Some of the best scenic rides are those you weren't expecting.
This was certainly the case for our ride out of Copacabana. We knew we were on a peninsular, but hadn't quite realised how narrow it was, and that at the end of it we would be getting a hilarious 'ferry' across to the other side.
As soon as we left the town and climbed even higher into the hills, we had vast expanses of lake stretching out to either side of us, the deepest, richest blue on this cloudless day. The landscape itself was immense and vast, with great rolling hills descending down into the water.
Turning a corner we were confronted with a snow-peaked mountain range that spread across most of the horizon, so spectacular that it made us both gasp.
After an hour or so of this awe-inspiring landscape we descended to lake-level where we rode on board the 'ferry', which was in fact what can only be described as a floating, rotting, wooden platform with a tiny outboard engine! We were on there with a 4x4 which we thought was absolutely crazy, until we saw a coach floating past us going the other way...
After this the road flattened out somewhat, so the riding became a little more dull. But the excitement picked up again once we neared El Alto - a very poor city on the edge of La Paz. There was a lot of construction going on, so were taken on and off the road every couple of minutes. Once we entered El Alto all hell broke loose, with a combo of a massive market and the entire road being dug up sending us into the maze-like, dirt-road depths of the city.
We eventually found our way back to the 'main road' and made our way to La Paz, which we had been warned was totally chaotic and hell to drive through. So when we joined the almost empty two lane highway which took us almost to the door of our hostel we were very pleasantly surprised!
We had a day and a half exploring La Paz (which was a little too long for us - we definitely prefer mountains and scenery to bustling cities!) with our full day spent taking on Death Road.
We spent our first afternoon riding the world's highest cable car, to South America's biggest flea market - both were quite a sight to behold.
Now I'm going to be totally honest, we did not find Death Road all that spectacular. Perhaps we have been spoilt by some of the incredible (and terrifying) roads that we've seen on our trip so far, but it didn't feel too special. I cannot deny that the scenery was pretty awesome, and the change in ecosystems was super cool (dropping 3800m from top to bottom) but I think the fact that there are numerous 'check points' where you have to pay before they'll drop the rope (amounting to $15 over the course of the road) did somewhat ruin the 'wildness' of it. Still, we're definitely glad to have checked it off the list else we'd always be wondering what we missed out on. And if we hadn't decided to do it, we wouldn't have gotten to ride the road north out of La Paz, which provided some of the most amazing scenery we have seen so far.
On the way back we took a couple of little off-cuts, trying to get up to 5000m. We went into dense clouds, got snowed on, and went up to a landscape that felt like riding on the moon, but alas we could not get any higher than 4936m. Still, higher than the highest mountain in Europe though!
The ride to Oruro was a little bit dull. The plains were pretty spectacular, but do not change much and so after the first few minutes of admiring them the long straight road with the long straight scenery became a bit samey!
It only took three and a bit hours to get to Oruro and in hindsight we could have pushed on, although where we'd have stopped I'm not too sure! No real reason to stop here if not during Carnaval in Feb, so we got straight out the next day.
The next day was actually one of my favourite days of the last four and a half months. The pictures do not do the altiplano justice, but how a vista so straight and largely flat can be so amazing I do not know. We dodged llamas (or potentially alpacas - I still have problems telling the difference), went past a giant crater (created by a fallen asteroid), were assaulted by sand twisters and witnessed a stripy mountain, all on incredibly smooth tarmac.
On recommendation from the receptionist at our hostel in Oruro, we sacked off our original plan of going straight to Uyuni on the highway, and instead went to Salinas de Garcias Mendoza - the end of the paved road. Apparently from here we could cross the salt flats to Uyuni, which sounded too good to not try.
However from Salinas to the salt flats was about 30km of dirt road which we were not expecting, a lot of which was either deep sand or washboard. But as we crested a hill and saw the vast whiteness spread out in front of us it was all totally worth it, and I was actually totally overcome with how beautiful it was. Sadly the picture doesn't do it justice, but that white strip below the sky is not a cloud but the salt flats!
At over 9000 square kilometres they are by far the largest salt flats in the world and they are totally and utterly amazing. It is like riding solo atop a white ocean, which is a pretty incredible experience!
We had a lot of fun taking photos (well I did, whilst Tom begrudgingly did as he was told to create my perspective pictures) and as the sun started to dip we hopped back on the bike to finish traversing the flats and made it to Uyuni just as the sun dipped below the horizon.
It was a nine hour, 430km day but WOW had it been incredible! From the dusty little town of Uyuni it was now time to decide our plan of action on getting into Argentina. But first we needed to figure out how to get the salt off the bike...
