Our first sight of La Paz, however, was pretty breathtaking. We´d been driving for 3 hrs (on a bus packed to the rafters which ridiculously smelly locals...they sell as many tickets as they can to tourists and then pile the locals on!) through the usual barren dusty roads when all of a sudden the city appeared below us to the right in a huge canyon/valley with the edges of the city sprawled up the hillsides. Worth the admission fee alone. La Paz itself was as hectic as we imagined it would be, being the capital of a pretty mental country. The only way to describe it would be organised chaos. There seem to be no shops in Bolivia, all markets and stalls, selling anything from touristy stuff to cooked meals to toilet bowls to llama foetus! It all made for a few interesting days strolling around the place and enjoying the craziness.
We stayed in a huge hostel (Loki) owned by Irish guys which was pretty cool. There was a decent bar serving great pub grub (bacon and eggs for breakfast, sheppards pie/Irish stew/steak sandwiches etc for dinner). Needless to say we ate there most days (bar a great Indian one night!) as its cuisine wouldnt be Bolivias strong point as we found out in Tupiza. It helped that everything in Bolivia is ridiculously cheap so you could eat out every day of the week. I even got to watch a few Premiership matches on Fox Argentina so happy out!
It was in the midst of one of a few decent nights in the hostel bar that the decision of the trip so far was made. A couple of Irish girls would had cycled the Worlds Most Dangerous Road that day convinced a semi (!) drunk Louise that she´d nothing to be scared off as they had got through it no bother despite being terrified beforehand. So off we went the following morning and signed up. We were brought the next morning to the starting point of the cycle at 4700m above sea level and given a seriously thorough safety briefing whereby we were told countless horror stories of what has haapened to people who dont follow the advice. At that stage every last one of us (Louise especially) were pretty sh%tless! The road is officially the Worlds Most Dangerous. Apparantly, the IMF carried out a 3 yr study and concluded that no other road in the world has as high a death toll!! So they gave the Bolivians a wack of money to build a new road and now this is mainly a tourist cycle track although some locals still use it. There hace been 54 deaths so far this year, only 2 cyclists though! Anyway, after an hour of bombing downhill on the good road, we hit the dirt track and it was squeeky bum time. It didnt help that we were soon into the clouds and it started to lash rain, for fear it wasnt tough enough already. 
Anyway, it was an unbelieveably thrilling and enjoyable day, once we got used to it everyone got a lot more confident and started to rip it. Even Louise was well tucked into the middle of the group by the end after being mostly at the back during a very nervous beginning. The day was capped off with a few well deserved beers before we drove back up the road in our minivan which was almost as bad as cycling down it!
Anyway, it was an unbelieveably thrilling and enjoyable day, once we got used to it everyone got a lot more confident and started to rip it. Even Louise was well tucked into the middle of the group by the end after being mostly at the back during a very nervous beginning. The day was capped off with a few well deserved beers before we drove back up the road in our minivan which was almost as bad as cycling down it! 
We were due to leave the following day but 250,000 people decided to have a march in the city centre in support of the proposed referendum for a new constitution. Basically, the new president (Evo Morales) is the first ever indigenous president and a former cocoa grower and union leader. He is like a God in Bolivia to the masses (most of whom are indigeneous and live in poverty...the average wage is 80USD a month), slogans and posters of him everywhere. So he has proposed a new Constitution nationalising industries and basically taking land from the rich farmers to give to the peasants (a modern day Robin Hood eh). So they all came down from the hills to march in a huge show of support for Evo. And grounded every bus leaving the city. Not impressed. But we did enjoy watching the march and the rallies. Luckily, it all went off peacefully and we left for Lake Titicaca the following morning with under a week to go to the Inca Trail. 
A disgustingly hot 3 hour train trip took us to our first Bolivian destination- Tupiza. Lets just say, the look of horror on my face as we pulled into the train station said it all. It was dirty, smelly, windy, noisy and certainly didn´t look like the quaint little backpacker spot that Lonely Planet described it as!!
The town itself, although very run down and primitive had a lot of character and the people were very friendly. We didn´t do an awful lot here, just explored the place and chilled out. But overall it was an enjoyable few days and a nice introduction to crazy Bolivia!!
The following morning we made it to the start of the route, were given our bikes and maps and off we went. Our first stop was a big commercial winery called "La Rural" were we were given a tour of the place and detailed explanations as to how the wine is produced. All very interesting but we were there for one thing and one thing only! Finally, we got our first free glass of wine at midday and off we were to our next stop. We decided to cycle to the end of the route while we were fresh and make our way back from there. Turns out cycling 12km is harder than it sounds. When we finally got there we were treated to a lovely tiny winery and were given the special treatment as we (Shane,Louise,Zoe,Rosanna,Vicky & Marcus) were the only people there. We tasted 4/5 of their wines for the equivalent of 4euro. 
We decided to have lunch at the next stop as the day was flying by. As we waited for lunch we tasted another 4/5 wines (at that stage we told them we were fine for the tours,we´ll go straight for the tasting). Another 2 bottles between the 6 of us during lunch as the sun shone, things could have been a lot worse. By the time we left, there was only time for one more stop,the chocolate liquor factory. Guess whose favourite stop this was?! We tasted the gorgeous chocolate and liquors and finally had to call it a day. Great fun all round, despite the rather sore rears. Topped off by more ridiculously cheap supermarket wine in the hostel that night.
The next few days were spent chilling and doing very little, a number of these days due to serious hangovers, a bottle of cheap red wine each before heading out is not good for the head. Mendoza itself was a very nice spot, lovely small city centre with a lovely square and park. A fair few more steaks were had as our time in Argentina counted down. Hostel Lao was really class, up there with Pudu and America Del Sur in Bariloche and Calafate, met some great people there and the cable tv helped when hungover (even got to see a live Premiership game on the Sunday morn live on Fox Argentina!). In the end, we had spent 5 nights (2 more than planned) there so were ready to leave when the time came and head to our last Argentine destination, Salta.
Of course, the only reason everyone was there was the Perito Moreno Glacier which did not disappoint. There´s not much you can say about it, the photos tend to do the trick. Apparantly its around 3km wide and 26km long, bigger than Buenos Aires which has a population of 11million people to give an indicationof the scale of it. And we were told it is one of the only ones in the world that is not reducing in size. In addition to walking around the glacier and seeing huge chunks fall off and crash into the water (a lot more spectacular than it sounds), we did a pretty expensive 3hr afternoon trek on the glacier. Worth every penny, Louise´s highlight of trip so far.
We got a ferry to the far side of the glacier and right up to it before being dropped off at the starting point for our trek. We had a bit of a crash course in the history and safety matters, put on our ice crampons and off we went. It was class, walking up almost vertical parts off it with the grips of the huge spikes holding us in. We saw stunning deep crevaces and mini lakes all over the glacier. You could even drink the water from the pools which was handy given it was tough going at times. The trek was finished on a very classy note, scotch on the rocks. As in, a generous glass of Famous Grouse with ice the guide had hacked off the glacier in front of us, nice! Our time in America Del Sur was capped off on the best possible note, an all you can eat BBQ.
The following day we decided to go skiing in Cerro Castor, Louise´s first time ever. On reflection the day would be best described as a mixed bag. The first half was not so good, something akin to my first attempts in Bulgaria as we decided to head down the first slope we saw without knowing what was in store and no lessons for Louise. Between that, the fact that both our boots were far too tight (the lack of spanish as usual) and the surprisingly warm weather which meant we were passing out with the heat with all our layers....Not good, it was far too difficult even tho it was a green slope. In my defence the start was very gentle but it did have a steep enough drop around the corner from where we started. Cue the inevitable first morning skiing "this is awful, never doing it again" (a bit the like the ole Sunday morning "never again" hungover talk). However, after a long lunch, we regrouped, found the proper beginners slope and Louise got very good for someone with no lessons and only a cowboy skiier to listen to. At the end of the day we did the first slope again three or four times no bother so it all ended well, phew!
Posts
