Trundled into La Paz at 5am and caught a taxi to a 'recommended' hotel which turned out to be a hole within a hole so spent a few hours exploring the city hunting for suitable digs.

Its a crazy city, sitting in the basin on top of a mountain with slums clinging to the sides of the mountain and traffic everywhere with men yelling out destinations from minivans and taxis honking every few secs. Added to the fact it is still at an altitude of3660 metres and it remains super hard to breathe and this is one mentalist place to live.

Checked out a local folk parade of folk in traditional dress even though all the women wear frilly skirts, tiny bowler hats and long plaits anyway, and walked round the plaza.

Next stop The ever famous Witches Market, just the place for your last minute llama foetus or must have homemade charms. Really fascinating few streets with rows and rows of stalls flogging weird, vaguely creepy stuff and making up charms for good luck, love, money and health.

Fav purchases include two hands worth of woollen fingerpuppets comprising the whole Simpson family, the Shrek clan and all the major super heros.....numerous charms featuring giant c*** as aphrodisiacs apparently.....and randomly fossils....!

Also did the La Paz 'must do'..mountain biking down the Death Road - The World's Most Dangerous Road. Now the day has gone right up there as one of the most fun things we have done on the trip so far!! Big claim but it was such a rush!!

We cycled down like maniacs on super cool bikes with double suspension more than 3600 metres from the freezing cold and snowy top of the Corderiller Real mountains into the tropical heat of the jungle at the bottom. The road is so narrow and there are 600 metre drops to one side with no barriers and just crosses marking where traffic has flown off the edge.

Around 1 tourist dies each year....including one lady who sadly and most inappropriately has been nicknamed ET because she carried on pedelling as she went over the edge. Luckily for us, there is now a new road so we pretty much had the road to ourselves and didn't have to fight for space against lorries and trucks.

Celebrated our safe arrival with a night in a lovely hotel on the hill with the most amazing views over the valley and a lovely sundeck to ease our aching bones!

Back to La Paz for some last minute shopping then off for some jungle jollies.....