Oruro - Sica Sica - El Alto

Oruro - Sica Sica: 25 th February, 111 km
Sica Sica - El Alto: 26 th february, 67 km by bike + 40 km by minibus

Oruro downtown was a nice place, the outskirts were not. It took more than one hour to get out of the muddy-trashy soup surrounding the city. Might sound snobbish but it stank badly.
A doble via is being built between Oruro and La Paz, so we had our own tarmac lane, back and forth. Really nice in the pretty heavy traffic. The bad part of it is that the shoulder disappears under the gravel of constructions even were no new lane is to be found yet. These parts were downright unnerving.
The way to Sica Sica was boring pampas all the way, but one should not complain about flatlands after all the climbing experienced to come up to the altiplano.
Once we came to Sica Sica we could not find any Hospedaje, so nice little Juan on his bike gathered us before the Unidad Educativa and fetched his father, who is the janitor of the school and let us sleep in one of the classrooms. Really nice, especially because during the night we could hear thunderstorms and in the morning we found snow on our way.
Just before lunch, heading towards El Alto, we met fabulous Gaby who loves bicycles and played us a tune on his traditional instrument.
On our way to El Alto, due to heavy traffic and construction, we felt no joy in cycling and soon decided to enter the city on a minibus. Marco felt guilty for cheating, Ellen was just pure happiness, and we met really nice locals on the bus. So far all the people we met in Bolivia (and in the continent) have been really nice and friendly. The rumors about bolivians being shy and rude proved to be just false.
El Alto was a big mess, and we got to a Mirador nearby the market (the only half charming spot) to get a view of La Paz. Looked even crazier and we felt relieved to have already decided not to get down there.