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We arrived in La Plaz in the late afternoon with a view of this extraordinary city which stretches out on a high altitude stretch between two mountains. There were snow capped peaks on the mountains which surrounded La Plaz. Not long after arriving we caught up with Brook who travelled over to do the La Plaz to Cusco leg with Machu Picchu included. We caught up and had a few beers over dinner, before heading out for a night on the town. Brook was very well behaved since it was only his second night at altitude. La Plaz has the honour of been south americas highest capital city and comes in at an altitude sickness inducing 3500m.
The next day in La Plaz was a freeday to do what we wanted. Due to the partying of the previou night we had a slow start to the day and spent most of it just pottering around the local craft shops and some of the witches market. The witches market featured animal skins from wild cats in particular as well as llama foetuses. Didnt do too much investigation into the use of such remedies. The local craft stores were fantastic with many items purchased from here including numerous pillow cases and yet more tablecloths, plus some good old $4 shirts to prolong the time between washing. We also organised our adventure for the next day which was gravity assisted downhill mountain biking on the infamous death road. The death road is not as deadly as previous as it is now closed to traffic due to the construction of a new tarmac road. After this was organised we headed out for our evening adventure which was orgainised by one of the new guys on the trip called Kirt. Kirt had seen some WWF style Bolivian wrestling advertised and had phone the number and booked for a number of us to go along. The night started a little slow with some old wrestlers going through the motions. then came the clown taking on the zombie, this was follwed by a mutant ninja turtle fighting an evil spiderman, with this act followed by a double team with team involving a midget. All were very diffreent and rather funny, however I think a stint with the midget may have gone horribly wrong when he was thrown from the ring but wasnt caught. He was then carried off. Once the guys did their thing, it started to get interesting as the ladies came out. They wore traditional Bolivian outfits except for one woman, and they didnt hold back on any of the hits. Skirts were flying, blood was oozing, tears were happening and the blokes in the crowd were a ooohhhing and a aaaahhhhing as the hits were put in. By the end of this we were finding it all very entertaining and more than happy with our purchase of wrestling masks to be worn at different times over the next few weeks.
After another quiet night we were up and ready to ride the death road. It was an early start to the morning and after driving to an altitude of 5100m we were ready to begin our descent. Thankfully the first part of the ride was downhill on tarmac which gave you time to get used to riding a bike again. Before hand everyone was "no we wont be racing just enjoying the views", however it wasnt long until we were in the crouch position riding as hard as we could. Overall today we were going from an altitude of 5100m down to around 2500m over some 60km of road with a section of around 5km of uphill riding. Thankfully the traffic on the tarmac road was few and far between to the confidence grew and so did the speed. Eventually after an exhausting uphill road we arrived at the old death road. This was an old gravel road which wound its way down the mountain. Death road earnt its name due to the high number of deaths which occured on the when it was used by all comers. As we started death road it was back to going slow with both brakes getting a work out and there was regular stops. Once again the confidence was slowly gained and the speed increased again. At about the half way mark I started to try and push the speed a bit more again and then my lack of mountain biking skills kicked in and before I knew it I was on my back, semi concussed with a sore head and bruised legs. It was then back on the bike and off at a slower speed, to the small village at the bottom where the rewards were a delicious lunch and a swim. It was a fun packed day with everyone having a great time.
After a few days of no truck travel it was back onto the truck today as we travelled from La Plaz to Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Much of todays drive was around the great expanse of water that is Lake Titicaca. The views points along the lake were astounding and at the village of San Pablo we boarded a boat to cross the straits while Cameron our truck was put on an old style, very large wooden raft with a small outboard motor and driven across the straits separately. From here it wasn{t long till we reached the town of Copacabana. Once at Copacabana we watched some locals play soccer (we short of breath just walking around as we were still well above 3000m). We also went to the local cathedral which rather grand. It had the odd feature of a very dark chapel like area where people would light candles. Over time the candles had turned all the walls very black and it was a little bit of a spooky place to visit. From hear we walked up a headland to get spectacular views of the lake and the town of Copacabana. For dinner it was once again fresh trout from the lake. While here made the most of the spectacular cheap prices to buy lots of table mats and yet more colouful decorative cloth. The next day we would continue to drive around lake Titicaca as we made our way into Peru and then to the town of Puno.
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