Our journey to Sorata turned out to be the worst journey of the trip so far. Sorata is a remote village and getting there involved three phases. Phase one was a regular bus, which went without any issues. Phase two was a ferry across Lake Titicaca, which again was problem free. But things began to go wrong as we moved into phase three - the "micro" bus. A bit like a shared taxi, the "micro" bus is usually a beaten up old mini bus in which the driver picks a destination and along the way stops to pick up as many passengers as physically possible with luggage tied to the roof. After waiting about 30mins, a "micro" bus heading to Sorata pulled over. We looked inside, but it was already full of locals. "Don't worry" said the driver as he tied our backpacks to the roof, "there's space". As he pushed us into the mini-bus, the only "space" was in the footwells, where we sat with our legs uncomfortably contorted under our bodies. Pins and needles quickly set in but we were trapped, all we could do was hope someone would get off and a seat become available. After 45mins, people did get off and we prised ourselves out of the footwells and onto the free seats. But the horror wasn't over. We began to descend down a steep winding gravel road and we became aware of the other passengers crossing their chests in a gesture to god. Obviously we were on a dangerous stretch of road. The cliff had a sheer drop of several hundred meters and we were amazed (and terrified) as the driver persistently crossed onto the wrong side of the road as he took us around blind bends! Bolivian drivers are amongst the worst in the world and if another vehicle had come the other way we would have certainly gone over the cliff. Eventually we arrived in Sorata grateful to be alive.

Sorata is only a small town but the perfect place to relax and that's exactly what we did for the following few days. We explored the local market and visited the impressive "San Perdo Cave" with it's crystal clear underground lagoon. We decided to walk the 12km back to town through the valley, as the mountain scenery is fantastic. In the end it was worth enduring the "worst journey of the trip so far"!

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