La Paz is a great city to drive into. Across the altiplano there isn´t a lot to give away the position of the city, until you begin to drop into the steep valley that houses this place and it opens out in front of you. We stayed in a hostal that does by far the best breakkie we`ve had so far (yeah to museli and yoghurt!). We checked out the San Franciso cathedral and the bullet holes in the Granite window which date from Bolivia´s independance in the early 1800´s. We were looking for something for something to do the next day and it was a toss up between two things. If any of you have read the book ´Marching Powder´ you will know about San Pedro Prison. If you don´t then I will give you a quick prece here. If you go to this jail you have to buy your own cell. There are people who live there with 3 story houses! There are restaurants and families and its also one of the biggest Cocaine factories around. You can tour through there for about 75 dollars but most of that goes to the guards as bribes. If you go in you get bodyguards as some of the prisoners resent where your money goes. After hearing/reading a few horror stories, debating over two mountainous ice cream sundaes, we decided to go for the other activity...
The World´s Most Dangerous Road got its name for good reason. When it was the main route there were upwards of 150 to 200 deaths per year on this road alone. Things have improved a lot since the ´New Road´ was built last year. We started out early in the morning and a bus took us to the top of the road 4700m. It heads downhill on Tarmac for quite a while (through the fog, snow and magnificent scenery) until we get to the narcotics checkpoint, which is an excuse for the government to employ more people. Then we hit an uphill bit. 8km of very hard slog that I managed to get through and most (smarter, ie tash) others took the bus. Then the real stuff.The road itself is narrow and winding and has some very long drops straight off the edge (few hundred metres). But when you are on a full suspension mountain bike your eyes are mostly for the road ahead. It was a fantastic experience that we both really enjoyed and got into. Going through the waterfalls cascading from great heights onto the road, pitying the people who did the trip cheaper who didn´t appear to be well looked after. The photos are the ones that tell the story.......
At the end we landed 3300m below at a tropical animal shelter that was very relaxing, taking a swim as the monkeys tried to get into my pack. We all piled into the bus and headed back up the same road! What a great way to really get a look at what we´d done (and freak tash out). A great day!
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