Hola Niños,

Arrived back in La Paz on Thursday evening. Gravity biking was one of our most amazing experiences yet.........we cycled with a group of about 10 people down the world famous ´Death Road´ named so as a result of the amount of people that have fallen off the edge!! At the beginning we said a prayer to Pacha Mamma (mother earth) by dropping 100% alcohol on our tyres and putting a bit on our lips. Took some amazing pictures. Basically, you have a really cool bike with tonnes of suspension and all the safety gear/clothing and then you hurtle down about 80km of track at about 50km/h stopping 17 times for your guide to check the bikes, makes sure you´re all ok and talk to you about the next bit of the trail. We cycled through tunnels, waterfalls and rivers, across tarmac, gravel and mud. The start of the track was 4700m above sea level and the end was at 1200m (literally in the Bolivian jungle), it felt so nice escaping the altitude. It was all so exhilarating, it was super scary at first beacuse not only are you scared of falling off the cliff edge, you have to keep your eyes on the road as they have what are called ´babies heads´, really big rocks which will fling you off your bike if you hit them, on top of this you have to keep to the left (cliff side) as cars have the right of way.

Anyway Adds, Cat, Sam and I all managed to stay on our bikes for the duration and then cycled down to La Senda Verde. We rented a Cabaña (wooden jungle cabin) for the four of us for two nights. The monkeys were amazing (if not a little gross) they talk to you, cuddle you, jump on you, bite you. It feels so nice when one just sits on you hugs you and falls asleep! The not so nice bits were when they s*** on you, or when they s*** on the floor and one of the resident dogs saunter over and lap it up....eeeugh! They also had tonnes of huge electric blue parrots, a big black spectacle bear, a caiman, a snake errrrrr and some other animal type things.

Our initial plan was to volunteer for a while but unfortunately we had a bit of a run in with one of the volunteers who was a complete ass (some gimpy Oxford law dude with too much money and confidence) so anyway we ended up leaving early and coming back to the city which is where we are now. Cat, Sam, Tink and Mo left for Copacabana just now and our bus is at 7am. There is a 3 day trance festival on Isla Del Sol (island in the middle of Lake Titicaca) which we might all be heading to but me and Adds aren´t too fussed about that.

We went into Coroico (closest town to La Senda) which was really quaint and pretty, we had planned to get a local bus back to La Paz but managed to get 3 Bolivian dudes from Gravity to take us back (3 hour journey for free), bonus was, we got to drive back up Death Road. This was even scarier as the tyres were literally on the edge at points and when we went through the clouds we couldn´t see further than a metre ahead of us. The vodka and orange fanta came out at that point to settle our nerves. We also gave some to the Bolivians (not the driver of course) The drinking and partying carried on into the night......as it was La Paz Day, the anniversary of La Paz´s independance from Spain. There were parades on the main streets which had been closed off for the evening, and street parties into the early hours, literally thousands of people everywhere you looked. Our hostel had a wrought iron balcony which me (Liz) and Sam went out onto and formulated a little camp dance, hundresds of people in the parade started shouting and cheering and flashing their torches at us........I felt like the pope! Ha ha!

Had a good BBQ last night at the hostel with chicken, steak and sausage mmmmm sat around the bonfire on the terrace then went to watch a film with some popcorn before an early night. We might sound lame but the night before we didn´t get in until 8am so I think we deserve a rest.

We´re on our own for tonight (it´s been a while ha ha) so we´re going for sushi for lunch and eating in the hostel tonight, beef lasagne, red wine rice, pesto vegetable pasta, salad and bread, and of course the free beer (all for 3.50 quid each).

Lots of La Pazian love to you all

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