La Paz

---

The journey La Paz was strange halfway through we all had to get off
the bus and get on a speedboat while our bus was put on a wooden
rickety carrier thing (2 weeks earlier a bus had sunk) then get back
on at the other side of the river.

We got to La Paz at about 8pm and got a taxi to Hotel Republica where
we had booked to have a double bed and a chill out night before we
booked into Loki the morning after, didn't really work out as we were
given a twin but just pushed the beds together.

Day 1

We got money out of the ATM which was weird getting 1400 B's out but
not complaining Bolivia is cheap as chips. We checked out of
Republica, found Loki and tried checking in there for 3 hours but the
guy behind reception was an idiot and the dullest guy I have ever met.
We gave up with checking in and went for breakfast at the bar where
the service got worse getting nothing but attitude from the girl
behind the bar, starting to wish we had stayed at Wild Rover. We got
our breakfast and although the girl said I would be lucky to get my
eggs scrambled it all came as asked. We sat and talked to Dave and
Lauren from Canada before finally checking into a 5 bed dorm,
showering then heading into La Paz.

We walked down to the main street and found a Bolivian gem called
Eli's a pizza shop that sold something called a pizza cono which was
basically a pizza bread in the shape on a cone stuffed with tomato,
cheese and mixed meat, it was unbelievably nice. After that piece of
heaven we decided to check out San Pedro a prison in the centre of La
Paz which you can illegally visit by bribing the guards 400-550 B's.
We sat outside the prison waiting for someone to approach us, which we
were told was the best way to get in but no one did then an Irish guy
tried asking the guards and they said no visiting today.
We headed to the witches Market which is definitely the cheapest
Market we have visited in south America and spent a couple of hours
there buying 2 pairs of lounging pants, Hollie buying loads as usual
she hasn't got the fact whatever she buys she has to carry yet.
When you stay at Loki they give you a map with nice restaurants, bars,
book shops and travel Agencies on that are recommended by them and I
was very happy to see a Mexican on the map. La. Cueva was the name of
the mexican and I couldn't recommend a place more, it had 26 different
types of tequila, strangely decorated but the food was superb! Me and
hollie both got burritos each and a litre of beer (tecate) and it was
only 100 B's (a tenner), craving definitely filled. After the Mexican
we quickly used the net then headed back to the hostel bar for drinks.
Hollie was made up to find Loki sold strongbow and I was just happy a
litre of lager was only 14B's (£1.40). We played killer got friendly
with some of the staff and decided to go out to a club. Traffic was
the venue of choice and it and it was ok. It started off well with
some good beats even playing an old classic like chickenlips which I
loved! Then the later it got the worse the music got and I found
myself stood waiting for a beat so we called it a night about 4ish and
went to Loki and to bed.

Day 2

Woke up very hungover and headed straight for the best hangover food
in the world, FAST FOOD! A large bacon double cheeseburger grande meal
with fanta hit the spot, bang on.
The fact that we were both hungover meant we didn't do much. We headed
to Vertigo to book Death Road (the worlds most dangerous road) for
Monday, it was 480 B's which is cheap compared to back home but
expensive in Bolivian terms, we found that was the case for alot of
stuff in and around La Paz. Then we decided to check out The Point
another lively hostel in La Paz to see if it was better than Loki but
it was well out the way and dead.

There was alot of places on the Loki map that were south of La Paz so
we decided to head there for tea and ended up in a coffee house having
pasta and a panini, from what we saw I wouldn't recommend the south of
the city I didn't think there was much going on.
After an average tea we headed back to Loki and to the bar we played
pool with Shane and the Loki staff drank and decided to head out and
try a different club. Blue was ok it was full of gringos which meant
it was socialable but the music was shocking, at one stage the DJ was
playing a dance remix of Sophi Ellis Bexter. Hollie wasn't drinking
because she was drunk the night before, we left about 4 to go to bed.

Day 3 (San Pedro)

Again hungover and meant to be meeting a guy outside San Pedro at
10.30 we didn't wake up till 10.45 so we got changed and headed there.
There was a morning parade/fair going on in the main street with
people dancing and loads of kids on motorised mini cars. We arrived at
10 past 11 and our guy had gone but we got speaking to an American guy
and English guy, luckily the American guy had read marching powder and
spoke fluent Spanish so we were in good company. We queued outside San
Pedro telling the guards we were visiting Juan which is quite
laughable as it is probably one of the most popular names in south
America. After 40 minutes of trying to persuade the guards we were
genuinely visiting Juan (and we didn't know his surname) they
surprising wouldn't let us in. Then a woman approached us as we were
about to leave and said if we waited 15 minutes she would go and see
the governor and see if she could get us in for 400 B's each. We
waited and unfortunately she came back and said the governor had
suspended all visits for 3 weeks due to tourists sniffing cocaine
while in the prison. I was gutted as I was really looking forward to
seeing the prison before reading Marching Powder while travelling New
Zealand. After that disappointment we headed to Vertigo to pay for
Death Road, then grabbed a computer to arrange to meet Ross and Craig
at the Star of India (the worlds highest curryhouse) for tea.
We went for a drink at a bar called Sol y una which was nice then had
tea at the Star of India. We had some ROUNDS then ordered, in my
opinion I thought the Star of India was crap, the naan was just really
greasy bread and there was no spicy curries. We all ordered something
different and everyones was mild, I mean they a Vindaloo which is
supposed to be very very hot but apart from that the rest of the menu
was too mild for my liking. Anyway less of the masterchef section, after tea we said our goodbyes to the lads and had an early night, no chance I was doing death road with a hangover.

Day 4 (Death Road)

Picked up at 8am from our hostel we headed to Wild Rover to get our minibuses. The day started off well with someone crashing into the Vertigo minibus behind us only for the driver (who looked like a mexican version of Joe Pesci) to slip the other driver a couple hundred with thge good old bribe shake.
It took about an hour and a half to get to the top of Death Road where we tested our bikes, helmets and were given a safety talk. Vertigo pride themselves on being the last group to go down Death Road which means there arent loads of bikers going down while you are. The first part of the ride was on road to get used to the bike and find your bearings, although we did do 63 km in less than an hour with the guide saying in sections we hit 30 mph. After the road section we stopped for dinner (sandwiches, yoghurt, oreos, a chocolate bar and coke) for about 40 minutes then drove uphill to the start of Death Road. We were given another safety talk at the top which none of us needed after seeing the whole road from above.

It took about 3 hours to do Death road stopping about every 30 minutes to let the girls catch up. The guide explained the different sections of the road when we stopped such as the devils tail, British corner and Israeli corner no need to explain why they were called this. After 3 hours we hit what I thought was the hard section of the road called the trail, the drops might not have been as high or steep but the dirt track was five times more gravelly and I locked up at least three times sending myself into the cliff face. Luckily the trail only took an hour with only 1 lad from Essex going over his handlebars, funny but quite close to the edge (he wasn’t hurt but his camera was in 4 bits).
At the bottom the whole group had a sigh of relief but all agreed that it wasn’t as hard or scary as people make out, and more beautiful scenery wise than what you get told.
We then headed to a hotel at the bottom having a cold shower, cold beer or 5 and a buffet style lunch. Then the tour guide sat us down and told us all the statistics, I can only remember a few, 31 tourists and 3 guides have died since the death road bike ride began. An average of 1,100 people died on death road when it was open to 2 way traffic before it closed in 2006. The worst injury our guide saw was 2 weeks before us when a British girl managed to piece her thigh with her handle bars and was still in hospital now not being able to walk yet. After tea we got back in the minibuses picked up some beers, the drivers picking up some cocoa leaves and headed back to La Paz. The new road that replaced death road was 100 times better with brilliant scenery, me and Hollie didn’t feel unsafe at all during the trip back. Although when we got back to La Paz and saw our guides we wondered how we got back in one piece. Cocoa leaves are chewed a lot by south Americans mostly Peruvians and Bolivians and it suppresses hunger, numbs your head and is a natural red bull apparently. As the driver and guides had chewed a bag full in an hour and a half and it numbs your head, it also causes swelling so all our guides looked like the patients out of theme hospital with the big head’s, it was very funny to see.
We were both knackered from Death road so we had a few drinks got a takeaway pizza (Eli's) and headed to bed.

Day 5

The only aims for today were to book the Pampas trip, the salt flats and transport to both. From speaking to a lot of people in Loki and some recommendations along the way, we decided against the bus to Rurrenabaque as a bus went off the edge not so long ago and they have now named the road the new death road. So we decided to fly to Rurrenabaque and get the bus back as on the way back we had heard the bus drives on the opposite side of the road to the edge meaning it is very unlikely it would fall off the edge. We were going to book everything through Kanoo tours within Loki but the woman behind the desk answered every question we asked with another question so we decided we weren’t going to give her any money and booked our trips through a company called Honey tours opposite Wild Rover, who were very good. The total for the two trips and the transport was 1450 B's (145 quid) which included our flight to Rurrenabaque, the 3 day Pampas tour, the bus back to La Paz, a really good bus from La Paz to Uyuni and the one day Salt flats tour. The total came to over our weekly budget but I wasn’t going to miss the Salt flats or the Pampas so the budget had to be doubled this week. As we had looked around a couple of companies before booking, this took up most of the day.

The night we spent in the bar/TV room having a couple of games of pool then getting a sandwich and watching a pirate of Knight and Day, it was exactly what I expected guns, jumping around and a lot of Tom Cruise trying to look cool like 90% of all his films. Afterwards to bed to be fresh for the Pampas, very excited!


Muchos Love

Brown

---