240 miles from Cusco we reached Puno on Lake Titicaca and stayed in the large GHL Hotel with a room overlooking the lake. We just had enough time to take a few photos and catch the sun setting.

And here’s Susan with Captain Birdseye.

Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world at 12,500 feet and, on Titicaca Island, the Inca empire was founded around 1100 CE.

Moving on. From Puno we travelled 164 miles to La Paz, crossing the Bolivian Border at Desaguadero. After an early start we arrived at the quiet border and quickly passed through passport control. Then it was time for the bike. Do you recall the issue at the Ecuador Peru border where they recorded the wrong number plate? Although this was later corrected by another customs guy I had a feeling this could be an issue when we tried to leave Peru and it surely was.

The Peru customs guy was a young lad, spoke English and was friendly enough. He said there wasn’t a problem when he read the certified correction and checked the chassis and engine numbers were correct.

However, it took a 30 minute call to someone else to allow us through. I could tell by the manner of the conversation that it was touch and go. He had a very concerned look on his face. I suspected there was a bureaucratic person on the other end of the phone saying the error had to be corrected at the point of entry. Why did I think this? – because I read in another blog that’s what Peruvian border guards made someone else do. Our issue was that the point of entry for us was nearly 1700 miles away!!

It was a tense nervous time. Susan appeared very calm under the circumstances, munching away on a packet of Ritz crackers. I suspect she had been on the coca sweets this morning – she was just too calm under the circumstances.

Eventually, after a fraught telephone conversation we were allowed through. It had become a very uncomfortable situation and the customs guy had gone from chatty to being unable to look me in the eye then almost running away. I’ve no idea what was going on but we shot off as fast as two old people on a heavy bike could go.

We were now in Boliva.

We reached the outskirts of La Paz at 1pm and looked forward to an early check-in. Unfortunately, traffic in La Paz is a nightmare. The main road into the city was closed and ripped up for repair. It looked like it had been closed for years.

Time after time again in South America we are following the main highway through various towns and cities to find it blocked for about 1-2km. The detour is always through dirt, rubble streets with traffic jams, craters rather than potholes, and pits of deadly sand everywhere. Traffic moves about 3 mph which is absolutely no good for a motorcycle. It’s a bloody nightmare.

We have learned our best course of action is, at the very dodgy bits, Susan gets off and walks whilst I ride the bike through.

Today in La Paz we were detoured into a marketplace through streets lined the market stalls and an absolute jam of thousands of private taxi mini buses. I honestly don’t exaggerate when I say thousands.

Susan got off the bike and walked ahead as ‘spotter’ to try and let me know what’s was happening down the road through the helmet intercom. However, nothing moved so I switched off the bike and sat there in a sea of minibuses.

Oh, and I forgot to mention we were kind of lost anyway. We had just crossed the border and our phones had no local signal in Bolivia. Sat Navs were down and all I had was Garmin maps that I wouldn’t rely on to get me to the end of my bed. Effectively we were going nowhere fast and even if we could get somewhere fast we had know idea where to go fast.

After two hours we managed to free ourselves out of the market jam mayhem. Then it was down into La Paz itself. By now I was guessing the route in a kind of jedi way. Well, I knew we had to go down so down the mountain we went.

La Paz is the highest capital city in the world and sits in a canyon bowl type depression surrounded by the high Andean mountains. Now this road down into the canyon was nightmare, incredibly steep and the tightest of hairpins. Motorcyclists talk about climbs and hairpin routes in the UK – they need to come to La Paz to discover the real horror, I mean the real joy, of motorcycling.

The line of traffic crawled down the mountain. The majority of cars are clapped out and travel far too slow for the motorcycle to stay upright. But we did, just, time and time again. It was a worrying time for me with Susan and all that weight on board.

Nearing the end I had a problem with my brakes. The rear brake in particular was ‘fried’ – I think that’s what cool guy motorcycle people say. Then the rear brake made a ping noise and was next to useless. The front brake slowed us just enough to continue.

Every time I left a small gap to the car in front some idiot driver would overtake, cut in front, brake suddenly then continue at 2-4 mph in a queue of slow moving, downward travelling traffic. I’ve come to learn that they don’t think they’re doing anything wrong or aggressive. It’s just how they drive, its how almost everyone here drives, with absolutely no consideration for any other road user.

Somehow we got to our hotel and parked the bike. We were totally exhausted, dehydrated and struggled to find the energy to unload the bike in the thin high altitude air. I didn’t even want to look at the brakes – that was a problem for tomorrow. I wasn’t avoiding the issue it’s just that sometimes I have to find the energy to properly deal with the issue and think clearly. Today wasn’t that day.

That night we found a great establishment called Burgers and Beer. I was drawn to the place like a bee to honey. It was run by a young Italian Bolivian who was a knowledgeable beer head and sat drinking his own beer because it’s so good.

Susan ordered a veggie burger and I got the house specialty steak. We were back to being happy as two very, very tired llamas.

The brake issue was an anti climax. After having a quick look at the brakes the following morning I quickly determined they were fine. They had overheated and that was the issue. To be honest, I still didn’t have the energy to contemplate anything else. Sometimes you have to keep positively moving forward on a wave of ignorance. Or so I’ve found.

So we spent the rest of our rest day visiting La Paz. And how do you travel in La Paz, a city built into a steep canyon? By cable car of course.

La Paz has an interlinking system of cable cars known as Mi Teleferico. It’s an aerial cable car transport system along ten lines and 25 stops. It’s the longest aerial cable car system in the world and travel on it is easy, fast and a delight. Just as well because the roads of La Paz are a horrible, chaotic, congested, polluting, noisy environment.

We visited the main city square and it’s not the prettiest. Some of it was a dump but I’ve got to take my hat off to the people that approved the construction of the black carbuncle towering above the main government building in the principal civic square. It looks like an alien spaceship has landed.

At least we came across a Bolivian wedding in the cathedral to brighten up our morning. The local ladies look great in their traditional hats and dress. It’s a pity the women in Scotland didn’t have such style 😉

We walked over to the Witches Market, a tourist trap. As we’re tourists we walked right into it. And as tourists always say, it was awesome. Actually it wasn’t. I can’t say it’s tourist tat like the tat you get in Europe made in China. This stuff is all handmade, local and in wonderful colours. I suppose it’s the Premier League of tourist tat.

However, if you look past the souvenir shops you can find authentic witch doctors, known as yatari, who will sell potions and dried things. The most infamous dried thing they sell are llama fetuses that are buried under the foundations of many Bolivian houses as a sacred offering. And if there’s something unusual going on you can be sure I will take a photo. I’m an awesome tourist so pick your baby llama to bury under your next house extension👇

So that was La Paz. Lovely, nice people. Horrible, traffic and pollution. Glad we visited. Glad to leave. Glad we won’t be going back.

• Uncategorized