First of all CONGRATULATIONS to Claire and Jamie on the birth of their little girl Connie!!! Can´t wait to meet our new neice in September!

So, before arriving in La Paz, we stopped in Copacabana for a couple of days... (not the Rio one!) a small town set on the edge of Lake Titicaca. Not much to do there, but it was nice to chill out for a couple of days, went fishing and caught NOTHING! And of course, every travellers welcome to Bolivia.... the runs!

It was then time to head to La Paz, officially the craziest city we have been to! Apparently there are less than 3 million inhabitants, but it felt like there were about 30 million, there are people EVERYWHERE!!! But we loved it. Set in a valley amongst the mountains, it has an amazing setting and you arrive looking down into the city from the surrounding hills. Unfortunately, we don´t have any pics because we didn´t take our camera out (lots of street robberies!).

There´s not a huge amount to do in La Paz, but we went to San Pedro Prison (those of you who have read Marching Powder will have heard of it) for a tour. It´s nothing like a normal prison, apart from the prisoners aren´t allowed out! There are shops, take aways, 24 hour hot water (which is a luxury in Bolivia!). We of course only went to the section where the foreign prisoners are kept. They have to pay to stay in there, and can buy themselves apartments. It´s low security, so there are no cells (the section where the majority of Bolivians are held is like a normal prison, with 1800 inmates, lots of violence etc.) The majority of foreigners are in there for drug offences (surprise surprise!). Families of Bolivian inmates are allowed to stay in the prison so there are wives/girlfriends, children running around playing football.... very bizarre. It was an interesting experience to visit, but glad to get out of there!

Next was a trip down the most dangerous road in the world on mountain bikes.... the road was declared so because of the huge number of accidents that take place on it and the massive number of resulting deaths. However, a new road has now been built and the majority of traffic uses the new road, and it´s mainly just cyclists on the old road... thank god, because at some points it´s only 3 metres wide and I would not have wanted to come across a massive truck going the other way!! You can see why so many accidents have happened, and hearing the stories was really sad, it´s great that the new road has finally been completed and Bolivians are able to travel more safely day to day, it´s just a shame that it took so long and so many lives were lost in the meantime. The ride is amazing, you start at 4800 metres altitude, so very high and very cold, and you end up down in the warmth of the lowlands, with jungle vegetation all around... very cool!

From La Paz, we headed to Sucre, actually the capital of Bolivia. It is a smaller and more relaxed town than La Paz, so a great place to relax and recooperate after partying in La Paz and a much warmr climate, we were able to walk around in t-shirts for the first time in months!! Sucre is beautiful, it´s lovely example of colonial architecture, although it must have more churches per square metre than any other city in the world! From Sucre we head to Potosi, the highest city in the world at 4800 metres.... speak to you again soon!!

Shu & Dan xx