la paz ...death road its called that for one reason

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ok so after the most hurrendous bus journey from uyuni we arrived in la paz the capital of bolivia and the highest capital city in the world, let me tell you about the bus though 1st. It was deffinatly not the tourist gringo bus it was a shed on wheels full of locals crammed in the isles with some annoying drunken singing person playing the guitar and howling bolivian songs for 13 hours! (the singing at 1st was good but at 5 in the morning when your knackered squashed and have been shaken to death on the bumpies dirt track ever somehow the singing isnt quite as appealing)

anyway enough about that.....mum, dad you might want to stop reading at this point....

Theres something called the death road in bolivia which runs from la paz to rurrenabaque or somewhere round there....now normally no one in their right mind would if they had to go down this windy steep narrow dirt track....something to do with the high number of fatalitys from buses, vans, tourists etc going off the edge...so anyway we did the gringo thing and went mountain biking down it fon the day (with a tour mum if your reading this and i went at the back all the way..steady eddy me), it took 4 hours and was 60 kilometers and i was bloody knackered at the end as usual!

didnt look down off the edge as was v busy concentrating on not falling off, sheer drops off this this mountain and there are lorries and busses coming up and down...both ways ...there is only room on most of the road for 1 veichal, very scary watching them pass! luckily gravity tours are well know for saftey so we go off when a van was coming and they were lollipop ladies signaling up and down the mountain to say when it was safe to ride.

We did stop once for a car to pass and looked down to see a truck that had gone off the edge, the guide said it was fresh..prob explained why there was an ambulance going down when we were at top of the mountain. on the way back up we saw all the crosses where people had died, some only in august on a bus...nevertherless to say there was no way me and hannah were going on that road to rurrenabaque...flying deffinatly only option for me!!!

sampled la paz nightlife and everything else it had to offer was only going our for a few hours, 3 clubs later, a sing song in a church and a drink with the locals,guess what we arrived back at hostal at 9am just in time to get plane in the morning, obviously felt rancid on plane to the amazon was all self inflicted!

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Photos

the 3 amigos
this is the starts befor the death road, crapping myselfg at thius point by the way!

i love mackaws
this was my favourire part being off the bike and feeding the parrot! im more or a bird lover than a bike lover thats for sure

before the ride swigging 96% alcohol
this is for good look you drink it and throw some on your bike. it tastes like nail polish remover...mmmeee

start of the death road
weather was muggy and thowing it down at the top much to my horror

the famous drop
this is the picture on the post card you get to send home.

trucks coming up and down the mountain
watching two trucks pass each other is terrifying

Comments

[lori]

wow thats crazy!!, just up my ally. What inspired you to do this?