La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. High rise hotels and apartment blocks, flashy cars, smartly dressed people with PAs on call I hear you say? No way! Dark, grubby, smelly one way streets, polluted in advertisements and car smog and extremely dodgy looking people is the reality.
Like I have mentioned before La Paz holds Sao Perdo prison the most corrupted back handed prison in Bolivia, well the whole country sticks to that theme. We arrived at what we were told was the central bus station at 10.30 at night to find our bus driver had been a little vague on details and we were being dropped on a street corner which may have well connected to the bus terminal at some point, but it was nowhere to be seen. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but Becki and myself had counted on touts hassling and bussling us to their hostel. We decided to get our bible (Lonely Planet) out and jump into a cab to take us to a named hostel.
After finally agreeing on a price with a local taxi man who claimed to be a taxi driver (which meant he had the word "TAXI" stuck on his windscreen) we headed into the big city and to our hostel. We arrived to find they wanted double what the book said and almost treble what we were playing! Becki remembered she had seen a few hostels further down the road so the "taxi driver" reversed back down the one way street we had just come up and dropped us off. We tried all the hostels and hotels on the street and they all said they were full. Now its low season and it was now 11pm at night we both decided that the night porters couldn't be bothered to get up and shows us to our rooms. We decided to walk to the main road and look there, we did that with no luck so continued, we finally found somewhere which had space and that wouldn't charge us the earth to stay. The very over the top kind man who loved England showed us around, tried to make us tea and explain where a bakery was so we could have WHITE tea and cakes in the morning as he knew how much English love to drink tea with milk and biscuits. (Just to let you know, nowhere has milk in Bolivia and its not even hot!) After our late night tour for hostels we fell asleep with the knowledge that I had set an alarm nice and early to go hostel hunting again the next day!
We woke up early, sneaked out so we could avoid more English talk and went for our hostel walk. We had a few places in mind which were all fully booked, however after about an hour of walking we found one to be our home for three nights. It was called "The Point" which is a chain of hostels in Bolivia known for its parties. The rest of the day was spent booking our Death Road tour for the next day and at night partying hard for Australian day.
The next day we awoke nice and early for our tour, where like normal we were picked up late. Not that it mattered as it gave us more time to eat the Bolivia custom breakfast of hard rolls, soft butter, some sort of jam and cold non milked random tea or coffee. Saying this our tour was the first to call ahead, to avoid wasting time collecting us so we would be waiting. We drove around a few other hostels and collected 4 other Spanish speaking guys and we were off. Well almost, another custom in South America is for taxi's to collect their passengers, get petrol, buy food and drink, pop home to get changed then fill the tyres with air and in that order.
I can't tell you much about the drive out of La Paz because I managed to sleep the whole journey even on the windy roads. I don't however think there was much to report as it was dark, cold, raining and miserable when we arrived. Now the "Death Road" in itself is only down hill, and is called the "Death Road" as it was the only road in and out of La Paz and it is really twisty and only big enough for one car maximum but catered for two way traffic resulting in the most deaths of a road happening, hence the name!
After about one hour we arrived to the top of the high way, where our tour was to begin. We were required to cycle the last hour to the Death Road so we could get used to the bikes, practice using the breaks (the front and back breaks were on opposite sides than at home) and generally get comfortable. This would have been easy as both Becki and myself weren't worried (even though I don't have a great track records with bikes, do I dad?) If it hadn't been raining cats and dogs, been below freezing and have the wind howling on our cold little bodies. Anyway we all managed fine with the concept and the other guy's on our tour could speak English so they told the guide to just talk in English so we could be completely involved.
At the top of Death Road we were explained a few instructions and with in seconds we were saddled up and zooming down the worlds most dangerous road. The tour was organised really well, we had a small group, our guide was on a bike in front of us and our bus and driver followed closely behind to help if anyone should need him not that you should as it was all down hill or flat! No wait Becki was the only one who needed him three times! Twice her chain fell off then she went the full extent and snapped the bike chain so had to swoop bikes. Not that I think she minded as her new bike was better!
The journey down was broken into about four stages of 45 minuets where you either got a drink or a snack and a little rest. Although the route was 90% down hill, 10% was on flat ish ground and at altitude of 4,200 it was hard work. During out ride the guide took our picture, some stationary, or under waterfalls or ride round hair pin bends and others were of the amazing break taking sceenary. One of the rules we were told at the start was if you were over taking someone, you had to shout "over, left/right" this was so the other person know there would be some hurtling past them. Both me and Becki cycled fairly fast, we managed to keep up with all the guys, but there were some people who just belted it down, to see how fast they could go.
After three hours of cycling we finally made it to the bottom with ten fingers and ten toes. From 4,600 meters above sea level to 1,200meters and from bitter freezing windy weather to burning heat from the sun. We all collapsed on the benches, had our survivors photo and headed to a restaurant for our lunch. We were starving. Even though it was down hill the adrenaline we felt was so overwhelming we had used up all our energy! We got on the bus to go back and we all fell asleep. I suddenly woke up to find we were now traveling up the death road, which was slightly worry to say the least. I decided I had, had too much adventure for one day, so quickly fell back to sleep, until we arrived safely back in La Paz.
The next we spent wondering around the witches market and booked our bus to Uyani. Now this was supposed to be a uneventful day, we put our washing in the day before, they said it would be done at the latest by three so we had plenty of time. We know that Bolivia time and English time are two different concept, but at 5 o clock we asked for our washing and they said 15 minutes. Then again we asked at 6, 6.30 and at 6.45 we started to panic. The lady behind reception kept telling us to chill out, but they didn't realsied we had a ticket and our washing was all the warm clothing we had! Finally at 7.01 we got our washing, jumped into a taxi and true to Bolivia time style our bus was running just as late.
Our bus was like normal in Bolivia a local bus, this time there were no landslides to report however we still had our share of action. The whole bus fell asleep and as usual woken about 2 o'clock as we stopped at a very random shop, which had no toilets and one street vender and some kids selling crisp, drinks and biscuits. We were both going to get off and buy our customary egg sandwich but Becki annoyed me so I stayed on the bus in a sulk! Luckily I did as this guy sat behind us and after the Ecuador incident I picked up our bags and pretended I was a sleep. No sooner had I saw the man, then he left. The couple behind us came back and started looking around for something shouted at each other in Spanish. We soon realised their bags had gone, along with three other peoples. The man I had saw had just walked onto the bus and helped himself to four bags and walked off. As I was the only person who saw him, I had to describe what he looked like by miming and using our broken Spanish, which wasn't that fun. We stopped at a local police station and people made their reports and we were off. During the co motion we had started talking to the to girls in front of us, Cat and George, who we later became really good friends with.
Last stop Uynai and prepare for our Salt flat tour!!!