La Paz and Biking The World's Most Dangerous Road!

We got what we thought would be a one change 12hr bus from Cusco to La Paz... how wrong we were. The bus departed Cusco at 10pm and was not barely as nice as we had hoped! My chair didn't recline properly so I barely slept until we arrived at Puno... where we thought we would just be stopping to maybe pick up some people. But no, we had to change buses and the connecting bus we were getting didn't depart for an hour so we had to sit in the bus station with no money... spent all our soles as we were heading to Bolivia! We finally arrived at the border where we had to get our passports stamped etc. It was so disorganised, we should of really expected it i suppose. After getting our bags searched and asked a few questions we were finally on the last leg to La Paz!

La Paz is massive and we arrived on the high altitude side which is also the poorest part. We had to drive through a river to get onto the road and then we headed through the poor suburbs where all the buildings seemed under construction, nothing was complete and it was very dirty. We saw the valley after following the road for about 15 mins or so and then the change in altitude across the city was apparent. The airport sits at just over 4000m, we are staying in the touristy downtown area which is about 500m below and then there is an even wealthy section about 300m below that. The views in the valley are amazing especially at night. La Paz is a pretty crazy place, there are so many people here and the streets are always busy. I will upload some pics of it soon hopefully.

We booked ourselves on The World's Most Dangerous Road Bike Ride. It was full day and meant getting up at half six but was worth it. We had great equipment, Kona full suspension downhill bikes and all the clothing... you would expect it though for $75 US! We started off just below 4800m and the ride began on tarmac. The tarmac section was really quick but very hard to see as there was so much mist. After goign through a drug check point we arrived at the start of the old road or the most dangerous road. This was much narrower and there was no tramac, only loose gravel or mud. We stopped regularly for the guides to check our bikes brakes etc, the company, Gravity Assissted Mountain biking is one of, if not the only company (so far!) not to have a fatality on the ride! They gave great instructions on riding technique and in fact, unless you were riding too fast into a corner, pretty hard to fall off the edge providing you were competent on a bike! A couple of people did come off their bikes on the ride but only received grazes! The road has waterfalls passing across it and some really bumpy sections which were great fun but you can see why there are accidents and deaths. There is now a new road which bypasses the old one, but apparently this is now deteriating and they may have to close it while they repair it... which means the old road will once again have all the traffic back on it! The guides said though that most accidents happen because drivers are drunk, tired or just reckless.

We arrived at the bottom safely at a animal sanctuary where there were hot showers and food! After getting cleaned up and having some grub we took some pics of the rescued monkeys which were happy to jump on you! We then had a 3hr ride back to La Paz and were all feeling pretty exhausted!

We are heading to Uyuni tonight to visit the vast slat flats there so I will let you know how that goes!

Ciao