La Paz

---

The bus ride was an interesting experience, more uncomfortable than dangerous as I don't think the bus went faster than 50km per hour. Apparently the main road is being renovated so the entire journey was through a rocky field (not even a dirt road) which runs parallel to the main road. We arrived in la Paz exhausted and decided to treat ourselves to a night of luxury at the Stannum hotel. The hotel occupies the 12th floor of a building in the 'posh' suburbs of la Paz and boasts breathtaking views of the bowl shaped city with buildings clinging to its sides and the beautiful snow capped mt illamani. With our exquisite view of this city built in an ancient crater we didn't feel so bad spending the entire day in bed watching Cruel Intentions and other American movies. In the true spirit of the 'gringos' (the derogatory word given to white English people by the Bolivians) we had embraced that day, we briefly ventured out to get some Burger King before quickly retreating to the comfort of the hotel again. The luxury was short lived but after almost 25 hours of lying in a king sized bed with crisp white linen and down duvets we caught a taxi to our more affordable accommodation, which was a shabby room next to a hi-way with a sewerage leaking bathroom. From there we ventured into the witches market famed for its vast array of sale goods ranging from lama fetuses to fossils. We unfortunately timed our shopping expedition badly as it was a Sunday and nearly all the interesting shops were closed. We still managed to pick up alpaca wool jerseys for all our family friends. Satisfied with our days shopping and after adding an extra 8kg to our travelers load, which we thought we would ship home until we realized how expensive that would be, we wondered back to our terrible hostel for a broken nights sleep between the hooting and alarms, before death road the next day. Death road was named the worlds most dangerous road a few years back when on average a person died every day on the 64km road which stretches from la Cumbre (4200m) to Coroico (1000m). The gravel road averages 3m wide and runs along the edge of precipitous cliffs with up to 600m drops, over 16 cyclists have gone over the edge since it opened for mountain biking so we really were quite nervous to start the decent. The adventure begins in the high snow capped mountains taking you through cloud cover and into the steaming hot jungle below. We both started out very cautiously, slowly meandering round the bends and pulling our breaks till our forearms hurt. Eventually near the end we were racing to the bottom (John more so than me, he basically raced the guide who was a kamikaze New Zealander). Luckily we survived and what an exhilarating experience that was. A warm beer has never tasted so good. There was an added bonus at the end of the worlds most dangerous road with a visit to an endangered animal sanctuary for lunch. The animal sanctuary was started some years ago by a Bolivian who realized the need for a safe haven for the many endangered birds, mammals and even reptiles that are sadly poached from the jungle and sold on the black market in la Paz ( I suspect you could most likely find some of these creatures at the witches market). The sanctuary was a magical place set on an island within the jungle. The animals are free to wonder as they like and macaws and toucans fly freely about, choosing to remain in this safe haven rather than venturing out. The best part (or saddest part) about it was the monkeys. There were over 120 monkeys, spider monkeys, howler monkeys and cap pachinko monkeys. The monkeys were fiercely protective over their saviour, the Bolivian guy who started the sanctuary and we were warned not to approach him to avoid a monkey attack. It was quite incredible seeing him with over five monkeys hugging him and lying on him. We soon learned where the howler monkey got its name from when the alpha male, threatened by our presence, climbed to the top of a pole and started howling, about 10 other howlers emerged from the trees and climbed up to the alpha clambouring on top of him to make a ball of monkeys.

---