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I then bussed it north to the world's highest capital city: La Paz - elevation 3,700 to 4,000m ASL, where I met up with Pete. La Paz is set in a giant bowl, with the CBD at the very bottom and suburbia stretching all the way to the rim & beyond. After a big nite partying with other backpackers (not surprisingly dominated by Aussies) we backed up to tackle 'Death Road': the world's most dangerous road on a mountain bike! It is a narrow dirt track carved into the side of the cliff & up until 6 years ago this was the only road out of La Paz to the west. Fans of Top Gear may recognise it from their Bolivian episode. We had a 2 hr delay just after we started caused by a landslide (a very common occurrence), but the scenery was amazing (apart from the rusting buses that could be made out at the.bottom of the canyon!). The altitude definately made the hangover worse and every bump & boulder that we rode over shot straight to the head! Despite the ride being pretty hairy at points (like 180 hairpins, riding past landslides & through waterfalls) we both loved it & survived without a scratch. My next adventure was a 4 day jungle tour of the Amazon basin, which sounds placid, but was almost as scary! To get to the remote outpost of Rurrenabaque from where our tour would depart we had the choice of a 24 hour bus trip or a 45 minute flight. Despite the flight being more than 10 times expensive, we took the flight because we'd heard 'anyone who takes the bus out will pay whatever it takes to fly back'. As if the fact we were flying an 18 seat twin-prop plane from the 70's operated by Amaszonas airlines (I haven't seen them mentioned in CASA's safety lists) wasn't enough, our flight got delayed 2 hrs whilst a hailstorm turned the runway white! No safety briefing, no life jackets, but apparently this was still better than the bus! Pete & I had the misfortune of being in the first row, right behind the pilot... I say.misfortune because we could hear every warning beep & see every flashing light on the control panel... and there seemed to be a lot of them! Anyway, my fears were put slightly to ease when i noticed the pilot's license was hanging from an Ansett Training School lanyard... I just hope he graduated before they started cutting costs! In hindsight I can say that it was by far the most spectacular flight ever! We actually flew through the Andes (not over them) so we had snow capped peaks either side of us & then we landed on a tiny runway clearing in the Amazon jungle. The tour itself was just as amazing... After the roughest 3hrs imaginable on makeshift seats in the back of a 4WD, our group of 7 jumped into a canoe & took off 2 hrs upstream to our huts. Over the next few days we went swimming with pink river dolphins, went fishing for piranhas (in the same river!), got knee deep in swamps looking for anacondas and saw alligators, caymans, sloths, monkeys, vulchars and heaps more birds! We somehow also managed to locate and drink the only 3 bottles of Tequila for 100's of km's (unfortunately, all in 1 night!). When we arrived back in La Paz we checked out the Witches Market and 'invested' in some quality llama & alpaca wool garments... the highlight of which was my bright blue 'Llamagan'! Now Pete & I were booked to leave La Paz the next morning when we were told that due to some form of strike, our bus would have to leave early the next morning (6am) & given we're both deep sleepers we decided the safest option was to pull an all-nighter & get straight on the bus! All the big nites added up to a lot of pain on the bus the next day! Bloody unions! Haha.
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