And than I hit me.. after the climb I was sick for two days :( Two days I couldn`t do anything except running to the toilet and sleeping. Ah well that happens to everyone here in Bolivia. But than the third day I felt better, and instead of hanging arround in La Paz again I booked the plane to Rurrenabaque!
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It`s unbeleavable but true.. I was on the top of Huayna Potosi, 6088 meters above sea level! Wauw was an experience was that. Together with my Israelian friend Noam and our guide we reached the top arround six in the morning after a very hard 4 hour hike.

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Together with Noam, Gal and Christiaan we started a new adventure.. we did the Condoriri to Huayna Potosí trek of 5 days. Here in La Paz agencies offer the same trek, shorter, and for a lot of money. But we as experienced hikers decided to do it by our selfs. Preparing the trip took one day: finding someone that brings us from La Paz to Tuni - a small village in the middle of the mountains and also the starting point - one way, buying food, water, and renting some gear - tent, sleeping bag for minus temperatures.

Finding a driver was easy, but finding the right price not.. but after walking Sagarnaga up and down - the street where almost all agencies are located in La Paz - we found a driver that would bring us for only 40 US to Tuni. Pickup at 6:30 from the hostel. The driver was on time - regarding to Bolivian time -  and our journey started.. well almost, we had to pick up our gear first somewhere high in the mountain of La Paz. Okay, no worries we have all day!

Once accuipmented we drove to Tuni, about 1 and a half hours. According to Lonely Planets Trekking guide we could arrange some donkeys to carry our stuff - up to 30 kg! - but we said no to the agencie that arranged the driver, said no to the taxi driver, and said no to our selfs. Doing this hike means carrying everything yourself. Once we were dropped of our hike finally started.. fully loaded we walked up the dusty road which was closed by a gate.. passing it and walking up a little more we arrived at LagunaTuni - altitude 4470 meters.

Day 1 - Estancia Tuni to Laguna Ajwani
8 hours - 18 km - 900m ascent - 800m decent

Right.. with two maps we bought in La Paz, a compas and four genious minds we figured out how to walk.. did we? Yes, but we missed something because right from the getgo we walked too far - where did I madethat mistake also?? Anyway, after figuring out where we were we decided to take a shortcut, straight up the hill because we had to reach the other valley on the other side.. man that was hard! After hours of struggeling up the hill the reached the top. The pass was 4912 meters - according to my GPS. And finally we saw the valley we should have walked through. But staying on that altitude and walking along the mountains we reached the animals treks up the pass of 4700 meter leading into the next valley towards Lago Juri Khota.

We arrived at the campside around 3 pm. Tired, broken, hungry and almost dead. According to the LP we had to carry on, crossing another pass of 4900 meter AND a pass of 4800 meter! HELL NO! After an hour thinking and thinking and thinking we decided to stay at this camping and skipping the was to Laguna Ajwani. We settled down, put up the camp, made diner, and at eight we eyes closed.

Day 2 - Lago Juri Khota to Laguna Chiar Khota
5 hours - 11 km - 700m ascent - 600m decent

At 9 am we started the hike. This is the first of two days of spectacular ascents and desecnts through mountainous and heavily glaciated terrain. Really? Really! The LP was right.. from the camping is went up for hours! Up the the pass we had to cross at 5070 meters. It was a very hard climb up and we passed some incredibly glaciers. Nothing compared to Los Glaciaresbut a glacier is a glacier. At the pass we left out bags and haeded up Cerro Jallayco - 5300 meters. It went straight up again for 40 minutes, but after all the effort I reached a new milestone.. standing at 5300 meter! After all the neccessary proof - photos and videos - we headed back, took are bags, and walked down the mountain to basecamp.

If you look up the mountain from basecamp you would never beleave that we just walked down there! Really! We went over small rivers, washed away parts of the mountain.. it was crazy work! But once there we set up camp, cooked diner quickly AND arranged a donkey for the next day. Because the next day would be a bit harder that all other days. The sun went down at 18 am.. so without questioning we went to bed.

Day 3 - Laguna Chiar Khota t0 Campamento Racachas
7 hours - 15 km - 800m ascent - 940 desent

The donkey knocked at the tent at 8 am.. packing him with 30 kg of cargo and send him away to the next camping. Could he also put up the tent and make diner? Propely not.. Anyway, with only three very light bagpacks we started the day at 9 am. Today was day two of two days of spectacular ascents and desecnts through mountainous and heavily glaciated terrain.Starting with a climp up to the pass of 5100 meters.. once up we had to navigate through a valley to reach the next pass of 4800 meters.. with compas and maps we found the pass and climbed up. But than - according to the book - we had to pass another pass of only 4650 meters. Finding than was easy, we though.. we in reallity the book skipped a part. Because after passing 4650 meters.. we had to go down into the valley and start climbing again up to 4700 meters and cross de mountain to get to Campamento Racachas. Wauw.. 4 climbs in one day! I was so lucky that we arranged a donkey. Without him, I would never reached pass 2!

Totally exosted and almost dead again we arrived at the camping. The donkey was dead.. and so replaced by an old motorcycle. There was not really a camping just a small plain field where we put the tents up. We made diner and discussed the days and more important the next day. It would be again a hard day and being totally exosted we decided to skip the last part and head back to a small village along a road to La Paz called Milluni.

Day 4 - Campamento Racachas to Milluni

We started the day very early: 5 am. We had to be in Milluni at 13:30 to catch the only bus back to La Paz. After struggeling to fing the main road we walked on it for a couple of hours. The road would lead us up a pass of 5100 meters again, and this this fully loaded. Just before the road head hill upwards, Noam and Gal decided to take a shortcut. Me and Christiaan stayed on the road. We went up for another 2 - 3 hours reaching the 5100 meters. And from there is went only down again untill Milluni. Noam and Gal on the otherhand made a small misstake and had to climb the mountain from the other side..

Result: we waited for about 1 and a half hours :) Ah well, we all made it on time for the bus.. but.. the bus was full! Totally full. So we had to wait for passing cars and other vehicels, but with 6 to 8 local people also waiting we didn`t got a ride back. Finally after 5 hours of waiting we jumped on a big truck back to La Paz. Together with 8 other locals we sat on a load of coals, with the wind in our hair we drove for about 2 hours to reach the suburbs of La Paz.

Final words

This hike was incredible! The views we had at every pass we crossed were amazing! The entire hike we didn´t see any other travellers! We saw thousands of Lama`s and Alpaca`s, lakes, glaciers and a wondefull part of Bolivia. And did I mention that from every mountain we saw Huayna Potosi? The highest peak near La Paz with 6088 meters!

I wouldn`t do this hike again, not without donkeys from the first day. But I definitely recommendate it to everyone.

Enjoy the photo`s.

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Has my journey finally started? Arriving in Uyuni gave me already an impression on how Bolivia would look like.. It´s so different than Argentina and Chile.

I arrived in La Paz after a 12 hour bus ride from Uyuni, which was worse than driving on Ruta 40! From the 12 hours in the bus, I slept none! It was really a nightmare.. welcome to Bolivia haha. La Paz is a big big city.. Located at an altitude of 3,660 metres, it is the world’s highest capital city! We checked in at hostel Solario, good located but at a very busy street. We had a quick shower and went out and saw a market everywhere! La Paz is really one big market! On every street, on every corner, everywhere are people selling stuff. From food to clothes, from drinks to souveniers. Want to buy a Lama baby? Or a krokodile? No problem, you will find it here.

Together with Christiaan, Gal, Emmanuelle and Joelle we walked arround for hours looking at the market places, bought some souveniers and ate a lot. And the good thing is.. Bolivia is fucking cheap! A normal meal 10 bovilianos.. (that´s about 1,04 euro right now). After the walking tour we visited a high viewpoint called KilliKilli. From there we had an amazing view over this city. But after all that walking we headed back to the hostel for a siesta..

The next day we got up early.. time to risk our lives at the ´Death Road´! On a mountainbike we started at 4700m and dropped down to 1200m. The road was not wider than 2 - 3 meters, and had a drop of a couple of hounderd meter next to it.. one mistake and you are really dead! Just one day before we raced down this road one person died! But you have some good choices.. because you can decided for yourself how fast you want to go down. There is one guide in the front for the fast poeple, and one in the back waiting for the slowest once.. After 69km we arrived alive in Coroico.. where a nice lunch and a swimming pool were waiting for us. Back in La Paz we got out ´I survived the most dangerous road´ t-shirt and a dvd with movies and photo´s of us.

La Paz is great city where you can spend a couple of days easily! Some tips for you:
- eat breakfast at 100% Natural
- eat lunch also at 100% Natural
- don´t spend too much money on bike while doing the Death Road.. a normal bike is just fine.
- unfortunatly the prison tour is no longer doable :(
- buy all your souveniers in La Paz and send it back home.. its soooo cheap!

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