As promised link to the video we made on the salt flats. Excuse expletive lyric content and general silliness! We had a lot of fun….

http://vimeo.com/m/57812472

La Paz was my final stop with my tour, and also my final destination in Bolivia. We arrived after a twelve hour bus journey early in the morning. Coming into at La Paz is unlike anywhere else I’ve been, the city is inside a huge basin and at just below 4000metres the highest capital in the world. The neighbouring town of El Alto hosts La Paz’s airport has a runway twice as long as normal as the air is so thin it does not provide enough resistance to slow the planes. The buildings cover and climb the huge basin, and in the distance snow capped Illimani at 6402. The outskirts of the higher end of the city are very poor, and then as you descend lower the buildings and the people change, the rich white people choosing to live lower down where it’s slightly less cold. It’s a city of striking contrasts with some beautiful old buildings surrounding by ugly blocks and sprawling red brick Lego houses. And like many other places the gap between rich and poor is unashamedly evident.

We spent our first day exploring the central market areas, including the witches market and climbed to a couple of miradors. Again having enjoyed the lower altitude of La Serena we were all back to gasping for breath especially as the city sits in a deep V shape and as soon as you start to climb the lack of oxygen is a killer. The witches market is a small area of shops where you can buy amulets, spells, and cures for luck, love, money, asthma, impotency and depression. One of the most shocking items they have to sell are dried llama babies, these are actually foetus of still born lamas and with other items are buried under your house for Pachamama to ask for good-luck. It felt a bit touristy but I saw quite a few genuine local customers buying items so definitely still a business for the witches. La Paz is also a great place for shopping for alpaca and silver, and a few of us girls made the most of it.

Day two, three of us did death road bike ride (see previous post), on our return the group went out for our last supper to a great Thai restaurant owned by a friend of our guides. I opted for a spicy curry thinking it would be like in Argentina were there are very little spices and their version of spicy would still be mild….I was WRONG! Still very tasty but think I managed to sweat all of my makeup off with everyone asking if I was ok every bite. It was a little bit of an emotional meal with everyone saying how great our group had been and what a brilliant time we’d all had. Having been quite worried about the tour before hand, all of my concerns we dismissed and I’d had way more fun, done far more things, and most all met some great people. So thank you Nancy, Deanna, Erika, Laurie and Tony!! We headed to a club for a few hours, but after the big meal and the bike tour we were pretty shattered.

Next morning the group dissolved heading their various ways, myself and Tony were both hanging round La Paz for a few more days, he waiting for his girlfriend and me just to enjoy the city a bit more. He convinced me to stay in one of the notorious big party hostels for my extra four nights, not my usual style at all, but thought why not. We chose Wild Rover..yep massive Irish bar at the centre of the place, luckily our room was only a four bed and off a courtyard far from the bar area so not too mental.

That afternoon we met up with out tour guide who had a free day, and we descended a seventeen storey hotel block face forward. It was one of those things I didn’t think about until I got up there and looked down and then thought “WTF!”. Myself and Nancy were pretty nervous about it. We all opted for the fancy dress suits versus the standard orange jumpsuit; Batman, Spider-Man and a a podgy Cat women. We had a practice inside on a small ledge and then it was time. Nancy went first and her fear on the ledge fully transferred to me, once she was moving she was off and the final twenty metres you let go of the rope and jump away from the wall to free fall before they stop you three metres from the bottom. I was up next and standing on the ledge looking down was pretty frikin scary… I didn’t hang around the top to long and once moving was fine too, I went down pretty quick so the guy taking photos only got one of me! Tony was fine, having done quite a bit of climbing previously and leapt down. It was really exhilarating, and a great view of the city from the top to. We said a final goodbye to Nancy before grabbing a siesta for our first night at the party hostel. We had a few drinks at the hostel before heading out to a better bar with some others, our taxi driver was an absolute lunatic even by South American standards. At one point we all thought we were being driven somewhere totally dodgy to be robbed and being a bit paranoid I started hiding my money in my shoes. It was fine, he was just a mental driver….

Following day after a late start we took a taxi to the highest golf course in the world. On the way we drove into the lower end of the town where the rich live in gated communities with tennis and horseriding clubs, it’s quite the contrast to the upper parts of the city. The golf course is up on hill nestled into the valley of the moons, and the entrance and location to the course is amazing! We were just there to muck around on the driving ranges, a bit of chipping and putting. I’ve not picked up a club for at least four years and after a first fluke good shot was utter pants. The back of the driving range was a cliff, whacking a ball into was pretty satisfying…all though I think only one of my shots got that far! It was a pretty surreal place to be after the intensity and chaos of the city.

Sunday afternoon after a meandering morning in the markets we went to check out Cholitas wrestling. This is something unique to La Paz, a little like WWF but even more light hearted and pantomime like. And the clincher is its not just men fighting, but women too…and not just with each other but with men also…plus the referee gets involved. It was hilarious! All the locals sit on levels of benches around the hall, and then all the tourists get the “ringside” seats, plus “free” snack, drink and souvenir postcards. I’m sure the locals paid less then fifty pence to see what cost us including transport a relative small fortune in their terms. It was definitely worth it, one of the oddest things ever. We met a couple of people on the bus, and returned to the Thai place a group of twelve for dinner…I learned from my previously mistake and girled out with a mild Malaysian curry this time. What should have been a fairly quiet Sunday night ended up in some dodgy lowlight bar till stupid O’clock and consequences were paid by all the following morning.

My last days total productivity in La Paz involved finding a Internet cafe to print my e-ticket for my following very early morning flight and packing. So my experience of the party hostel was actually ok, partly as we didn’t really hangout in the hostel too much. From a facilities side of thing, the bathrooms were spotless, every shower I had was hot (rare in La Paz),the beds huge and with duvets! Yippee! Downside for us despite being in a quiet room was our other two roommates who snored the whole night!! Ear plugs were our saviour!

So La Paz was a city of something for everyone, culture, shopping, restaurants, thrill seaking, and partying and I think I ticked all those boxes! Unfortunately I only ended up spending two weeks in total in Bolivia, and can’t believe the things I saw and did there. From the deserts, lagunas, quebradas, valleys, salt flats, highest city of Potosi, Colonial Sucre, diversity of La Paz and all the activities we did it was an amazing and fun packed time for me.

Day two in La Paz, and the last of our tour four of us were booked in for the death road bike tour, unfortunately one of the party was unwell so it it was just myself and two of the other girls. This was one of the things I had been most been looking forward to doing since before I’d left the UK. The road was once the main connection between la Paz and the jungle transporting lorries or fruit as well as a main bus route. The road in places is extremely narrow, no more then three metres and after years of horrific accidents with hundreds of casualties a year a new road was built to bypass the most dangerous sector of this road. This bit if the road is the now nearly solely used by adrenalin junkie tourist on the bike tours, I saw one car on the way down.

The tour starts in snow capped mountains at 4650 metres and finishes in rainforest at 1200 after 65km. We had really good safety gear including full motorcycle helmets. Different companies offering the same tour had varying levels of bikes and equipment, we went with our guides recommendation. We were also the only ones in our group, a lot of other tours have as many as thirty people! The bikes were “Specialized”, with full hydraulic breaks, a bit like being on a bouncy castle compared to my own town bike. The first twenty km is on a modern road, and as we headed off the drizzle turned to rain and within minutes we were drenched through despite all our gear. This first section was pretty easy and just involved overtaking some very slow lorries, the road itself was normal width and smooth; it was just a case of getting low as possible to enjoy the speed and stay off the breaks as it was the safest bit of road we’d be on! We reached a checkpoint where our bikes were reloaded into our minibus and driven twenty minutes uphill, off the new road to the “Death Road” section. Our first view of the road was pretty awesome and you got a great idea of the sheer drop! From then on in the track was gravel and at times pretty large rocks to navigate over. We stopped at several points on the way down to take some pretty cheesy staged photos at all the most prominent places. Myself and another girl really enjoyed the whole thing, but one of our party was petrified of the 600 metre drop off the side. To anyone thinking of doing it if you are scared of heights, or think you might be scared I wouldn’t suggest doing it as the result of being scared is going really slowing at which point the bike’s suspension doesn’t work for you and every bump hurts. I’m not saying you have to go fast, but the speed I was taking the larger rock areas, with the bikes we had you could just point forward and with the momentum and suspension the bike glided over them like it was nothing. But fair play to her, she stayed on the bike and completed the whole thing without chucking the bike back on the bus, and she was really pleased to have done, but never wanted to do it again. (On the way down I was loving it so much I was wondering if I could justify doing it again a few days later.) I met another English girl a few days later who hated it as well. She was so scared and seeing all the crosses of the road victims had really gotten to her, she’d been really slow and found the rockier sections really tough also.

Having started off freezing and soaked as we dropped lower the flora changed, you could smell rainforest and the temperature rose. On top of the rain we’d had to cycle through a few waterfalls along the track, we stopped for a ten minute break and got rid of the wind proof tops and bottoms. We’d been assured by the guide we’d gone through all the waterfalls at this point…..bar one massive one so got fully more drenched! The mid section was more flat and actually required a bit of pedal work, I stayed close to the guide and kept up with his pace. Lower down we passed through some small communities with large tarpaulins covered in coca leaves drying out. The very final bit was quite twisty and narrow, and in someways the most changeling cycling but without the shear drops, and was brilliant fun….also saw some massive bright blue butterflies!

For me it was the most fun I’ve had on my travels so far, the drop didn’t concern me, it was more a case of concentrating on the track itself. I was more likely to come off and hurt myself rather then going over the edge. As we had such a small group we didn’t have the worry of bumping into other riders which I think is how other tourists have had accidents. We also didn’t have any cocky lads in our group egging each other or racing…another way accidents happen! I saw one girl at the first checkpoint having her face bandaged up, and I was really glad to have the full motorcycle helmet on as her group only had normal road bike helmets. The guide told us about the fatalities that have occurred with cyclists over the last couple of years, on average 2/3 tourists have died every year. The last was a Japanese girl who fell while taking a photo; needless to say we only had access to our cameras at the stops were we could retrieve them from the minibus. The guide on the other hand took photos and a bit of video whilst cycling alongside us…as it was such a wet day most of the photos are pretty blurred but good to have some memories.