Bolivia

Small towns welcome the odd motorcycle enthusiast

Traditional dress still rules amongst the woman... nice top hat!

It´s a long, long road with only the odd truck or passing vehicle

Ken keeps his eyes peeled for the unexpected

A storm brews as the road turns to gravel

Suzie handles every type of road, as does Ken, he loves this stuff

It is always the countries you don't hear about that surprise you the most. The crossing into Bolivia was the least painful yet. Down to our last soles on Peru, we gave our young guia the last of our money stash, saving just enough for the photo copies of the bike documents we would need upon our arrival in Bolivia. Ken runs to get the copies he needs only to find out this last 5 soles...are counterfeit!!! again!!! He frantically searches for that young guia and takes back the change we gave him for a tip, not the poor guys lucky day. Better luck next time.

The weather is great, not to hot. Clouds on the horizon but still a good temperature for riding. Bolivia is one of the highest countries in the world, most of the country lays between two ridges of the Andes, the AltoPlano. Mountains, plains, and salt flats all falling east into the jungle. The road is literally empty except for us and a few farmers on wagons. We both are very relaxed as we settle into the drive to La Paz, the capital city of Bolivia. As we reach the city limits we realize it was all too good to be true. Apparently, the country often is apart to demonstrations and today all the highways into the city are blocked by demonstrators, rocks, fires and people block the highway. Know one is coming or going into the city and neither are we! ( It should have been a clue when there was no other traffic on the road) We made our way through backstreets in neighbourhoods I´m not sure we should have been in, and through fields and ditches that made me happy we were travelling on a motorcycle with Ken at the helm. After about an hour and a half we made it around the city and were heading south again, we didn´t really want to see La Paz anyway. And the worlds most dangerous highway...well we think we have travelled some of those already!

The roads truly are tranquil because not many people here can afford cars, collectivos jam packed to the roof rule the road. Once again, I am happy to be travelling on the bike with Ken at the helm. The altitude has been getting higher and higher, heavy breathing is nothing unusual for us now. The first night, the owner of the hotel we stayed at gave us coco leaves to chew on and I think they worked because we both slept pretty good. Good thing, the altitude will not get lower for a while. We are off to the Salar de Uyuni next and that will take us to 5000 meters, we better take a good supply of coco leaves with us.

The road out of Bolivia, for the last 300km, is gravel and Ken was looking forward to it. A little fun in the dirt. The road was good, thank goodness it hadn´t rained in a while. Ken had a grin on his face and the only thing that could have been better was if he had had the KTM950 to ride the last of this road. 100 km before the Argentina border, Tupiza and salt flats. Yahoo!