La Paz, the highest capital in the world
Trip Start
May 27, 2008
1
15
26
Trip End
Sep 06, 2008
La Paz,
Bolivia
Friday, July 11, 2008
Well after another bus ride up through Bolivia we arrived in La Paz, we we´re booked into the Hotel Milton which turned out to be a pretty good choice although the decor was something out of the 1970s with leather studied walls and laminate tiles on the walls in the bedroom! but it was in a great location. The first day we woke up with a market stretching out both ways along the street the hotel was in, it looked incredible, women dressed in traditional bolivian gear sitting on the ground with their goods they were trying to sell, mainly fruit and vegetables there was one woman practically buried in a mound of oranges! lol! The main thing we did in La Paz was book a trip down the Most Dangerous Road in the World on mountain bikes, this we were to do the day before we left for Peru. We booked it with a company called Gravity, they had been recomended to us a few times on our trip and when we went to talk to them they were very safety concious and filled us with a bit more confidence, although for those that know my history on mountain bikes they will know why I wasn´t too confident about the ride! Anyway we booked it and then went and enjoyed La Paz. we had a couple of days to kill so just wandered around the streets and markets looking at the random stuff for sale and had some nice food, we ate once at a place called Wagamamas (we were hoping it was one of the Wagamamas but unfortunately not) which was nice and another really nice place that was in a hotel, can´t remember the name but its in Rough guide, I had a chinese style chicken with noodles which was lovely and Bushy had the chefs lasagne although he wasn´t to impressed. In the Rough Guide it says that this hotel serves possibly the best chocolate mousse in La Paz so we had to try it, and man it was good! never mind La Paz I´ve never had mousse like it! yum lol!
Monday morning (14th July) we were up bright and early, well at least early, for our downhill mountain bike madness! there were 3 groups of about 10 doing it so we drove up there in 3 vans with all the bikes strapped to the top, I was pretty nervous and wasn´t really sure what to expect out of the road. When we got to our starting point we we´re given our bikes, helmets etc... and given a briefing about how the day will run. Basically we we´re to ride downhill on normal roads (when I say normal this was still at 4300m above sea level with crazy drops) for about 30km stopping to re-group a couple of times then we´d stop just before the Worlds Most Dangerous Road (WMDR) for another briefing before starting down 35km of gravelly road with 400m drops off the left hand side with no barriers and nowhere to go on the right except into the mountain itself, to top it off at times it was only just wide enough for one car so if you meet a car coming up as your going down it can cause a slight problem! other obstacles include waterfalls/rivers going over the road, other, more experienced, cyclist zooming past you and further down near the bottom children trying to get you to wave as you fly by! One thing they were completely clear about at the begining was that if at anytime you felt uncomfortable or you we´re being pushed beyond your limit then you were free to hope in the support van that was following us down. The first normal road bit we both did fine, although it took me a while to get comfortable with the bike it was good fun and very fast! when we started on the WMDR we we´re told it was split into 9 sections after every section we break. So, I managed the first 3 sections and I´m not ashamed to admit that it scared the crap out of me lol! I rode in the van for the next four sections, which was still pretty crazy! I rejoined the group for the last two sections which still put the craps up me but I wanted to and was determined to finish on my bike lol! Bushy did all of it, so at least one of us did the complete route I did about 2 thirds I reckon. The time in the van did give me chance to photograph the scenery, wow! amazing, its hard to look around when your speeding down hill lol!
The ride ended at La Senda Verde Cabins and Animal Refuge which was cool, we could have a shower, we´re given a beer and a buffet dinner then we could look around and get aquainted with the animals, there was some playful monkeys that could come and go as they pleased, one took a fancy to me an climbed up my legs and to my shoulder lol! brilliant! also al ot of Macaws. Well that pretty much sums up our mountain bike madness, we went back to La Paz that night and had a curry at the only curry house in La Paz (possibly bolivia) it was realy nice and just what you neeed after a day like that! lol!
The following day we got on the bus to go to Cusco in Peru.
Comments
record signing
hi bushwacker
i though i better tell you that west ham have made a club record signing in a man like Ronodinio, 22m and on £110000 a week, looks like the biscuit trade is picking up.