Oops, gotta buy a new windscreen.

Coroico to km70.

There are two ways out of Coroico, one was to backtrack the 9km of cobblestone, the other was to take the unkown road the other way out of town to the highway. We decided the unkown road was better than backtracking, so we head off down the other cobblestone road. This route turned out to be a little less travelled and we soon found ourselves on a dirt track with water crossings, and then some more cobblestone covered with foliage that had been cut along the “ditches” and just thrown across the road. This was all manageable until my front tire did not quite make it over a slick tree trunk and down I go. I managed to slam the wind shield into the bank hard enough to break it in four pieces. No injuries and plastic can be replaced easily.

A little wet.

My leg is trapped under the bike, so I might as well pose for a picture.

Monkey see monkey do, so shortly thereafter Brenda also tipped over in the mud. No broken bike parts or people parts this time.

So finally, about about 2 hours after we started we made it to the highway. There was a small gas station at the highway and the attendant only charged us a small mark up, and after duct taping my windshield back together we were ready to take on the mountain pass again.

The fuel in Bolivia is subsidized and the local price is $3.74Bs/liter (0.55Cdn/liter), we usually get charged the posted international rate of $8.95Bs($1.30Cdn/liter). So far only twice we have paid the local price and once we got charged $9.11Bs.

The 160km paved route would take us back to La Paz then it would be another 350km South/East to Cochabamba, this of course meant dealing with La Paz traffic again, once we shook off the hypothermia from crossing the mountain pass. It had snowed overnight and the snowline was too close to the highway for comfort. Good thing we are tough Canadians and are used to riding in such weather, the local people didn’t look so happy.

This time in La Paz we had a better route picked and the added element of rain did not hamper our progress through the city. By the time we made it through the city we were in need of gas once again, this is where we were charged the $9.11Bs mentioned above. No big deal in the overall picture, and we were happy to have full tanks of gas and be moving again. The weather was not lifting and the temperature seemed to be dropping so by km70 South of La Paz we pulled into the unusually nice hotel/restaurant/store and called it quits for the day. Cold, wet, tired and hungry, we had a nice HOT shower and by the time we made it over to the restaurant the sun had come out and the rain stopped. It was like a totally different day.

At first we could not figure out why this monster of a hotel was in the middle of nowhere, then we seen a local map and there are hot springs just 30km from here. This explains a few things, like why the President of Bolivia has stayed here along with other local celebrities.

The food was very good and room cozy, some central heat would have been nice. The concrete and tile floor in our room was like walking on ice barefoot. Oh the hardships we have to endure.