La Paz, La Paz, La Paz

We left Tupiza after two nights on the overnight train to Oruro (3 hrs south of La Paz). After 6 weeks of buses it was our 3rd train in a week. And our last for quite a while if we have any say in it. It was another hot, dusty, bone jarring 13hr journey. We arrived into Oruro at 7am with 2 hrs sleep at best under the belts. We then arrived into the bus station in Oruro only to be accosted by a dozen or so mental old women screaming and pulling at us "La Paz, La Paz, La Paz". Seems like its a popular destination for gringos in Oruro (a town which certainly neednt be worried about having to deal with too many tourists any time soon). In Bolivia, if you didnt laugh you´d cry.

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!

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.