La Paz,The Death Road and Lake Titicaca

Hi everyone,
Well this is the last of Bolivia so i hope you are all patient with me. I will catch up! Anyway the last trip was hiking this one is biking. La paz is the other capital of Bolivia but not official and it is a great looking city. It is in a bowl and the houses spread up the sides. They are really colourful and i think it looks great. The city is like all cities, busy, and it looks very modern so not really much to say about it.
There are small streets with lots of small shops selling everything from screws to Lama foetus. I kid you not! There is a witch market where you can by all kinds of weird stuff like foetuses and other things that you can use to heal. You were not allowed to take a picture as you would then have bad luck and you don't need that before doing the death road. We also checked out the coca museum and found out that they still use coca leaves in Coca Cola for the taste! Interesting!
Well after we spent a few days having a look around La Paz we decided to get the adrenaline pumping and got ourselves together to do "The Death Road". The death road is a very old road which is a dirt road and it goes from near La Paz into the valley. Nowadays there is a beautiful new road that takes a different route. This road is very dangerous in places where the road in spots is only a few meters wide and at some spots vehicles have gone over the side an plummeted a few hundred meters. There have also been a few cyclists who have gone over the side. This is a brief description of why it is called the death road.
So we headed off in the morning and the bus brought us up out of the city to the starting point. The first bit is tarmac and down hill so you can go really fast. The corners can be tricky if going too fast but we managed. The next bit you could cycle or take the bus as it was up hill and don't forget we are above 3500m and with trucks going by pumping out black fumes.I ended up pushing the bike up the last bit of hill. This was good as one girl cycled for a minute and decided that was enough and took the bus. Joost on the other hand managed to go the whole way up! Amazing!
Then we had reached the death road!! We prepared ourselves and then off we went. We decided to go in the fast group and it was such a thrill. The bikes were so good, with great suspension( we went with Madness Adventures). At one point a guy in front of me hit a stone and his bike wobbled and i thought this is it but he managed to keep control and all was good. The views were amazing but the drop down made you really be careful.. As we dropped in altituded it got warmer and then there were parts where you had to go uphill. It was a killer but managed! Before we got to the end they told us there was a speed ramp and that you could jump or go over slow. Thing was when you are going down hill you cover alot of ground fast and before you knew it there was the ramp and so we jumped and landed well, but one guy came down too fast and lost control and crashed. He had managed to do the whole death road and at the last corner crashed! He was ok just a few scratched. It was a great rush and it is a definite if you go to La Paz.
After all that tough cycling we decided we would chill in a nice town called Coroico, by the pool, and see where we will go next.
So we decided we would go to, yes you guessed, Lake Titicaca. This is the highest lake in the world of this size, and it is massive and beautiful. We stayed in a town called Copacabana.There is more than one! There is not much there but it is a nice little place. We did a trip over to Isla del Sol where there are some Inca ruins and just a really nice view over the lake. You get a really good sunset and sunrise(if you get up for it) and we did!! From here we took a bus into Peru and said goodbye to lovely Bolivia.
Till Peru G&J
Ps. Sorry there are no pics of the bike ride but we had them on DVD and we sent it home but we will put some up when we get them back.

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