La Paz

We had heard some pretty horrific stories of overnight buses in Bolivia getting hijacked so when Simon found some pretty cheap flights we opted for those over the 14 hour overnight bus journey. The journey to the airport was a little hairy though. We asked the hostel to call us a cab and 10 minutes later, what I can only describe as a clapped out banger pulled up outside. It's a miracle the car even made the 40 minute journey to the airport. There were wires hanging out from under the steering wheel so there is a rather large possibility that the driver stole and hot wired the car! The first thing we both did was went to grab the seat belts but surprise surprise there weren't any. You also know that it's a clapped out pile of junk when mini buses and trucks are overtaking you on a minor incline! There is definitely no such thing as an MOT in Bolivia! All I kept thinking the entire way was god I hope that it's a proper aeroplane! Fortunately it was and we landed safely in Laz Paz a couple of hours later. We did however suffer our second casualty of our trip, my coat, which I somehow managed to leave on the plane. Fortunately this story does have a happy ending as after the hostel kindly tried calling the lost and found for me and then pointed us in the direction of the airline office, my coat has been located and I can collect it tomorrow!

After checking in to our hostel, aside from sorting out the whole jacket on a plane debacle, we spent the afternoon, walking around the various tour agencies to book our mountain biking tour of Death Road.En savoir plus