Protests & the worlds most dangerous road!!
Trip Start
Mar 02, 2007
1
62
70
Trip End
Ongoing
La Paz, Bolivia
Friday, October 5, 2007
La Paz is not a beautiful city by any means however it is one of the most spectacular and interesting in the world. Mud brick houses are build perched on the edge of the shear cliffs that circle the city, the streets are chaotic to say the least and the people although overly poor always seem cheerful and friendly what ever time of the day!
It wasn't long before the craziness that we had been dearly missing since Asia started......within 2 hours of dumping our stuff at our hostel hundreds of thousands of Bolivians lined the streets in protest to keep La Paz as the capital. It wasn't long before we were right in the action joining the men, women, children, donkeys and llama's thats were marching the streets chanting, waving flags and shooting guns into the air! Even the unbelievable hail storm that everyone got caught up in failed to stop them (although it did slow us down a little).
One of the highlights of our trip yesterday....mountain biking down the "worlds most dangerous road". After a hour bus journey to the 4700m high starting point we jumped on our bike and started our 64km ride down this amazing road. It starts off on fairly standard looking paved road for around 12km a fair down slope but nothing to crazy. Just after the 12km however the madness starts for real....the normal(ish) road turns in to more of a gravel track barely wide enough to fit 1 truck down but some how has to house lorryīs going in both directions along with us crazy fools flying down it on our mountain bikes! Sheer drops off up to 400m are just 30cm max from where you are riding, this along with large rocks and pot holes make the whole experience even more exciting! 11 riders have died in the last 5 years, all of which have been waved off as "suicides" that along with the hand full buses that have gone over the edge make the death total quite impressive - how itīs still open god only knows! Anyways a quality day and would do it again without a shadow of a doubt!
Last night in La Paz we decided to go watch some wrestling. I can honestly say i havenīt laughed that much inn ages! Started with men dressed up in costumes before moving on to the big fat Bolivian woman throwing each other around the ring and in to the crowd...all fake of course but all funny as and great value for money!
