La Paz isn´t much of a city for one to marvel at architecturally but the excursions out of the ciudad are pretty good. The first day in the world´s highest capital city was spent organising the mountain bike trip down the road previously known as ´The World´s Most Dangerous Road´, which is no longer used by traffic as there is a new diversion. Eric from Bermuda was in town who I travelled with in Arequipa and so we spent the day searching for the safest company to cycle with.

I book with B Side and to be honest I was pretty excited before the ride. The road is roughly 3.2m wide according to Lonely Planet and has vertical drops in many sections. There used to be between 10 and 50 accidents per month on the road and you can see wrecks at the foot of some cliffs. Our guide is Simon, a bolivian chap who´s been doing this for quite a while assures us we´ll survive the ride. The weather is rainy and foggy with most views obscured so all we have to do is concentrate on the road. I´m cycling with two Swedish students and we manage to have a blast. Occasionally the clouds clear and you are presented with amazing views of the sheer drops and mountains beyond. I simply cannont believe that buses and trucks used to pass each other on this road.

With Simon leading the way we are too focused on speeding down the track than to look at views and end up with mud everywhere you can imagine. But what a day. That night I stay in Coroico, the little village at the bottom of the road where the views are unbelievable. I sit on the hotel´s balcony where you can see the old dangerous road and the new diversion road curving their way around the hills.

The next day is spent trying to get a tour of the infamous San Pedro prison in La Paz with another Aussie bloke. If you´ve read the book ´Marching Power´you´ll know all about it but to summise the prison is basically run by the prisoners with guards only on the outside to keep them in. Inside is supposedly ´civilised´with shops, restaurants, sports pitches and more. Prisioners have jobs and have to pay their own way.

Tours were banned following a yankee uploading vids onto youtube but it is rumoured that if you wait outside the main gates then inmates will come out and take you inside for a few hours (for a fee). We waited outside and inbeteen being shoed away by guards we managed to obtain an inmates phone number (yes, they have mobiles) through charades and called him up for a chat. Ends up tours are still banned but he offered to sell us some ´white´. I had no idea what he was on about so politely declined, however he did ask for presents or money. Being Christmas we kindly obliged and sent through to him a mix of cigarettes, matches, lollies, pepsi, shavers and a meal. It was such an interesting experience to talk to an inmate behind bars from the prison entrance and we wished our friendly Dutch drug dealer merry christmas.

10 minutes after our experience we were pulled over by a cop on a motorcycle and quizzed about the prison. I played the dumb gringo but it ends up he was trying to catch a thief who handed us a note and phone number of the same prisoner who is responsible for earlier muggings. Luckily we were to smart for Mr Mugger.

Later that night it´s another bus on to Sucre, the second largest city in Bolivia where I am to spend Christmas......