Blogs from La Paz, La Paz Department, Bolivia, South America - page 133

We arrived in La Paz really early in the morning so intended to climb into a hostel bed, not as easy as it sounds. For anyone arriving in La Paz early in the morning be warned most of the hostels are closed! You can buzz for as long as you like but they will not answer the door! And by early i mean 6am! But we eventually found a place and just crashed out untill mid afternoon, cama buses arnt as comfy as everyone would like you to think! We spent much of the afternoon just wandering around, it took us a while to find anywhere on the map because the lp guide map sucks! But just wandering was good enough for us. Everywhere you look you can see huge mountains towering over the city, with ... read more

I arrived in LA Paz on Saturday night from Cochabamba. Forgot how fun it is to try to breathe at an altitude over 10,000 feet. Met up with Paddy and Suzi From Ireland at a bar they work at. this is the fourth time i have seen them, the first time was in Bariloche, Argentina. I´m sure this won´t be the last time. Also ran into Gary and james from Sucre, probably won{t be the last time for them either. oh before i forget, if you want to see full size pics or down them click here FOTOS On Monday Paddy and I did the Death road bike trip. We did it with Madness mountain biking. The trip starts at over 14,000 feet and drops to about 4500 feet more or less. The trip cost a ... read more

- FOOD: Saltena - yeah! Almuerzo of quinoa soup, chicken with pumpkin, banana and rum desert - typical Bolivian nosh at it's best. - AREA: Bolivian shower shock once more! Coca museum. Streets that had definitely seen a big party after Independence Day celebrations. World's (2nd) Most Dangerous Road - from mountain to jungle on a mountain bike. - PEOPLE: Very calm and surprisingly undemonstrative - until the parties for La Paz's Independence Day began! New York prisoner. - WEATHER: Cold in the world's highest capital city (3,500m) but hot in the jungle. Fri 15th July: It felt strange being back to basics again and having to speak Spanish and make my own decisions! Luckily I met 2 girls in the queue at the airport as I didn't much fancy the idea of getting a taxi ... read more

On the bus, I shall be mainly eating fruit. I wanted to buy three bananas (quite a few anyway, right?) but to make the price up to 1 boliviano (15 to the pound) I had to get seven. Ditto with the oranges. I shall be listening to Cold Play, Green Day (American Idiot), FF live at Glastonbury, the BEPs, and a compilation CD with Foo Fighters´"Best of You", which had been sending me wild when it came up on Xfm before I left. So good. I have a blanket too. A fetching grey with lime green flecks, it is. Bring this journey on! Sorry, just wasting time (yeah yeah, I hate waste, I know) before meeting the lazy ones for lunch.... read more

Did I sound smug in my last entry, at the bottom of the world´s most dangerous road, following my successful cycle ride? Well, I shouldn´t have. The journey back up!! It´s far more scary being in the back of a jeep jumping around all over the place just centimetres from the edge, and it takes longer than going down. You also notice the smashed up vehicles at the bottom when you look out of the window. We´d been going up for a few hours when we got stuck in a traffic jam and the van in front of us fell half down a ditch on the cliff side. It was dark and there were lorries, cars and vans trying to go in both directions, but everything came to a standstill, with the typical sheer drop to ... read more