No journey that we've done so far has been plain sailing and this one was no different. About a couple of hours into the journey the bus stopped and we all had to get off and pay to cross the river in a tiny little motor boat. Our bus on the other hand was loaded onto what can only be described as a giant raft with an engine strapped to it and also taken across to the other side. 30 minutes later we were back on our way.

We checked into our hostel and noticed that they were doing a bike ride down death road the following day so we thought we might as well book onto it as we'd been thinking about doing it.

The next morning we drove to the top of the mountain and it started to snow, this part of the road was tarmaced so it was plain sailing down for 30km. Well actually it wasn't, it was absolutely frickin freezing. We have both never been so cold in all our lives and we're not exaggerating. It was sleeting with snow, windy and generally just miserable weather.

On the way down I actually thought I wouldn't be able to brake as my hands had frozen into a claw like state. Casson was thinking "this is the worst thing he's ever done and not enjoyable at all" and one American girl cried the whole way down for 30km.

Just before we came to the 30km checkpoint we went off road onto some really loose wet gravel, Casson set off just before me and as I started down the hill I panicked as my bike was slipping all over the place and I braked too hard with my front brake and my back wheel came up, I almost saved it but in the end nothing could stop be toppling over with the bike landing on top of me, I didn't hurt myself but at that point I was thinking, holy moly, if death road is like this I'm going to die as I will be over the edge.

At the check point no one could feel their fingers, noses were running and we were all generally just miserable. Lunch was provided here which was a loaf of bread, some questionable ham, crisps and coke. It was also here that we were told that we were getting back in the van for the uphill bit before we started death road. Everyone was thinking the same thing, why the hell did we bother getting so wet and so cold if we were always going to get back in the van ....

Anyway the bike ride continued down death road and it was brilliant, the lower we got the warmer it got. The views were amazing and we rode through several waterfalls. About halfway down I could see Casson was chomping at the bit to go faster so he had some boy time and caught up with a German couple at the front of the group (in other words, cycled like a maniac down death road) whilst I came in about 3 minutes later than them (but nowhere near last, my competitive side wouldn't let me be)

At the end of the trail we had a few beers to celebrate and then we went to a hotel (I use the term loosely) for a shower, lunch and there was a pool there as well. It was only when we got back to the hostel that night (after a pretty scary drive back over the mountain) that we realised that I had actually hurt myself when I fell off my bike as I had a massive bruise on the inside of my knee which was really sore, this was the only benefit to how cold it had been, my legs had been so numb I hadn't felt a thing at the time.

We had only planned to spend 3 nights in La Paz but in the interest of saving money we took our clothes to a laundry ourselves rather than using the hostels service and when we went to collect them on the evening we were due to catch a bus to Uyuni they were closed because it was bloody national Bolivia day! So we lost our money for the bus AND had to stay another night, so much for saving money. We also had to stay in a dorm, if possible this will be the first and last time we ever do this as we both HATED it

General points

1: La Paz is the fast food capital of Bolivia, everywhere you look there is a fast food place or someone on the street frying food. Casson developed a taste for deep fried Chorizo sausages on a barm which were absoltely disgusting

2: We found an English pub and had a full english breakfast and a mug of tetley tea ..... so wrong but so right

3: We treated ourselves to a steak and it was the best steak we've ever had ... roll on Argentina for more of this