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After spending half my holiday in Argentina, I thought it was about time to hotfoot it north. Got a 20 hour bus to the border into Bolivia. Holy crap, we had ascended to over 3500 metres and we were all having trouble adjusting to the altitude. The air is so thin! You get headaches, dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath, etc etc. Takes a few days to get used to it, and you have to learn to sloooooooow down and take it easy! Took a train north into Bolivia, which was a nice change from the busses. Got into a small town from where we did a salt flat tour. Apparently the largest salt flat in the world, thousands of square kilometres. Driving through it is really weird. It looks like snow, but it was really hot. WEIRD! They collect it and sell it for 1 US Dollar per 50 kg. so its hardly worth it. No wonder the workers were miserable when we tried to chat to them. Then went to this Steam Train graveyard. Huge hulks of steel sit out in the dry air hardly rusting. Got a bus north and now I am in La Paz. This is the capital city of Bolivia. It is the poorest country in South America, but you can see wealth here and No one seems to be starving. They are all healthy looking and content with life. They are a really friendly bunch. La Paz is extremely hilly and this combined with the altitude means you are constantly out of breath unless you slow down and walk slowly! Got really lucky when I arrived here. The very next day was a huge carnival, with parades and dancing in the streets. The costumes were amazing. Tomorrow Im doing the death road mountain biking experience. Descend from 5000 meters, freezing cold and fighting for oxygen, down 50km of precarious mountain road with crazy drop offs, to arrive down into steamy jungle at near to sea level. They lose a few tourists every year, but I am going with the most expensive operator who haven't lost a tourist in their 10 years of existance. They use 2500 dollar mountain bikes with disc brakes, so at least Ill have good kit. Theres no traffic coming the other way anymore either because they opened a new road. Mark, you can have my samurai sword, Dad, you can keep my Toyota, anything else, sell on ebay, have a party. Cheers. In a few days Ill be doing the prison tour. The prisoners have to buy their own cell, and they show tourists around. Apparently they produce much of the countrys cocaine here, so should be interesting characters to meet. Don't think Ill tell them Im joining the police. Or maybe Ill try to arrest them all. Id have better chances skateboarding the death road. Next big thing is a jungle tour in the Amazon. Will be taking a few million pictures I should think, so watch this space!
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