The highest I've ever been

You may have to double click on this photo to see it in detail, but this is me with the GPS at 15283 feet above sea level. 15,000 feet is where things start to go funny. Ball point pens start to burst, hard drives burst, diesel engines do not perform worth a damn and German tourists puke and puke and puke. Nothing funnier.

It is something to think that if you were standing at this elevation above Vancouver the turbo prop planes would be a good thousand feet below you, and the sea planes, nearly ten thousand feet below. It's no mystery why the Spanish had such a difficult time colonizing this neck of the woods. Sitting up is a challenge at this height, and I can not possibly imagine lugging a cannon and mortar up to this elevation

This is the place where you begin the trek down Bolivia's death road. The death road (see photos below) is being improved in parts so that it is paved, and a few safety standards are put in place.

Funny that even in the new parts the locals refer to it as "el nuevo camino de muerte."

Such confidence in local engineering.