April 3, 2000
Day 164 Road to La Paz: Free Camping
We are awakened early in the morning by someone walking by playing a flute. Might have been the same guy playing guitar last night. Who knows, we don’t get to see him and Patrick doubts he saw us because of a dense, wet fog of low clouds has settled over the mountains. We get up at six thirty and pack up our soaking wet tent. Everything inside is dry of course, but by the time the rain fly that’s wet from condensation, is removed, the inner tent gets sprinkled.
As we ride through the clouds we get glimpses of the valleys way below us. It takes awhile for the sun to burn off all the fog.
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The road makes another huge hairpin and ascends another ridge. After that a small drop, and up again. We continue climbing, each village a little higher than the last. Patrick starts taking pictures of us at the signs because this might very well be the highest place we cycled. But no, the next is a bit higher again. We finally crest at La Cumbre at 4496 meters.
Thunderstorms have started to build at the horizon so it seems wise to keep going and get a bit lower. After all this climbing that kept us warm, its cold in the downhill. We both put on extra layers but can’t stop shivering. We decide to start looking for a place to camp, but the valley we are in now is more populated all of a sudden. After passing several more towns we do find a sheltered place, just below a steep bank on a small river. We fix soup and tuna/egg/onion/mayonnaise salad.
At seven we have the tent pitched and are ready to go to bed. It’s dark anyway!
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