More Bolivia to La Paz

27th Jan

Discover ketchup bottle has leaked into rack sack and sheep skin that got soaked and was in a plastic bag now stinks. wash both and sheep skin falls apart so thow out. It was meant to make the seat more comfortable but I think made no difference. Went back to one of only two good resturants in Potosi call El Fogin and had a good meal for 2 with beer for 100BS ( 15 to GBP). We decide not to go to Secre but head for Oruro (1/2 way to La Paz)

28th Jan. We leave Potosi by 0900 hrs and pay US$ 100 plus 305 BS for hotel. They told us the credit card machine had losts its connection! We head out on Ruta 1 and pay some more tolls (about 6th now) and have a nice drive on tarmac though the mountains and up onto a high plateau ( Roly pain in chest). We stop for soup and are surrounded by Larmas and mountains.



More tolls after lunch and lots of Adobe mud huts in the villages and we drive along Lake Popo. We turn off the main road into a dual carraigeway into Oruro. The road is still being constructed but is full of demonstrators of some kind. All the lanes are blocked by road graders, buses, vans, bikes, rocks people, banners etc. The people are stopping all the traffic moving into the town of Oruro. We manage to weave in and out of parked vehicles and over pipes liad across the road and finally into town. Out 1st stop at a hotel proved useless as it was unfinished but our 2nd hotel was OK and had a bike lock up only one block away. We fix a fuel leak on Roly´s bike with 3 new jubille clips and then off course have a beer. The town is being set up for a feista in a few days time. The local resturants were all very disappointing to put it mildly. The 1st resturant we leave soon after entering after Dave sees 1/2 a goat or sheep head being carried though on a plate to a table. We end up settlling for steak, chips and coke and the meat was a bit over ripe, the chips raw and the coke OK. The whole town was dusty and very dirty.

29th Jan
We leave town by 0930 North heading for La Paz. We have to drive though all the clossed off roads and though a mud field to get to the main dual carraigeway out of town. Boring drive across high Plateau and bikes not going too well we thing due to the high alitude. Very good road though to El Altro which was a horrible filithy place which leads immediately into La Paz. More tolls to pay to go down the Autopiste into the bowl of La Paz. It is just like a massive Volcano bowl which is filled with a modern city to the brim. Roly´s turn to navigate and soon find tourist office. Coeelct detials for good resturants, hotels and location of The Road of Death. Hotel Pan American at US$40 for room, find chinesse resturant and do some sight seeing. Dave changes some cash and Roly buys an unbrella for GBP 67 pence! as its tipping down now.