For many years this road was the only way into La Paz, Bolivia’s capital, from the north. It is a treacherously steep and very narrow unsealed road, with few passing places, cut into the side of a cliff. The drop offs are up to 600m – no room for mistakes. But plenty have made a mistake and paid for it. […]
Francine told me she wanted to see the Fighting Cholitas – a group of female wrestlers that perform in El Alto (just above La Paz). Unfortunately, Francine caught a bug and did not feel like going. Given they only perform twice a week, Dave decided to go and report back. What a laugh! You either love or hate wrestling. It […]
Bolivia is a poor country. But La Paz’s public transport system is very modern and it would be at home in any major city. La Paz is built in a bowl with steep sides, with maybe two flat streets, and so a rail system would never cut it. Instead, La Paz has ten interconnected cable car lines. And it is […]
Before leaving Uyuni, Dave visited the ‘train cemetery’ in Uyuni – a graveyard of tens of steam locos imported from the UK. Great fun! From Uyuni, we drove to Potosí, once the largest city in the world thanks to a silver mining boom. It is now a city of steep hills (being located on the foothills of the mountains being […]
The Salar de Uyuni is the largest continuous high salt desert in the world, with an area of 10,582 km² (4,085 sq mi ) – about half the size of Wales. It is located at about 3,650 m above sea level in southwestern Bolivia. It is on every overlanders itinerary and we were really looking forward to spending a few […]
The Laguna Route – an overlander’s right of passage. This 302km off-road adventure starts at the Bolivian Border, Paso Fronterizo Hito Cajón and goes all the way to Uyuni, although there are patches of tarmac towards the end. It’s not for the faint hearted. The entire route is above 4000m, is very cold at this time of year, and is […]
The highest settlement in the UK is Flash, Staffordshire, at 463 m (1,519 ft) and the highest point in the UK is Ben Nevis at 1,343m (4,406 ft). The northern parts of Chile, Argentina and southern Bolivia are a lot higher and it was time to test our ability to travel at altitude. From the Chilean coast we climbed steadily, […]
And I’m still rolling along –The Cherokees are chasing meArrows flyRight on byBut I’m singing a happy song! Big Bertha broke down on a ripio (corrugated) road in Argentina in July 2024 and having made a temporary repair, we toured northern Argentina waiting for replacement parts to come from Germany. Six weeks after our order, they were finally ready for […]
Around mid-August, MAN told us there had been a cock up in Germany and our order was delayed until early September. This was unfortunate and so we used our extra time to explore northern Argentina before heading back into Chile to collect our parts. From Salta we headed to San Salvador de Jujuy on the very narrow and twisty Route […]
Having said good bye to Ivan at Belén, we journeyed north on the famous Ruta Nacional 40 towards the wine producing area of Cafayate. On the way we spend the night at the Quilmes ruins, an ancient settlement set on a hillside with fortifications higher on the hill. We stopped next at a roadside distillery (Francine tried one or two […]