La Paz, highest capital city in the world, party capital of South America, and where I just happened to get stuck waiting for my new bankcard, in the famous Wild Rover hostel! you actually can feel the altitude in La Paz, and as it is so polluted too (the buses just belch out clouds of smoke!) you find it quite difficult to breathe, and the block of steps on the road up to Wild Rover is an absolute killer!

The best thing to do in La Paz by far is death road! Not actually as dangerous as it sounds, but it is basically a narrow road with hundreds of metres sheer cliff drop at one side, which you mountain bike down at top speed. Very fun, but it is scary when you realise that one wrong move will have you off the edge falling to certain death... It's slightly less dangerous than a few years ago when traffic still used it as a main route (some parts are NOT wide enough for two cars to pass each other!) but our guide did tell us the stories of the people who'd died on the road as we were driving back up... A busload of Israelis that went over the edge, a guide who stepped off the edge trying to get a better picture of his group in front of the waterfall and died in front of his whole group... most recently a Jpanaese girl who cycled off while trying to take a photo, amongst many others!

The animal sanctuary in the jungle at the bottom of death road was pretty cool too. Loads of parrots, tortoises, monkeys... one in particular who was pretty keen on getting his hand down my top! We did a bit of exploring of La Paz, saw the witch markets, where they sell all kinds of wierd things like love potions, little bottles full of charms and strange liquids, and dried llama foetuses, which are buried under houses as they are being built to ward off ghosts!

We also made our way up to ALL of the viewpoints in La Paz, mainly in search of the big metal slide we were told was by one rather than the views! did find a giant park in the centre of the city, where the slide was located, which was actually very impressive! For the poorest country in South America they have pretty amazing public services! You did have to pay to enter, but only 3 Bs (30p) and there was enough play equipment inside to entertain children for hours! There was also the cholitos wrestling, where some Bolivian women dressed in traditional dress wrestled each other, and wrestled men dressed in bizarre costumes! It was entertaining, but far too cold to be repeated!

The rest of the 4 weeks that I ended up waiting for my bankcard I pretty much just spent partying, making friends, watching them come and go, then return and leave again! Seeing staff come and go, and seeing some friends come, and then stay almost as long as me or longer (Nicky, Tom)! I celebrated my 25th birthday in Wild Rover La Paz, not at all where I thought I would be for it, but I had a great night nonetheless! It was UV night, so I had 'Its my birthday, buy me shots!' written on me in UV paint, which worked surprisingly well! Just when I had given up hope of actually ever leaving La Paz, my bankcard arrived, on my actual birthday, which was a great birthday present! So I spent a few last days going out with my friends, then FINALLY left La Paz for Cusco with my friend Malcolm, who'd I'd travelled with previously from Santa Cruz to Sucre.

BYE BYE BOLIVIA!!