Day 3 - La Paz

Today we took on the worlds most dangerous road or death road as it's also called. I think you can guess how it got its name! Because of this, the road is now closed to cars (I am not surprised that so many cars came off the road as it is not wide enough for 2 vehicles to pass at any point!) but remains open to lunatics that think it's a great idea to go down on a mountain bike!

We were picked up around 8:15am from our hostel and after around an hour and a half drive, we were at the starting point. At this point we were at around 4,700m, our highest altitude yet. It was pretty cold but the sun was shining which was a good sign. There were 6 of us in total with 2 guides, Edwin and Kenneth, as well as our driver Ugo who would be following us down in the mini bus. Our guides handed out the gear, jacket, trousers, helmet and gloves and gave us our bikes. After a quick tutorial on the bikes and some safety information we were on our way.

The first hour of the ride is considered the practice part before you reach the death road. It's a tarmac road so was really fun to cycle down. It's all downhill so you don't even need to peddle, my kind of cycling! After around an hour we stopped for some snacks and then jumped back in the bus to drive us uphill to the beginning of the death road.

As we pulled up at the death road, the fog set in and it made it look pretty scary! Before we set off we huddled together and did a 'repeat after me' mantra whilst holding up the llama sign with our hands, then we were off. The road was not as smooth as the tarmac practice road and was pretty bumpy but we all set off at a good pace. The guides would stop us every now and then to take pictures and point out various points in the road, like this is the part where the most people died!

After a little bit the fog started to lift and you could see the road unwind below you. The views were incredible! Along the road there were little waterfalls and streams that you had to ride through which was pretty cool.

At one point, our guides told us to get off the bikes and sit along the edge of the road, hanging our legs over the edge. Simon sat down around 2 meters from the edge and then slowly shuffled his way to the edge. Our guide cottoned on to the fact that Simon was petrified and thought it would be funny to come up behind him and shake his shoulders! It definitely wasn't!

After that we were back on our bikes to continue on down to the next stop. It was on this stretch of the road that I pulled out an epic somersault over the front of my handlebars when I accidentally applied a little too much pressure to my front brake! (The front and back brakes are the opposite way round here!) It hurt like hell but I fortunately escaped without any serious injuries and didn't fall off the edge of the road! But like the true trooper I am, I got back on the bike, albeit after Simon had scrapped me off the ground and Ugo had tried to knock the brake back to where it should be! Simon also managed to capture my gymnastic abilities on the gopro so I'm sure he will take great pleasure in showing the video to everyone when we get home! After that I unsurprisingly lost my need for speed and took it easy the rest of the way down.

After around another 30 minutes riding we stopped for lunch next to the Flying Fox zip line. I decided that I had had far too much excitement for one day and we are also doing a zip line when we do Machu Picchu so we decided to give it a miss.

After lunch we had a little bit of a flat section which required some peddling! It wasn't far but it was pretty tiring and I was glad when we got to the downhill bit again.

Eventually we made it to the bottom where we had a celebratory beer for surviving the death road! I don't think I have ever enjoyed a beer so much. The bottom of the road was around 1400m and the lowest we have been in a couple of weeks. It felt amazing to be at a lower altitude and not get out of breath just walking around.

Before we headed off on our 3 and a half hour journey back to La Paz (on the new non dangerous road) we had an hour or so at a hotel where we could swim in the pool and have a buffet lunch. I didn't brace the pool, Si did but it was freezing. Instead I opted for the hot shower as these are a rare commodity in Bolivia before having a lie down on a sun lounger next to the pool.

We arrived back at our hostel around 7:30pm tired and bruised but we survived death road and we have the t shirts to prove it!Lue lisää