Hola Amigos!

I am writing sooner than expected (we are still in La Paz) as the last 48 hours has been quite eventful and want to make sure I cover it in detail!!

Yesterday morning at 8am we were picked up from our hostel by Julio- who was to be our guide for the Worlds Most Dangerous Road- from La Paz to Coroico. We had shopped around the different companies who take people along this road to make sure we found the safest and ones we trusted most and we went for Vertigo. The company did not disappoint. We started off on tarmac at 4,200m and were biking at speeds up to 50km/ph!! The scenery around us was incredible, see http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/album.php?aid=187439&id=501271639&comments for photos. We then started on the bumpy gravel track. The whole route is downhill so you just have to use your brakes in varying quantities. At it´s thinnest the road is 3m wide with a massive drop off the edge. It takes a lot of concentration to keep your bike on track and to make sure you navigate the corners without any skidding.

The route is lined with crosses where people have been killed, mainly from cars crashing off the edge as the road was the main access point to the jungle before 2003. I can´t imagine trying to cycle it with cars coming both ways! Luckily we only had to go past two cars along the whole 5 hour route. Some have also died cycling however most of these have occured when the conditions have been bad- during the rainy season or when bogus companies have taken tourists along the route with no guides or emergency equipment. I am glad that I did it however I would never do it again!

Once we had got to the bottom of the route, at Coroico we drove to a small lodge to have lunch. Ironically after such a dangerous route I suddenly started to feel really sick and ended up throwing up in the bathrooms. As there were a whole bus full of people and we had a 3 hour jounrey back to La Paz I decided to brave the bus feeling very nauseous. Along the bumpy road back to La Paz I threw up another 4 times. Not a nice experience! Had a very rough night last night but after delaying our long bus journey to Oruro today and having a very restful day I am feeling much better.

We leave at 9am tomorrow and take a bus to Oruro and then a train to Uyuni where we will start our four day salt flats tour!

I will write about this when I get to San Pedro.

Hasta Luego!

Sophie xxx