We cycled from Sucre to Cochabamba in 6 days and it was another hard stretch with a lot of climbing. The first day mainly went downhill, so we were allowed some time to get used to cycling again.

After that first day, most of the route went uphill until the last 70 kms (42 miles) to Cochabamba. They went all downhill. The road was’t completely paved, from about 100 kms (60 miles) after Sucre it became unpaved and a bit sandy. Once in a while there was a paved part and then it got to unpaved again. Fortunately it was a good road.

In the little town of Aiquille (after 2 days), we could choose out of 2 options: go left or go right. Not a very special or strange choice, but this choice meant choosing between about 90 kms (54 miles) of cobblestones or about the same distance on an unpaved road of which we didn’t know anything at all about the second part. We choose the unpaved road, because in our opinion you can’t cycle on cobblestones without damaging your bike and yourself.

The first day, to the town of Mizque, went fine. Most of it went downhill and the rain decided to be good to us and stay out until we got into a room. The second day is a whole different story. We read somewhere that it would be 31 kms (18 miles) to the town of Totora, so that should be possible in 1 day. The touristoffice wasn’t open, so we couldn’t ask for information about the road and the route there. The owner of the hostal we stayed in told us some things and it wasn’t very encouraging. He also didn’t know how far it was exactly, all he knew was that we would have to cross a river a couple of times because there are no bridges and that the road went up long and steep.

Despite of the things we heard, we started the trip with good spirits; however bad the road would be, 31 kms (18 miles) should be possible in 1 day. We did have to cross some water a couple of times, so we had to take our shoes off and wear our crocs. For a short while we were back on our way to the Carretera Austral. Fortunately, this time it wasn’t as extreme as back then, all we had to do was cross a little bit of (shallow) water.

Then we ran into a few roadworkers who were building a bridge over the river. According to them it wasn’t 31 kms (18 miles) to Totora, but 52 (31 miles)! So that was not good news, but over here you never know if the distances they tell you are correct. We just had to wait and see. They also told us that we had to go over a pass and that the road would go down from there and then back up again.

We continued and in the beginning it went very well. It went up and down a bit, but not very steep. The scenery was beautiful, a green valley surrounded by high rocks. And there was absolutely nobody else there. For the first time since we’ve been in Bolivia we really felt all alone. Untill now there was always somebody else around, even when we thought there couldn’t possibly be anyone else there. There would always be somebody walking or sitting there.

And then it went up pretty steep for a few kms. The workers were right, we had to go over a pass and after the top it went down a long way. That feels very good, but we knew we had to go back up and we didn’t like that idea. And indeed, after a few kms downhill it went back up again. This time with gradients we weren’t able to cycle, 6 kms (3,5 miles) with an average of 10%. We had to walk most of it so we didn’t make very good progress. And then the wind started picking up to stormy proportions and the black rainclouds started losing some of their water in big drops. Fortunately the rain didn’t last long.

Finally we were at the top and we could recover a little bit while going down a bit. We had no clue about how far it still was, but we hoped for a reasonably flat piece of road. Another disappointment, after the little downhill we had to climb another few steep hills before we finally got to Totora. When we arrived there, it was almost dark and they had some sort of celebration so the loud music was sounding all over town. We found a room and when we wanted to go out to get something to eat, we discovered that the rain was pouring down. Again, the rain had waited patiently for us to get to our destination and settle in.

Totora is a small town with some old colonial buildings. The buildings around the central square are well maintained and nicely painted. The hotel where we stayed also is an old colonial building with large rooms with high ceilings and stairs to get to the main entrance.

After Totora we also had a lot of going uphill to survive, but because of that the last day was easy. We went downhill all the way to Cochabamba, we did the last 70 kms (42 miles) to and through Cochabamba in less than 3 hours and that includes having a break for something to eat. In the hostal we (coincidentally) met some people we had met in our hostal in Sucre, so that was nice.

Cochabamba itself is nothing special. It’s a city like many others; busy and noisy. But the weather over here is great and we can get everything we want again.

Because the first 200 kms (120 miles) from Cochabamba to La Paz are very hard and the scenery is not very spectacular (mainly after that first part), we decided to take the bus to La Paz. We were planning on cycling everything here, but we’re not really looking forward to this hard stretch without any towns or accommodations. And there are plenty of hard sections to cycle yet…