James has a death wish....

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Once we were back in La Paz, realizing that we had less than a month left of our trip, we had to decide on the things we wanted to do the most. Although we had originally planned to go into the Amazon and do a jungle tour, after our trip to Uyuni we had both successfully caught colds and were thoroughly fed up of wearing coats, hats and gloves all the time (see, you complain about the weather in Britain!) The idea of heading to Brazil for sun, sea and sand was more tempting than heading into the jungle on what we heard was the scariest light aircraft flight of all time (everyone we spoke to said they thought they were going to die). So, we booked the next available flight to Sao Paulo.

However, there was one thing that James really wanted to do before we left Bolivia, that being the cycle ride down the World’s Most Dangerous Road. Yes, that’s actually what it’s called. Due to the number of fatalities, with an average number of twenty-six vehicles going off the edge a year (there having been a bus crash killing everyone on board two weeks before). As you can probably tell, I was not thrilled by the idea. (Apparently) reassuringly, only eight people so far had died doing the bike ride. We’d met a lot of people who had done the cycle ride and loved it, but it wasn’t for the faint hearted, with sheer drop offs of up to six-hundred metres on the side of the three metre wide road (just enough for one car). But, I was persuaded (forced, really) by James, and so before I knew it we were in a bus climbing up a mountain to ride down one the scariest roads I’ve ever seen in my life. (My vote for stupidest idea of all time goes to James).

The bike ride was sixty-six kilometers long, and it took about four hours. All I can say is, James really enjoyed it. I, on the other hand, spent the whole time freaking out and hoping I wasn’t going to fall off the edge, riding as slow as I possibly could. What possesses people to do that ride I do not know, but I do know that there were some absolute nutters who flew the whole way down, seemingly without noticing that they could die at any second. But, eventually, we did make it to the end (in one piece!), and I’ve never been so glad to have finished anything in my entire life. The worst thing is, I think James would actually do it again…

Photos from this were obviously impossible to take ourselves, but hopefully there should be a CD arriving soon at home that we bought with photos on. So you can look at James racing down the mountain, and my terrified expression when it gets there! xxx

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