Well upon finally arriving in La Paz given the slight delay from Lisa and her drip!! The city is amazing with houses clinging to the mountainside in every direction you look, it's ubelievable that they can stay there. We headed to Olivers English Pub for dinner - what more could I want than toad in the hole - was absolutely quality!!! Could order in full speed English accent and all no probs!! Shame we won't still be here for the world cup final on sat. After food we headed to the lama market to buy people the coolest presents ever - just wait till I get home!!
After a good night's sleep at last Tom and I headed off to cycle the 65k down the world's most dangerous road, which all the advertising reminds you is called that for a reason!! The bus drove us up to a ridiculous altitude where we were to start our bike ride. Took a while to get me kitted out as the small helmet fell although attractively over my eyes - made it a litle difficult to see - consequence officially the only pin head of the day!! At least my bright purple kids helmet will stand out nicely in the photos! We started the ride with 30k on tarmac before hitting the gravel old road. The road was relatively wide and being accustomed to the altitude over the last few weeks I tried to be cocky and overtake the boys, unfortunately hitting a bit of gravel and looking over your shoulder isn't a good combo - got a lovely bruise on the knee! Once we hit the gravel I definately slowed right down, wobbling front wheel big stones and a 300-400m sheer drop with absolutely no barrier is a little alarming. After a while I got used to putting weight on the front wheel - and as a girl that meant all my weight - which stopped you wobbling. Pretty much managed to keep up with the boys after that although in big downhill sections the massive Irish boys seemed to have a significant gravity related advantage!! The mild little road even threw some extra fun at us in the shape of waterfalls cascading over the 4 foot wide road and rivers passing across it. Safe to say I ended up pretty wet - and when they said full speed through river they meant it - ops!! They even threw in a speed bump at the bottom which despite being stopped and warned about 30 seconds before - quite clearly - like 'there's a big speed bump round the corner by the coca cola sign!' completely forgot and nearly went flying. We went with gravity assisted mountain biking which was quality giving proper briefings, bikes and safety all the way through so definately dont skrimp on this one -there really are alot of crosses on route. The bus ride back up was probably the scariest thing with the driver seemingly hurtling round the corners! Worse still was when the clouds came down and I could see absolutely nothing through the front of the bus - apparently the driver still could!! Off the drop was just swirling clouds - actually scarier than being able to see the drop. We had one crazy guide jump on top of the bus at one point when a mountain bike collided with the mountain on top, I sure wouldn't have jumped off the bus like he did!! Literally collapsed from exhaustion when made it home - don't think my hands and bum have ever hurt so much!! And that was with the super suspension bikes!!