Hello from La Paz, Bolivia

We arrived from our stinted stay in Copacabana at La Paz in the late afernoon with the sun shining brightly as we entered the city border. La Paz is one of the highest cities in the world, and we we´d be told by people we´d met before hand that because of this fact headaches came and went whenever they felt like it...nice. La Paz is situated inbetween huge mountains that tower round the whole place. Coming from the top of these mountains as you have to in order to get to into the city you get a great view of it all, its pretty good.

After visiting some small and remote towns in Bolivia (no ATM´s!) we were looking forward to getting to a big city again, being in the hustle & bustle, see a couple of sights, go to a few bars. The Hostel we stayed in was pretty amazing, and fox sport was on all the time in that place, excellent. Even better than this the currency in Bolivia is 1/11 so everytime we checked our balance we were feeling good about life. We spent most of our days in LaPaz walking down the busy streets thinking about buying the cheapest meat kebabs we´d ever seen, but backing out in fear of spending the next few days living in a Bolivian toilet, so coffee and cake was our staple diet instead.

Unsurprisingly we were keen to find the local football pitches and see if we could get a game or 2, and after some confusing broken Spanish and slang Bolivian Spanish we managed to make friends with some locals and play. After about an hour of fun a Bolivian man and his friends approached us asking for our names, numbers etc. turned out he was from LaPaz f.c. and wanted us to come play for him the following week, rob gave him his number and everyone went home happy.

That night we went to get a curry with a German bloke we´d met at our hostel and he´d told us about 'the worlds hottest curry' he´d eaten the day before, it included a free t-shirt so we were all keen. Me and Rob later backed out, but ferg was sure he could manage it. the curry arrived on our table with way too much rice to start with. As the rest of us took our first mouthfuls of masala or rhogan josh Ferg took his first bite of the vindaloo...tears ran down his cheeks, a look of desperation crept onto his now reddish face...he was struggling. I felt i had to experience this, so i took a forkfull of his vindaloo, my eyes started to water and my mouth burn. We wished Ferg good luck on his quest for a free t-shirt but 2 mouthfuls later he´d put his fork down, apologised to the chef and began his drinking of a gallon of water.

Next up was the ´Death Road!' and again our German friend was telling us of his completion of it the day before, and so egged on by the need to not let the German beat us, as well as our craving for some adrenaline and exericse we got going.

We´d heard lots about how 15 people had died in 3 years biking down the Death Road so we were keen to attack it head on. We were kitted out fully with pads etc. and given decent bikes to ride. After some steep downhill on some smooth roads we were moved onto the dusty rocky ´Death Road´which looking at from a distance was a bit ´squeaky bum time´. Once we got into the rythym and feel of the narrow windy roads it was a great laugh and loads of fun. However at one point after getting a rush of blood to the head I went round a corner too fast, and sped right into a broken off piece of the mountain head on, sending me flying over the handlebars, bike in the air and landing flat on my back. Luckily noone was there to see it, and even more luckily i was 6 yards to the right from the 600 metre straight drop to my left. However after the thud, gettng winded but thankfully no broken spine or anything, I was just annoyed with having lost ground to Fergus and Rob.

All in all the ´Death Road´ was pretty dodgy at some points but mainly a great adrenaline rush with dramatic drops stalking every corner. Plus we got a free t-shirt at the end of it all.

Ater a couple more days in the very cheap city of LaPaz we made our way down to Potosi. In Potosi we went down the silver mines, which still had people working in whilst they drank their 96% alcohol!! We got to hold and see live dynamite blow up as well, which was fun.

From Potosi we got on the coach again and travelled down to Uyuni to visit the salt flats. Its traditionally a place to get some funny photos and we did. Along the way we came across flamingos, hot springs and possibly the coldest nights sleep we´ve ever had in an old hut by a freezing red lake.

Although we didnt like Bolivia as much as we liked Peru and the Peruvian people, it was still a great country to visit and we were always kept entertained through various activities during our stay there.

Next stop, the home of Maradonna; Argentina!