Hi guys so I am so lazy with writing in this thing cause whenever I am writing its always like a week or 2 late! Ha-ha ok so in La Paz I spent a few days hanging out in the city with my portugese friend and I did the famous Death road bike tour which was omg the most funnest thing I think I have ever done in a long time if not ever! So basically there are 2 reputable tours in La paz, they are gravity something and baracuda. I went to gravity first and they charge 750 Bolivianos which is about $150 CAD. And I was like holly cow that's alot of money for a one day tour so I continued looking around and the guy told me the next best cheapest option would be baracuda. He told me the reason gravity was so pricey is cause they scrap their bikes after 2 yrs and actually pass them on to baracuda. They also use carbon fiber bikes, I forget the brand but anyways ya you get the idea. So I went with baracuda and they were $100CAD but I liked that they were basically the next best thing and they check the bikes everyday, have good English speaking guide and will change the brakes for you depending on what you are comfortable with. So yea the tour itself...you start off doing this small ritual thing where you pass around a bottle of almost pure alcohol...I think it was like 96% and what you do is pour some on the ground, on your bike and lastly you take a swig. And essentially you are asking pachamama (mother earth) to bless you to make sure nothing bad happens. Then we start riding and the first 5-10 mins are on paved road and its meant to be like a warm up...get used to the bikes, brakes etc.
After we arrive to the start of the road and its essentially in the mountains and the roads are the thickness of one normal lane in canada. Anyway we start riding in small stretches and holly shit I'm like about to piss my pants and like cry because its like the scariest thing I have ever done!! First off its fairly steep you are going super fast and there are rocks and stones EVERYWHERE!!! you are bouncing like a mother effer and I'm trying to get a rhythm for it but I just cannot get comfortable with it!! Finally after the first stretch we all stop and I ask the guide what he recommends and he gave me some tips like try not braking at all and just use your elbows and knees to absorb the shock and it helped alot. Anyway we approach this stretch and be tells us that 80% of accidents happen in this part so be cautious and don't get cocky cause up until this point people are quite careful and when they get here they become slightly too confident and thats how accidents happen. So what do you know I'm like turning the corner and bam a German girl in my group who was riding amazing up until that point was laying on the ground trembling, and clutching her neck saying how she couldn't breathe. I'm like omggggg you have got to be kidding me, like seriously someone has been injured?!! I dunno I guess I was being slightly optimistic thinking that accidents were rare but ya there was one right in front of my eyes. So anyway the rest of the tour got kinda delayed because of that. Anyways once she got sent to the hospital the rest of the group continued onwards and omg by the end of the ride j was having such a blast!! I felt sooo alive and I was just having true pure untainted FUN!! hahahaha it was just incredible and the views were spectacular which just made everything that much better! So ya I highly recommend that tour if you ever go but just don't be a show off and make sure you have insurance ha-ha! So something else I did in La paz was the red cap walking tour which was also very great! It costs 20 Bolivianos and you basically walk around the city, visit some fruit and meat market, go to something called the witches market where you can buy love potions that have actually been made by real witches and ya just some neat interesting stuff. You also learn a bit about the San Pedro prison which is like a whole world in its own. So basically it's the biggest prison in La paz, maybe Bolivia and you can't go inside as a tourist. It's illegal however when there's a will there's a way and apparently you can bribe the guards to let you in. I didn't have much of a desire to enter cause there have been some horror stories abou tourists that enter and can't exit or women getting raped and stuff. There's apparently a great book called marching powder that describes the experience of either a prisoner or of a tourist who went inside. So in this prison you can have your family live with you, you work and make money and depending on how much money you have, you get get some pretty sick stuff like a hottub in your flat and you can get flat screen TVs which to me is like wtf?!! How is this a prison?! Anyway apparently alot of cocaine is produced in the prison and the guide was saying that one way they get it out is by putting it in a diaper and throwing it over the top and having it land in the street where someone collects it. Anyways that's essentially the highlight of La Paz that I did. After La Paz I took a night bus go uyuni to do the salt flat tours and I just finished that 4 days ago. My next post will be about that :)
