La Paz, Death Road and Farewell Elliot!

---

Once we arrived back in La Paz, we had a few hours to kill before check in. We took the morning early by hitting up a cafe or 2 and checking out the Coca leaf musuem. After we settled into the hostel and had a shower we headed back to check out a few more sights in La Paz. The next day we woke up early and headed to a local hostel where we head breakfast and prepped for a day of biking death road. We were geared up with full clothes, helmet, gloves, elbow and knee pads. They then drove us to the start of the road. About 1 hour was down hill on paved road. Scary, fast, fun and freezing. We decended quite a bit of altitude and it started to warm up. We then had a snack and were bussed up 8 kilometers to the real death road. This consisted of huge rocks, dirt road and about 3 hours of down hill mountain biking. It was a blast, Elliot immediately felt comfortable and was fast, it took me a while but soon I was keeping up! After three hours of biking, a few photo stops and drinks we road through a river to a hostal. At the hostal we showered, ate a buffet lunch and had a beer of course. The bus back took 3 hours, there were two buses and we opted on the one that drove back via the death road instead of the new paved one. Another few hours of scary driving!

The next morning we headed out late morning and took a public bus to an area called las cholcas, from there we walked for 3 hours to valle de la luna, an area of clay which has been eroded, causing it to look like craeters of the moon. After this we bussed to the zoo which cost 3.5 bolivianos...ridiculously cheap and not touristy. We saw condors, pumas and monkeys, plus a spectle bear. After we grabbed a chicken feast and bussed back to La paz.

That night we took it easy and began to pack. We flew out the next day in the afternoon and landed in Lima at 6pm ish. After chilling with Elliot until he could check in to his flight I headed to a local hostal to wait out the night until my flight to Ecuador the next day. Elliot had a bit more trouble getting back to Ohio, and even more getting back to LA and Sydney. After a okay flight to Houston, his flight to Washinton DC was delayed, meaning he arrived late into Columbus and would miss his connection to LA. After pushing this flight back he ended up arriving in Columbus very late, and no flights were going to Chicago and LA due to the weather. After spending the night with my family, and a few beers with Ben he was able to get an early flight to LA the next morning, but not in enough time to make his universal tour. His day in LA was spent exploring a bit but ended up being a bit of a let down. He was lucky enough to make a quantas flight direct to SYD instead of the Air pacific flight to fiji and then SYD. Back to reality for elliot!

---