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Day 42 - Monday 12th April
The bus was supposed to arrive at 8am but got in at 4. Didn't have a hostel booked until Monday night proper so had a taxi driver take me around to find a place to stay for a few hours. 4 full hostels later I ended up in Hostel Republica, a quaint little building once owned by the 1904 president Jose M. Pando no less. And more importantly my first single room of the trip!! Actually mildly scary sleeping in a room on your own...!
For the afternoon I checked into Adventure Brew Hostel (complete with onsite microbrewery) and saw Phil again from the taxi window! Caught up with Lloyd and Rich finally but they were struggling after a heavy night until 10am in the elusive Route 36...
Took a stroll around the city with Phil and along with Lloyd, Rich and the girls from Cordoba we headed for a curry! Saw some girls from Iquazu in there and then headed to Oliver's Travels, an English pub with traditional and much needed English food over the next few days. More importantly met all the English guys from San Pedro and arranged to head to the jungle with them on the Wednesday.
Day 43 - Tuesday 13th April
DEATH ROAD - Early start at 6am to get up and checked out, saw Dormer and Lulu come out of my hostel as I went past in a taxi...great breakfast of panqueques and fruit before the hour long trip to the top of our ride. You start off at 4800m among snowcapped mountains and descend into jungle down at 1100m. The boss of the biking company was away and the mechanics had been boozing so hadn't fixed up a standard (good) bike for me...so I ended up with a £2500 specialist downhill bike that they only use once a month. Awesome Kona with 7 inches of travel on both front and back, it was like riding on air! I struggled to keep up for the top section on tarmac but it more than coped on the trickier bits down the road. After the initial road we managed an 8km uphill stretch (pretty tough at 3500m!!) before reaching the deathroad itself. You have to ride on the ledge side of the road and the first time you pass within a metre of the edge is absolutely breathtaking. The views are incredible and you're bombing down at 30-40mph. The adrenaline rush was indescribable. 5 hours later having stripped off your heavy layers for the snow at the top you finish at an animal sanctuary and get to play around with monkeys, which was awesome fun. The bus ride back up the road was possibly scarier as you have time to take in quite how obsene the road actually is, staring out of your window at a 100m straight drop less than a metre away from you...wicked wicked day. Definite highlight!
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