La Pazzled (Ref Streetsy xx)

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It's been a long time coming but finally here is the next chapter in my adventure. I've got the usual excuses, hectic schedule, no netbook (until now, thanks to a new screen and my fabulous swiss army knife) and limited computer/internet access. Blah blah blah.

Anyway, the challenge for me is remembering everything. Only five weeks ago but it seems like a lifetime ago already. Well after one very cold, but surprisingly comfortable overnight cama bus ride from Sucre, we arrived to a rather gloomy looking La Paz, the capital city of Bolivia. It's far from picture perfect, but the geographics of the place are pretty impressive. The whole city appears to be in one large bowl.

By pure chance a lot of people I'd met since I first started out, seemed to miraculously all be in La Paz at the same time in the one and only Wild Rover hostel. I think the name pretty much says it all. Having spirits poured into your mouth (and rather unluckily eye) was standard practice and so were the hangovers. In between recovering from hangovers we did manage to wander round the city, did a spot of shopping, go to the witches market which was full of dead animals and foetus hanging up. Nice. We also got Shane one of the most impressive birthday cakes I've seen. The Bolivians surprisingly make extremely good cakes, they really are works of art. We also went to see “Hangover 2” at a rather luxurious cinema in a big shopping mall on the outskirts of the city. It was way more plush than anything I've been to at home, but when the movie cut out half way through we were quickly reminded that we are most definitely still in Bolivia. Our taxi drive back to the hostel was pretty hairy, the wheels on the taxi were actually loose and I honestly thought they were going to fall off and we'd have to push it up the hill, but by some miracle they actually stayed on and we made it back in one piece.

I couldn't come to La Paz without mountain biking down the world's most dangerous road. Anything extreme and it's got my name written all over it. The original company that established this challenge are Gravity but after many recommendations we decided to go with Vertigo. They're not as expensive, but the equipment is just as good and the guides are brilliant. The route itself is virtually all downhill so it's not too bad but you most definitely need a full suspension bike the road is really bumpy and very narrow in places. The road is now closed and pretty much only used by tourists like me to cycle down, but once upon a time there was actually two way traffic using it. This thought still blows my mind, I still can't even imagine how two full size buses could possibly pass each other. It totally defies logic. The death toll is pretty impressive and it's easy to see why. A week before I did it a Japanese girl died cycling down the road, but having now done it's difficult to see how unless you were going too fast or just not concentrating. It's no way near as bad as everyone thinks. Having said that though I still managed to have an accident. It was only because I got a bit cocky at the end and landed on my head and my hand. Thank god for my helmet and protective padding. I've got a rather nice scar on my arm and fractured hand (which I didn't realise until a few weeks later) as a souvenir. Serves me right! At the end trip we got a really nice dinner and the offer to use one of the most disgusting pools I've ever seen and got nailed by sandflies. It was still an amazing day though and I would recommend it to anyone. We all went out to celebrate surviving and didn't make it to bed until two days later!

Unfortunately during my travels I managed to pick up the famous “Bolivia Belly” and although I didn't see a doctor it felt like my whole digestive system was inflamed which was pretty uncomfortable and kept knocking me out. I had to do a fair amount of sleeping to try and get my strength back. I did resort to going to the local pharmacy but it was only a temporary fix and I ended up self medicating in Peru after playing Dr Jane using google and quite amazingly the antibiotics I prescribed myself did the trick. Thankfully you don't need a prescription over here.

My original plan was to spend another week in Bolivia to recover some of my overspending but there were strikes in Peru and the border between Bolivia and Peru had been closed for weeks, but got opened for a small period of time, so we decided to get across while we could. I had to get Peru 13th June at the very latest so that I could me the girls. In the end after more googling I discovered you could get a two hour taxi ride from La Paz to the border for £3 per person and then we could bus the rest of the way. And that's exactly what we did. The taxi rides were an experience, at one point the taxi driver was zig zagging up the hill because he didn't have enough engine power to get up. We then ended up travelling across dirt tracks for a fair few miles. The ground was so rough and coaches full of people and cars were travelling across it. It looked like a complete free for all,it made India look good. I've never seen anything quite like it. It took a fair amount of skill from our taxi driver to get across. There was so little information on the border issues, it was quite stressful not knowing whether we'd make it across the border or not. But we arrived and we pretty much just wandered across. It was so easy, I was so relieved to be in Peru.

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