After sayinng goodbye to our host family in Sucre we arrived in La Paz after a 13 hour bus journey. We arrived at the Adventure Brew hostel at six in the morning so our room was not ready yet which meant we had to wait around for a few hours, not ideal after a long journey!! We didnt do too much when we arrived first as we suffered badly from altitude and had to lay low for a few days. The food in the hostel was pretty good so we just had dinner there and took it easy. As soon as we were back to normal our first order of business was to book our bike ride down the Worlds Most Dangerous Road....its funny the things you look forward to!! We booked our bike ride with Gravity Bike company as we heard they were the best and the only company who carried safety equipment and rescue harnesses going down the road,so there really was no other option! The hostel had there own travel agency so we were able to book the bike ride and our bus to Copacabana from there. When we booked the bike ride we had to sign this crazy waiver which basically signed our lives away!!
On the morning of the bike ride we had to meet at Alexanders coffe shop at 730. When we arrived we were set into groups and assigned a guide for the day. We then took off on an hour long bus journey to the start of the road. Along the way our guide told us of the dangers of the road and the precautions to take. When we arrived at the starting point he went through tips on how to control the bikes and made sure the bike and safety equipment suited each individual. The bikes that we were given were really good bikes. Then we had a little ceremony which we hoped would get us all down the road alive!! The first 20 kms was not so bad and we could go pretty fast to get used to the bikes. We had to pass through drug check points and some crazy cliff edges but nothing like what was going to be ahead of us!! When we arrived at the start of the 'Worlds Most Dangerous Road' everybody was a little bit nervous as we did not really no what to expect. We had 43 kms of crazy cliff edges ahead!! Any lack of concentration could and would end up with you going over the edge and if you go over, that is it!!! Our guide was telling us all the horror stories along the way. Many people have died and got injured on the road and you really dont want to join that list!! We could see all the buses, cars and trucks that had gone over and were crushed at the bottom!! At the start of the road everybody was careful and a little nervous but as it went on we got a little bit more comfortable. The whole day was absolutely brilliant!! The views on the road and the excitement of going down the worlds most dangerous road was amazing. At the bottom we had lunch in an animal sanctuary and hung around there for a bit. We then had to take a bus back to La Paz which had to go back over the same road. The journey on the bus was worse then on the bikes!! We really survived the 'Worlds Most Dangerous Road' twice!!
When we got back to La Paz we went out for dinner and took a walk through the witches market. We went back to the hostel early as we had an early start the next morning to catch our bus to Copacabana.
La Paz Done!!