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Lapaz, an interesting city, a city full of big red brick buildings, thousands of taxis who seem like all they want to do is run you over, hundreds of tourist stores selling everything llama and alpaca you could imagine, a million pharmacys selling anything and everything you could imagine including penicilin and viagra; take your pick! hundreds of tour companies, some great hostels; namely the Wild Rover, which might I add has the most comfortable beds in South America! Route 36, some great resturaunts; I won't be forgetting that steak and red wine date with my Irish lads any time soon! and a nice temperate climate; sunny days and chilly nights; perfect for rugging up, or going out without a million layers on for once.
I'd like to thank Lapaz for some big nights which resulted in nice hangovers, great food, the death road experience, speedy taxi rides, Irish men and women, a bad stomach, my lovely alpaca jumper and my vintage clothes. A warning; Lapaz tends to have a trapping effect on almost every traveller I have met so before arriving ensure you have a departure ticket out of there or you may never leave!
After a day of recovery
from another noteable night/early morning out on the town I decided, finally to sign jup for the death road. This really is the hardest thing about travelling; making decisions....should I take the bus on the monday to there or the bus on tuesday to here, should I book with the tour company convieniently located in the hostel or look around for a better price....but I guess i shouldn't be complaining if the hardest thing I have to do in a day is decide what adventure I'm going to take next!
So I booked the same tour as the boys, ProDownHill, only for the pro's apparently. 8am we were tucked up in a van with 'smack my bitch up' playing loudly in our ears, vamanos!!
I can't really remember how long it took, but within a flash we were piling out of the car and gearing up. Looking very professional in our kits we did the touristy thing and took some photos, listened intently to the instructions; basically you can go as fast as you want! An exhilerating start to the day 30 odd km of big sweeping bends and a smooth surface; it's quite easy to say I really enjoyed
this part. Barely touching the breaks I was only wishing I was on a road bike for this section, in between that and singing 'we built this city' to keep myself occupied I was ready for the actual death road! Bring it!
We jumped back in the van for the 8km uphill, thank god, nobody said anything about up hill! and within ten minutes we were been given the run down on the dangers of the death road (there has to be some right) and beng asked to take it easy.
It was completely different to our very easy and smooth start and whilst the front wheels felt rather wobbly I soon got the hang of things and started to enjoy myself, oh the memories came flooding back about shadow!! How I used to love riding out...can't say the same for riding up!
We stopped every ten minutes or so to re group and for Noel to give us the run down on the area, accidents, history of the place. Apparently there was some Spanish guy associated with Hitler who hid out here in his compound, great place to hide out buddy, don't know many people would be wanting to
come out this road to find you and I couldn't envisage a police chase going down to well. Just for your information apparently there have been over 85,000 deaths on the death road, hence the name I guess, and this is including those men and women who helped build the road; regardless it's a pretty large death toll...and isn't it funny how it's now become a tourist attraction?!!
Pot holes, very tight corners, a few near misses, the dreaded sound of your back tire slipping, long, shear drops straight down, beautiful scenery (and yes I was only looking when I was stopped mum!) and great fun. The death road was completed successfully and was a lot of fun, especially the last section down to the hotel for lunch. Much more technical, faster, harder, more awesome!! It was so much fun we all agreed we wanted to do it again but time was of the essence; there were cold beers and a cold pool waiting and I couldn't say no to cold beers.
Awards for the day go to Dan for the most stacks, Mossy for the most popped tires (two was it Mossy?!) Sam for being in the wrong place
at the wrong time and being caught up in the most stacks and Chris for making a good bee line for me! To Noel for being an awesome guide and to the guys for I'm sure the best selection of music being played in any death road van on the day, epic, especially Daft Punk playing upon completion. Kudo's to our other friend on the trip for being able to resist having a conversation with me; not many people can add that to their list! And to me for being the best female rider (regardless of their being no other females on the trip, I was still awesome, noel said so himself!)
A great day, spent again in great company with great weather and to top it off a great final night out in LaPaz.
This is pretty much becoming standard so you can say it with me now; if you get the chance do it!
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