17th of April - Cochabamba to La Paz - another 380km hardcore
« Back to journal
Early in the morning we left Cochabamba. Well, all the way to La Paz is paved, except in some construction areas. In these areas we overtook left and right the "crawling" trucks and buses and the omnipresent minivans for public transportation...thousands of them on the road and in the cities we had to drive thru.
Right after Cochabamba one climbs the mountain(s) for hours. At every curve one thinks it cannot go higher but it does. Colder and colder, dirt left and right of the road; people in buses in front of us throwing their garbage out of the window, dogs living from the garbage on the road...the learning process in South America will take ages...Finally on 4.500m one passes the ridge in order to land on the altiplano on approx. 4.400m. People living up here in small villages under harsh conditions...freezing cold but everywhere fields built on terraces, all manual work up here or with the help of Lamas.
Darth Vader :-))...still below the pass and the altiplano.
Later only rocks and grasland all in a non-earth like grey color...
"Approach of landing" in Mega City La Paz. Horror.
La Paz, embedded in six thousanders mountains
Finally we reached Alto La Paz and my GPS sent us right thru a market area. "Driving" thru booths, vegetable, meat and fish stands, more stop than go, people over people, driving like in Jakarta.
It took us 3 hours from Alto La Paz down to the city center, Sagarnaga Road...boah.
Some relief before heading downtown...:-)
We arrived on Thursday evening, the day before Good Friday (why good??). Maybe that was exceptional bad for driving.
Celebration of Eastern in Bolivia is quite different from Europe. The Bolivians are very religious but they kept their own rites and traditions despite the adoption of the church which the Spanish brought. In Bolivia the Spanish did not slay so many indigenous people like in the rest of South America. Accordingly the indigenous part or life is always in the foreground.
Amazing how La Paz is built in between the eroding mountains
Artesanal everywhere
The witches' market...colorful. But what you can see hanging under the ceiling is reality: Dead Lama babys...So, it is not only the Chinese/ Japanese having weird ideas.
The Easter procession...these caps always remind me of the Ku-Klux-Klan, horrible
horror continous...
...why??
Due to the Easter procession the whole city came to a halt. Good.
First we tried to get a back tire from KTM (forget the "store" in La Paz; just the name is painted on the wall of a residential building), then from Suzuki and Yamaha. No one has...but all of them sell motorbikes. Häää?
In San Pedro, the repuesto and retailer market for auto and motorbikes, we found one shop who sold me a MT21 Rally Cross from Pirelli. Lucky we. Ying carried the tire on the back and we drove around for a LLanteria, someone who could change the tire. Here we found one (laying under the motorcycle), he did all with his hands for 6 Euro 50! I gave him a tip and Ying bought him a coke as well.
Meeting with Irene, Anders, Anis, and Valentina...Irene (on the left) is the best friend of Moira who is engaged with my cousin Philip in Florida. Anders her husband is from Sweden. Both (Irene and Anders) worked in Norway and moved 6 months ago to Bolivia, La Paz to build up a new future
Coincidentally we met in a German restaurant
This picture is for Jamile and Hans-Peter. Nice Cuban music in this bar.
« Back to journal
Early in the morning we left Cochabamba. Well, all the way to La Paz is paved, except in some construction areas. In these areas we overtook left and right the "crawling" trucks and buses and the omnipresent minivans for public transportation...thousands of them on the road and in the cities we had to drive thru.
Right after Cochabamba one climbs the mountain(s) for hours. At every curve one thinks it cannot go higher but it does. Colder and colder, dirt left and right of the road; people in buses in front of us throwing their garbage out of the window, dogs living from the garbage on the road...the learning process in South America will take ages...Finally on 4.500m one passes the ridge in order to land on the altiplano on approx. 4.400m. People living up here in small villages under harsh conditions...freezing cold but everywhere fields built on terraces, all manual work up here or with the help of Lamas.
Darth Vader :-))...still below the pass and the altiplano.
Later only rocks and grasland all in a non-earth like grey color...
"Approach of landing" in Mega City La Paz. Horror.
La Paz, embedded in six thousanders mountains
Finally we reached Alto La Paz and my GPS sent us right thru a market area. "Driving" thru booths, vegetable, meat and fish stands, more stop than go, people over people, driving like in Jakarta.
It took us 3 hours from Alto La Paz down to the city center, Sagarnaga Road...boah.
Some relief before heading downtown...:-)
We arrived on Thursday evening, the day before Good Friday (why good??). Maybe that was exceptional bad for driving.
Celebration of Eastern in Bolivia is quite different from Europe. The Bolivians are very religious but they kept their own rites and traditions despite the adoption of the church which the Spanish brought. In Bolivia the Spanish did not slay so many indigenous people like in the rest of South America. Accordingly the indigenous part or life is always in the foreground.
Amazing how La Paz is built in between the eroding mountains
Artesanal everywhere
The witches' market...colorful. But what you can see hanging under the ceiling is reality: Dead Lama babys...So, it is not only the Chinese/ Japanese having weird ideas.
The Easter procession...these caps always remind me of the Ku-Klux-Klan, horrible
horror continous...
...why??
Due to the Easter procession the whole city came to a halt. Good.
First we tried to get a back tire from KTM (forget the "store" in La Paz; just the name is painted on the wall of a residential building), then from Suzuki and Yamaha. No one has...but all of them sell motorbikes. Häää?
In San Pedro, the repuesto and retailer market for auto and motorbikes, we found one shop who sold me a MT21 Rally Cross from Pirelli. Lucky we. Ying carried the tire on the back and we drove around for a LLanteria, someone who could change the tire. Here we found one (laying under the motorcycle), he did all with his hands for 6 Euro 50! I gave him a tip and Ying bought him a coke as well.
Meeting with Irene, Anders, Anis, and Valentina...Irene (on the left) is the best friend of Moira who is engaged with my cousin Philip in Florida. Anders her husband is from Sweden. Both (Irene and Anders) worked in Norway and moved 6 months ago to Bolivia, La Paz to build up a new future
Coincidentally we met in a German restaurant
This picture is for Jamile and Hans-Peter. Nice Cuban music in this bar.
