Potosi and La Paz

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Day 44
Back on the road again, this time to Potosi, which is the highest city in the world (4090 metres), pretty high. Interesting journey, Bolivian buses are somewhat different to the Brazillian and Argentinian ones! Not much of a road and lots of teetering on cliff edges in a shoddy little mini bus with no air con. Only six hours though...
Had a nice private room with a lovely hot shower so didn´t do much. Just grabbed some food and watched terminator 2! We´re so cultured.

Day 45
Not much to do in Potosi, other than going down in to the mines, which we were too scared to do, so we just pottered around the town. It was the ´Dia del Desafio´ (Day of Challenge), so all the kiddies were off school doing activities in the square so that kept us entertained.
Spent the day worrying about whether our night bus would leave to La Paz as there had been problems with blockades on the road. When we arrived at the bus terminal the company which we had bought our tickets with had cancelled the bus. Had a little fight with another company for the last tickets, so alll was ok. Or so we thought until the bus came to a halt at 1am and didn´t move for 9 hours! It was pretty scary as no-one told us what was going on and there were people outside lighting fires around the bus. The worst point was when I saw a Bolivian woman rolling a bus wheel past the window. Nice.

Day 46
When the bus finally got going again, the inside of the window was completely frozen over with ice. Eventually arrived in La Paz at about 4 and made our way to the hostel. Best one yet. Nice room, hot shower and even a kettle! Well worth the 9 quid.
After a little nap we heard a funny Chinese/Blackpool accent and ran out the room to find Lani and Sonya who we had arranged to meet up with. To celebrate we went to a nice little English pub and had bangers and mash, before hitting La Paz for a rave.

Day 47
Monged about with our headaches. Managed to organize the next days trip down the ´death road´which we had been looking forward to. In the evening we went for a proper curry (at a British-Indian restaurant) with Sonya and Lani and the salt flat crew, and prayed that we could hold it in for the bike ride!

Day 48
DEATH ROAD!
Drove up to La Cumbre 4700 m.a.s.l, and had a little practice on our bikes (to make sure the brakes worked). We then descended more than 3500m in about 5 hours over 64km. It was pretty special. Amazing scenery, snowy mountains, jungles, waterfalls and MASSIVE SHEER DROPS. Its called the worlds most dangerous road because it sees an average of 100 deaths per year. However most of these are silly people in cars, drunken tourists, or general idiots. We went nice and slow so got down in one piece. At the end of the ride the company took us to a nice hotel where we could have a little swim and munch down a buffet dinner.
The rest of Sonya and Lani´s crew had arrived by now so it was time for another night out. Lots more drinking and dancing and Tom made a nice little Bolivian friend.

Day 49
Another painful day with a hangover where not much got done. Back to the English pub and then later went to see Indiana Jones, which was abit pants but it had quite abit of South America in so we like that!

Day 50
Went and did some shopping round the markets, but it wasn´t as good as we expected, and we didn´t see the promised llama foetuses so we were abit disappointed.
Went for a lovely lebanese in the evening to say goodbye to the girls.

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