Chacaltaya

Billed as the worlds highest ski resort we took a mini bus up to the snow capped mountain overlooking La Paz, complete with Oscar our guide who assumed I was a hooligan for being English, quality. We drove up through El Alto and started the climb, half way up we hit ice and got ourselves a puncture, we struggled around a corner at third attempt and made it to the so called ski resort. It turns out you can only ski for one month a year, there is a little cafe there but not much sign of it being a ski resort!

We set off to climb 100M, it took about 30mins as the air was so thin, but both me and Sarah stormed ahead of the group to get to the top and admire the amazing views of mountains, La Paz and beyond. We then had 45mins to either go get some coco tea or climb to the very top, naturally I opted for the later with two other people, Sarah waited on the other peak for some photos of me! The guide didnt tell us how hard it was, the snow was too deep to walk in and the sides were a bit too steep to be confident on. A short while later I made it after nearly giving up and had some more amazing views at 5440M high, we were dwarfed by the mountain next to us at 6088M high. After rushing back down we headed back into smog filled La Paz and hit the funky Sol Y Lunar bar for more drinks and food. This may have not been the best of ideas, I have been ill for a while and the smog has not helped to get rid of it!

We left for Lake Titicaca the next day, another early start. Sarah commented it was chilly, no I told her, its still Bolivia (sorry) We got the bus with Jo (the girl we have been travelling with) 30min early only to be confronted by a blockade in El Alto, a wall with burning stuff on it, we took a bit of a longer route but made it around. Our next problem was a bit of lake with no bridge, we had to take a boat, a very dodgy looking boat at that over the lake while our bus went over on an even scarier looking raft. Luckily we made and so did the bus!