La Paz and Death Road, Bolivia

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We arrived early morning to La Paz and checked into the Wild Rover hostel, they had a room ready for us which was a bonus as you normally have to wait until 2pm to check in. We booked to mountain bike down Death Road (the worlds most dangerous road) for the next day and then had a wander around the city. You could tell it was a poor area but the streets were lively and everything was dirt cheap! That evening we played pool at the hostel and then went to the cinema to watch The Counsellor, the film was rubbish but we got huge comfy VIP seats for £4! After the cinema we had an early night ready for the big day at Death Road.

We got up at 6:30am, had a fried breakfast and jumped in the mini bus. We drove for a couple of hours until we were 4,700m above sea level, had a safety briefing, put on our gear and we were off. The first 24km was on a tarmac road but we blasted it down and completed it in 30 minutes, the scenery was incredible with the mountain ranges in the distance. We had lunch, another briefing and then started the real Death Road. It was a thin, gravelly, slippy road right on the cliff edge. I just wanted to admire the beautiful scenery but one slip here and your off the edge and dead. My sunglasses wouldn't fit with the helmet so I constantly had the dust from the road in my eyes which wasn't ideal. The constant bouncing on the bumpy road and rocks absolutely killed my wrists it made it even harder to hold on and brake. One of the lads got too cocky and was skidding around the corners but it soon ended in disaster as he lost control and went flying into a bush and rock face, luckily for him he fell to the right side of the road, if he had fallen off the cliff side he would have been dead! The final part was really steep and slippy and the weather was much hotter at the bottom as we had descended 1,200m and travelled 54km. It was a relief to finish as it had been tough but the adrenaline rush was incredible, we all felt like we could take on the world. We headed to a hostel for lunch and had a beer in the swimming pool which was amazing after the long day. We had drinks at our hostel that night and headed out to a bar called the Dubliner. We were hammered and just ended up playing pool all night and didn't get back to the hostel until 6am!

The next day we were all so hungover so we spent the whole day in the room just having banter and 'story time' which consisted of me verbally abusing the two Australian girls in our room but everyone found it hilarious, even the girls. We managed to recover enough to go out again that night and we headed to the infamous Route 36 bar which is supposed to be secret but everyone knows about it. Basically it is a bar which openly sells and allows people to take cocaine like it is alcohol! It was a surreal experience to sit there with a beer watching everyone taking cocaine in the middle of a bar and is something I don't plan on going to again!

We had a big lie in the next day aNd all had chicken soul at the bar when we finally got up. I decided to have a beer with it which did not go down smooth! The hostel was setting up for the big 6th Anniversary Party that night putting up balloons and banners so we spent the day napping in our room. They had a band play at the hostel from around 7pm so we watched that and then they had a DJ from 10pm which is when the party started getting crazy. Freeman back doored it but me and George got hammered doing shots and jaeger bombs every 20 minutes. I then played a dice game with some people at the bar where u roll two dice and whoever rolls the lowest buys the shots, I rolled two 6's so I was buzzing and Luke rolled two 1's so the shots were on him. One of the girls had a bandage on her neck where she had burnt herself the night before trying to do a flaming shot, but not to be deterred here she was the night after smashing more shots with us, what a legend! We partied until the early hours and then people headed for a club but I'd spent all my money and was hammered so I just got in bed, all in all a great last night in La Paz but my body was ready for a couple of days rest at Lake Titicaca.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Wow
Looks crazy.

[Alan]

Death Road
Looks like your having the time of your lift we are all envious. Keep blogging it makes us smile. Stay safe. Alan