10/10/2026
The marvels are nonstop on this tour - as this blog demonstrates, picking up the trail one week in...
"The off-bike day in Uyuni was another gob-smacking overload to the senses with a 4×4 tour onto the largest salt flat in the world, the Salar de Uyuni. We visited a hotel made completely of salt, including the rooms and the bar, the giant Dakar Rally monument (also made completely of salt) and had one of the most surreal lunch stops that could be imagined.
The salt flat is 11,000 sq. km so it did not take long for us to be out of sight of all other people and even the shore of the lake. With a 360-degree view that showed almost no visible horizon, due to the reflection from the salt. We sat in a row on small plastic stools and ate local fried Chicken while staring into a most disquieting void. The light and the reflections of sky, salt and water play tricks on your eyes and I am amazed that our local drivers did not get disorientated while barrelling across the expanse.
Onwards through more salt plains and desert wasteland weaving through mountain ranges and around smoking volcanoes, the next day we headed towards Potosi, which was once one of the world’s wealthiest cities. On the way however, we had a chance to visit with and help some of Bolivia’s most needful children. Compass Expeditions has been supporting the local school at Chaquilla for many years and guests on their tours to the region are encouraged to help out with gifts of school supplies, sports equipment and fresh fruit and vegetables etc.
A quick lunch, a bit of street soccer and amusing the kids with the motorcycles and we were back on the road. The landscape became progressively greener as we moved out of the desert and into the mountains.
JC, our ever cheerful, helpful and hard-working support van driver was also the designated chef for the tour and how happy we were for that!
It never ceased to amaze us that JC could whip up a fresh, healthy and supremely tasty lunch from the kitchen in the back of the van. It was like magic when fresh salads, guacamole, pasta and a selection of cold meats would be produced from what seemed like nowhere by the time we had set up some shade and arranged the trestle tables and chairs. Each ride day his menu was fresh, varied and wholesome.
The people of Potosi have mined silver, tin and other metals from the surrounding hills for over 500 years and in the days of the Conquistadors it was at its height. The silver that was shipped back to Spain helped make that nation rich, it also made Potosi one of the wealthiest cities in the world and this can be seen today in the beautiful Spanish Colonial architecture of the city. Our “rest day” in Potosi was anything but, with an exciting visit into a silver mine that still functioned in a very traditional way with miners moving much of the rock and soil by hand with basic tools. It is dangerous work, with no consideration to modern safety standards. A miner’s life in these parts is generally not a long one.
After the mine tour we then took a city tour which showed us around many of the city’s beautiful churches and other colonial era buildings. The finale of the day was witnessing a very solemn Easter procession including a number of brass bands and different community groups marching with statues of their saints and religious icons mounted on the shoulders of dark suited and elaborately brocaded officials.
Another unexpected taste of the local culture.
Continuing to climb into the Andes on the way to La Paz we wind and weave upwards across high passes, one at over 5,200 meters and through small villages. The roads are sealed but the prevalence of pot holes makes need for concentration paramount. A brief lapse of concentration could end in a very dinted rim if not a spill.
La Paz is a large, busy and slightly crazy city that is nestled in the cradle and climbs up the steep sides of a ring of mountains. The city centre is low in the valley, but the outer suburbs are high above on the rim of a plateau. In between the city looks stacked on top of itself as it climbs up the steep sides of the surrounding slopes.
Out of La Paz we had the chance to take on the “Death Road” day excursion. Having watched a number of You Tube videos of this intimidating road I was keen to match my skill and wits to it. I was not disappointed. I could write a separate story about the experience so in this tale it will suffice to say that I had one of the best days riding I have had for many years on a well-used Suzuki DR650 belting through the streets of La Paz, into the hills and down (and then back up) the epic and nerve-wracking Death Road.
It turns out the scariest part was the traffic chaos, at breakneck speed, to get out of the city!
From La Paz we headed towards famous Lake Titicaca. Depending on your preference, this was perhaps our best days riding so far with good sealed roads tightly twisting and winding through the mountains further into the Andes. Lake Titicaca spans the border between Bolivia and Peru, so today we ticked off another border crossing and took a ferry across the world’s highest (or perhaps second highest) navigable lake, then rode around its shore to another colonial gem, the city of Puno.
Our hotel on the central plaza of Puno was just a pedicab ride to the lakeside dock where we took a morning tour out on the lake to the visit the floating Uros islands and experience something of the Uru culture. These 120 or so islands are constructed from many layers of reeds and require constant maintenance to remain afloat. They support houses, schools and a community that has traditionally lived on the lake for around 500 years.
Interestingly the Uru retreated onto the lake in an attempt to avoid being colonised not by the Spanish but by the Inca who conquered the land and taxed the people.
Another unbelievable day of mountain riding through the heart of the Peruvian Andes, more high passes and views that made it hard to concentrate on the incredible road in front of us led us to the ancient heart of the Incan empire, Cusco.
Cusco is an old city built on an even older city and this can be seen as you navigate the maze of tight roads and alleys that spread out from the wonderful central plaza. Colonial style buildings are built on the massive Incan stone foundations of the earlier civilisation. The city has so much history that you could spend a week just scratching the surface of all that is there to see. Our day tour of pre-Incan sites around the outskirts of the city gave us an insight into the scale and complexity of each successive era of human habitation of the region.
After16 days of mind and eye-opening experiences and fantastic riding our tour was nearing its conclusion, or rather building up to its Grand Finale!
..read the rest of the blog here: https://compassexpeditions.com/blog/on-the-trail-of-the-incas/
If you're ready to experience the Trail of the Incas for yourself, click through for pricing details: https://compassexpeditions.com/tours/trail-of-the-incas/
