thousand feet.  Cecilia began to recover as we reached the thicker air.  We stopped at an Inca ruins at the bottom of the switchbacks.  According to the Lonely Planet it had been a wayside travel stop before people climbed up and over the final pass to La Paz.

It has started to rain at the top of the pass, and the rain continued as we walked though the wide valley.  The gray tree-less landscape had now changed to low lying tundra and moss, but still no trees. We also started  seeing stretches of the famous stone paved road that the Inca's had laid 500 years ago.   After another hour we arrived in a small village, consisting of about ten clay brick buildings.  We stopped to have lunch under the cover of the entrance to the town school, where several other locals were already sitting and drinking soup.  We dried our clothes a bit, rested, and ate.

After lunch we continued to descend in similar fashion.  The tundra turned into trees, which then turned into temperate jungle.  By mid-afternoon we had reached what I would consider jungle.  We hiked alongside a raging river, and saw many waterfalls of other rivers descending to join the main river.  Despite the increasingly thick growth around us the trail remained paved and clear.  The meticulously arranged stones had survived centuries of this climate - we were amazed.  In the late afternoon we arrived at the village where we intended to camp for the night.  The village consisted of what appeared to be one family living in two clay-grass huts.  There were already a handful of hikers camped on the only cleared grassy area, and we did not want to over-crowd their site.  There was another grassy area on an island in the middle of the river.  At first we discarded it as being too dangerous with the raging waters, but then decided that it was our only option, and it looked stable enough to survive at least a mild flood of the river.  We setup our two tents on the island, as a few children sat and watched and gave advice.  We made a fire and cooked dinner as darkness fell.  We were exhausted from the long day of rain, altitude, and switchbacks, and we were asleep not long after dusk.
 

Above the high  pass at 17,000 ft (5150 m)	Hike started with a whiteout
Altitude Headache?	Paved road by the Incas

Our destination was the home of a Japanese man who was known to have a huge garden cleared on a hilltop in the jungle where he allowed hikers to tent overnight.  The man did not charge for the camping, but insisted that everyone sign his book with their name and origin.  We were still hours away from our destination, and we started off after lunch with some uncertainty of whether we would actually make it there that night.  According to the map it would take us between 18-21 total miles to reach it today.  We hiked and hiked through more valleys, and diverted from the main valley into another valley that was just as large.  As the afternoon grew late we were all exhausted but intent on making it to the Japanese garden.  As the sun was setting we reached the home, and immediately recognized the tents of other campers setup in a field behind his house.  Beyond the field the valley dropped off several thousand feet - we could see the humps of at least a dozen other valleys reaching as far as we could see.

We signed the log book and quickly made camp in the grass pasture behind his house.  We chatted a bit with several other hikers.  Two women from the peace corps had tried to make the same mileage as us the day before, but had not reached the Japanese camp.  They has pitched their tent in the middle of the trail for the night, with no other option.

Everyone was exhausted and rested while I made a quick dinner and a small fire.  We ate dinner in Scott and Andy's tent, and then quickly retired for the night.  A few hours into the night I heard the first crack of thunder, as a storm had rolled into the valley.  The thunder increased until there were several strikes per minute, some seemingly just outside the tent.  I was definitely scared that we would get struck by lightening in the open field, and did not sleep for the two hour period during the worst of the storm.  Eventually the storm passed and we slept the rest of the night to the noise of steady rain on the tent.
 

Descending into the clouds	Everything becomes greener
Outside the Japanese garden	Great view from the Japanese garden

To get from Coroico to La Paz we had no choice but to go use a road that is called the "Road of Death".  It is dubbed the most dangerous road in the world, with the highest the number of accidents per traveler.  The dirt road climbs more than ten thousand feet back up to La Paz, skirting the wall of the giant valley the entire way, and is only wide enough for one vehicle.  The traffic from La Paz to Coroico is allowed to descend in the morning, and the traffic from La Paz to Coroico is allowed to go up in the afternoon.  This is the theoretical plan.  However during our trip there were many cars going the wrong way - and the manuevering required for opposing vehicles to pass each other was quite frightening.  Most of the time the several thousand foot drop on the right side of the road was hidden in clouds, which gave a false sense of safety.  The highlight of the trip was when the bus passed under a huge waterfall - the road had been built right beneath the tumbling water, and vehicles had no choice but to drive through it.  We arrived in La Paz safely after three hours of white knuckles on the edge of our seats.
 

Coroico Plaza Principal

Road of Death (Coroico to La Paz)

We arrived back in La Paz just in time for New Year's eve, which we spent having beers on the street in center-city with many other teenagers and adolescents.  On New Year's day we hired a private taxi-van to take us up to Chalkataya, the highest altitude ski resort in the world at 17,400 feet.  Chalkataya is located above the altiplano just outside La Paz, and consists of one T-bar lift and one run.  The road to the resort turned into ice around 16,000 feet, and the taxi-van driver refused to continue any higher.  After some debate we donned our jackets and staggered up the rest of the way through the ice and snow.  The main chalet-hut of the resort was deserted when we arrived.  Evidently you must bring your own petrol to run the one lift!

We returned to La Paz and spent one last night in the hotel.  The following day we caught our flight back to Houston, and welcomed our arrival back to sea-level!

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