So we finally arrived at our hostel called Adventure Brew in La Paz! The hostel had a great upstairs bar / dining area and we settled into a cold beer and watched the sun go down and all the lights of the La Paz city bowl light up. La Paz is the highest capital city in the world and the way it’s built is quite fascinating – it really is like a super bowl, and at the top you have these incredible snow-capped mountains.
La Paz in general is quite a manic city! Derek liked La Paz, I however was not so convinced. Loads of people, hundreds of street hawkers, loads of people selling street food (some funny smells) and a rather large amount of pollution. It did have a wide variety of different restaurants which was good – we even had a little Indian!
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| Sprawling mass of housing, all in a bowl shape, crawling up the sides - insane! |
We had heard a lot could be organised from La Paz, and so our first day was mostly spent investigating options for doing a tour of the Amazon (Rurrenabaque) and for doing the infamous Death Road… The World’s Most Dangerous Road! After much debate, our Kiwi friends and us decided on a bicycle company to go with and signed up to do this 65km bike ride, starting in the mountains just outside La Paz, at an altitude of 4700m above sea level and winding our way all the way into more tropical surrounds at 1100m.
We started off early and after having a safety talk, putting on all the gear, trying to stay warm and performing the ritual of sprinkling a little drink consisting of 96% alcohol on our lips, our tyres and on the earth to ensure Pachamama (Mother Earth) kept us all safe, we were on our way!
Starting on a tar road and racing through these mountains was incredible. We then got to a pit stop where the option of riding a further 8km up hill was given – I opted out after the first 500m, whilst Derek raced ahead of the pack to the next meeting point.
At that point we reached dirt road and the World’s Most Dangerous Road began... Now the reason it’s so dangerous – many people have died, initially in car accidents as there is only one lane for both up and down traffic (there is now a new road hence fewer cars using the road) but later due to more cyclists having accidents whilst doing Death Road. I wasn’t quite aware of how many cyclists had died until afterwards, where we were shown where the most recent incident (a Japanese girl who died earlier this year) had happened! Scary!
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| Amazing views of this valley as we descended. |
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| Sheer drops,scary stuff! |
I must say we both really enjoyed this adventure. The most incredible views and drops – that we mostly got to appreciate on our way up the road in the minibus after we had cycled down. We had a great group of people - everyone survived and everyone had a blast!
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| Me through the ends of a waterfall |
We ended off our ride by having a well-deserved shower and lunch at this animal sanctuary. We got to see a load of animals just wondering around... from different monkeys to macaws and other birds. This activity we really did get the t-shirt!
We spent some time in La Paz looking around the city and came across San Pedro Prison – we’d heard loads of stories about tourists getting a look in at this very differently run prison and considering Derek and I had read Marching Powder we were disappointed to hear they were deporting any Gringo’s seen exiting the prison. So we opted for a little look through the small gates instead.
We also walked through the Witches Market – a street with many old women selling shrivelled dried llama foetus’s and powders and leaves… I don’t know, it’s a crazy place and we saw a couple sights whilst in La Paz, including a lady with a kid’s roundabout business. She was manually turning the roundabout.
Derek managed to finally have a haircut! We found this little barber shop and this old barber, who was wearing his slippers, took meticulous care and gave him a cut as if he'd just got out of the army.
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| One of the delightful styles he could choose from - all from the 80-90's! Sexy! |
We also managed to catch up with some of our friends that we’ve met along the way. Interesting to hear the stories and everyone’s experiences since we last saw each other. We woke up early – 3am early to watch the World Cup Final! Was good fun, considering we had some kiwi friends and a Frenchman in the mix. All of whom had decided to party it up before the game started and Ellen kept us very amused with drunken shouts of ‘I love you Sonny Bill Williams’ when he wasn’t even on the field as well as Leo the Frenchman dressed in a pseudo superman suit in the colous of the French flag clutching a chicken constantly telling me that he thought he was a little drunk! Ummmmm ya!
One of our afternoon / evenings was spent at the Las Chicolitas Wrestling. Despite it being like a really bad version of WWF, having Bolivian Women in their traditional big poufy skirts taking on men in the ring with occasional glimpses at their underwear and the nervous shrills of the local crowd as if they believed it wasn’t all rehearsed, was a good laugh anyway! The wrestling was rather high up in the super bowl and you got incredible views of the city as we bussed our way there.
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| Our tickets even had toilet coupons! |
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| In traditional dress revving up the crowds... |
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| Getting down and dirty! |
From La Paz we also organised our Amazon experience – we would fly to the town of Rurrenabaque, where it would all begin.
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| Night view of the city below |
La Paz in general is quite a manic city! Derek liked La Paz, I however was not so convinced. Loads of people, hundreds of street hawkers, loads of people selling street food (some funny smells) and a rather large amount of pollution. It did have a wide variety of different restaurants which was good – we even had a little Indian!
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