The Most Dangerous Road in the World...

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Met my friend Oli from univeristy and his two mates Dan and Tom who I´ve met before on Thursday afternoon: Great to see the lads and in true British fashion celebrated our rendezvous with a couple of mid afternoon cervezas :)

Had a wander around La Paz and looked into the possibility of getting a tour around San Pedro prison - one of the most notorious prisons in the world. Unfortunatley we only managed to get outside as this bizarre tourist activity has become somewhat more difficult to do in recent years!

Showed the boys my penthouse flat before heading up to Gravity Mountain Biking to book our ride on the ´The Worlds Most Dangerous Road´, aka Death Road, for the next day. Spent the evening at Diesel Bar before moving onto to a kareoke bar until 3am! There was a large group of us including Bolivians so there was a decent mix of songs from Enrique Iglesias to Queen and plenty of Spanish songs as well. Oli´s rendition of Billy Joel´s Piano Man was the most memorbale however - what a superb voice that boy has!

Waking up at 7 am to meet Gravity was certainly a mission but a couple of coffees down and we were gearing to go! The ride itself was sensational, a 30 odd km road section provided specatular views of the Yungas and the Amazon Basin. Then the Death Road was some of the best downhill mountain biking I have ever done. Decending over 3500 metres through incredible scenery was pretty amazing. Given the history of the road - it used to average between two and three hundred deaths a year, you are certainly kept on your toes throughout the ride. I followed the guide closely and got decent speeds in certain sections although I was ever wary of what lay several feet from the road!!

Oli, Dan myself and a couple of others from the group followed the ride with three ziplines across the valley - over 1.5km in distance and getting speeds of up to 85km an hour - hellll yeah!!

We ended the trip at La Senda Verde, the sanctuary that is the subject of my first magazine article, comforted by a hard earned beer and a meal. Spent the evening in La Paz enjoying a tasty meal with the lads before they headed off to Peru today. Great to see them and even better that we got to do the biking together! Very appropriate that I got out on the bike yesterday while the Team Townend Challenge is happening today!

In other news Image of a Busker got accepted for CockRock 2012 - standard :)

Promise more photos for the last couple of blogs soon. Cheers!

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