Chacaltaya and the road of death

In our desperation to get to some serious altitude, we ended up on a tour to Chacaltaya, a former ski resort over 5000m. We say former because due to rising temperatures caused by pollution, the glacier that once sustained the ski resort (at one time the world's highest and the first in South America), rapidly melted, leaving nothing but the old aprés huts and the remnants of an old ski lift.

The views from the top however are still truly incredible. We were very lucky to have got a clear day, when the lakes and mountains were visible. The bus took us from central La Paz out to the mountain itself (about an hour), and then began the truly death defying ascent on a single track, narrow road, with sheer cliff edges and full on hairpin bends. The 30 minutes it took to reach the resort were honestly some of the scariest of our lives. But the pay off was immense.

At its highest point the mountain is 5435m high, which we were able to reach using the steep footpaths that have now been carved by the boots of many tourists. Whilst we could certainly feel the altitude, it wasn't as hard as we thought to scale (perhaps our 4 weeks in La Paz helped us acclimatise!)

After a few hours we got back on the bus and made our way down the mountain back toward Jupapina - this time to stop at the Valle de la Luna (or Valley of the Moon), an ethereal rock formation caused by La Paz's past as the site of a giant lake. The valley is certainly unusual but the time we were taken there was not great, as the sun was beating down during the hottest part of the day. In the end we posed for a few pictures and headed back to the volunteer house for a rest!

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