a casual bike ride down the worlds most dangerous road, being found totally naive in a drug pit, releasing the love of alpaca goods and 24hrs of party in santiago!!

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well lets get the first things straight...la paz is absolutely miniging in every possible way- structure, lay out, ugliness, dirt...everything!!! luckily we were only there for a few days and made the most of our time so we would spent the least amount of time in the city...the hostel we were staying in had a tab system for drinks and food and for 5 days, 2 nights worth of drinking and the food we'd bought we freaked out when we heard the bolivianos being given in the hundreds...worked it out in pounds- 25 pounds in total..god bless the british sterling..there are 15 bolivianos to the pound!!!!

well the first thing we did when we got there was book oursleves into 'gravity'...its a down hill bike ride that starts at 4,500m and ends at 1,100m, you go from snow capped mountains to tropical basin, its all down hill (which is actually a lie there is 2 bits of uphill!!) and you go down the world most dangerous road that is a thin dirt track that winds around the mountside with a sheer drop down one side, the smallest drop is 300m straigh down and cars and buses still use it...good-i dont even like biking-you get a free t-shirt at the end of it though and a buffet lunch in an animal sanctuary so how can one say no!! well we arrive at the top where its so cold and have a little lesson on the bikes and are then given some alcohol that can only be described as lighter fluid and told that we have to make a sacrifice to the gods of the mountain that entails us pouring abit on the wheel and drinking a bit oursleves..like i said-no health and safety in bolivia!!! the first part wasnt that bad, the scenery was amazing and the road was wide (with 2 lanes) and other than having to take over lorries around hair pin bends there wasnt anything worrying..oh and the 5k uphill slog at altitude..we got in the bus and did the 2k uphill climb instead!!! and then it began...the road got narrower and the tarmac disppeared to give way to gravel...on the way down you dont notice the drop (although the guides love to remind you of the people who have died cycling/falling off the edge!) because you are too busy concentrating on not falling off your bike onto the gravel which would really hurt! its only when you come back up on the bus and sit in the doorwell (as we thought was a great idea!) and you stick you feet out...over the edge!! great day though...and the t-shirt and lucnh were well worth it!!

definitely needed a stiff drink though after (and the tab starts!!) and so we venture to this 'club' called 'club 36' farmer and i expecting some good dancing to cheesy tunes and a few shots at the bar..well theres no cheese but you can get shots at the bar and you can also get weed and coke...oh good so somehow we've managed to get oursleves into a coke den...just play it cool!! it was all going well until we start chatting to some people and they're all talking about 'charlie' (for those who dont know thats slang for cocaine!), bearing in mind we are trying to make sure people think we're in the know so we can by pass the drug scene in here, and cara pipes up with 'who is this charlie bloke that everyones talking about? whos charlie, have we met him...good good cue our exit!!! luckily the next night we went out we went to a proper club and could indeed dance to cheesy tracks and the only thing you could buy over the bar was alcohol!!!

feeling not great..hangovers at altitude are a nightmare..we decided to go to the markets to cheer ourselves up and to finally unleash our desire for all the animal goods that had been taunting us throughout our trip!!! well we did go a little mad and got a bit jealous of buying goods for our respective families that there was little choice but to get some things for oursleves as well...unfortunately we also had to get caz something for her birthday and as we have great taste in clothes rather begrudgingly handed them over to caz on our arrival into santiago, secretly hoping she wouldnt like them..how can you not like pure alpaca slippers and a llama poncho/scarf!!! damn..she was lucky we left them in the hostel in our ruch to get out of la paz and had to turn back to get them...!!

as ever, nothing is easy in south america and our trip to santiago was via lima and buenos aires!!! 12 hrs later we arrive, late, into santiago and are rushed to check in, get changed, put our faces on and go to a club, a gay club no less (we were staying in the hostel of our gay friends whom we met in buenos aires...!!) well it was actually perfect for us as all we wanted to do was catch up, get pissed, dance to cheesy music and not get pestered/distracted by men...a gay club is the only place to do that..although you do get pestered by the ladies..how odd!!) managed to smuggle caroline into the hostel (shes small it was pretty easy-although she was woken up in the morning the person who occupied the bed she was occupying..ha ha!!) wandered around santiago, which is beautiful and took some touristy photos, treated ourselves to the hugest ice cream cone you can imagine and went to meet caz's spanish mummy...a great way to end a great 2 and half months...after a tearful goodbye cara and i set off to the airport to start our separate journies for a month...

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