Lovin La Paz, but on to PERU

What to say about La Paz, on our first meeting I would describe it as high, smoggy, filled with people and little buses!! To say the least I was not too pleased with La Paz. First step I took on the ground began an adventure. The adventure begins with my bus dropping me off in the middle of the street, in nowhere La Paz, NOT at a bus terminal. NO tourist office, just a bunch of Bolivians scrambeling around getting to work and school! It´s 630 in the morning and I have not a clue as to where I am!!! I relax and as opposed to my original plan to walk, I simply hail a cab, but as soon as I start talking he says no and drives away! Hailing another cab, I see two people in the taxi, the driver and another man whom I presumed to be the drivers father. I tell them where I need to go and they agree to take me. Running into a closed road filled with protesting Bolivians, the father is dropped off. The driver then proceeds to tell me, ahhh we can not get down to the city. HUH!? Why not I ask? There are people protesting all the roads are closed!! Shit! I tell him, I am scared because I do not know where I am at and that I don´t know what to do. He tells me do not worry I have a friend with a moped, he can take you, he owes me a favor. OK. Knock knock, nope. No one is home. Do not worry he says, I will take you. We then pull up to his house, we park the taxi, I get introduced to his mom, attacked by his dog, he grabs my pack, throws it on his back, and we are off. We load up into a little dodgy bus and then get dropped in the middle of the largest clusterfuck of traffic and humans I have ever seen. Cars, people, dogs, EVERYWHERE. Avoiding getting hit by the insane drivers and with the lack of traffic laws, I just keep following Jose.

We arrive to a door....this is a Wizard of Oz door, becuase I open it and I see an incredible site, The city of La Paz! It lays in a valley, and so nicely is covered by a cloud of smog. We walked down a STEEP, very STEEP, pathway comprised of ramps and steps, down down down to the city. We must have walked this path for 20 min! I wished that I had my camera handy, but I have no pics of this adventure! about an hour and half after walking we find my hostel. Let me now tell you that the altitude is some 3700m. So walking for an hour and half really exhausted me. When we made it to the hostel I was so grateful, Jose carried my large pack, me my small bag, the whole time! I wished that I could explain to him how grateful I was, instead, I paid him way too much money and gave him lots of hugs!

I arrived to the hostel, and ran into two people I met on a bus to Salta, a long time ago, and then I met a swiss gril, Axel. Axel and I decided to go on the tour fo the Worlds Most Dangerous Road together.

The Worlds Most Dangerous Road!!! Taking a bus, at 730 am, to the start of the ride, we are surrounded by a lake and mountains! 4700m up into the sky, better believe that it was cold! We recieve our bikes! I have an awesome new bike named Barney! The first 20 km we fly down the paved mountain road, racing through clouds, reaching speeds of 36 to 38 miles per hour! Quite exhilirating!!!

FUN FUN, but ok, now for the dangerous road! This road is now hardly used due to the production of a new, not so dangerous, road. During the ride I fell twice! Once under a waterfall, I was stuck behind someone going to slow and blah blah...I toppeled. Then later on a 180 degree turn I was going maybe to fast and slowed down but ran up on to some head sized rocks and again tipped over. This was not bad though, I did suffer some bruises but nothing dramatic. We did however lose two people during the ride, they didn´t die, but were hospitalized!! One girl fell pretty bad, was concussed and needed stiches and plastic surgery! Then a guy from Estonia, fell at the end and disloctaed his shoulder and something bad happended to his elbow, his face was a pretty beat too!! At this point I decided I better go slower, and I did.

At the end of the ride, we went to an animal refuge, where monkeys are rescued from the black market and from people who have trained them to pick pockets. No monkey climbed on me, but they tend to climb up people pick there pockets and run off. They also has birds, like Macaws and Tucans, there was a boa constrictor, and turtles. Pretty neat place aside from the sand fleas. Those little shits are savage, biting you eveywhere and you cant even feel it!! I have some pics...ewe

After the refugee, I zip lined through the valley!! This wasn´t over exhilirating, but on my first run my heart did begin to race. It was simply enjoyable to fly over the valley!

So before arriving to La Paz I was in Sucre. The only thing I want to report is that I went to the worlds largest dinosaur track!! In limestone peaking out of the ground due to natural causes, you can see the footprints of dinosaurs that walked mya, they also have the largest figurine of a, uhh, animal. Pretty neat stuff! My last destination was in Copacabana, near the border of Peru, on Lake Titicaca. Nice little town with character, a little touristy, and full of hippies. I daily battle food poisoning. I went to bed early without eating for the second day in a row, and woke up to go to Isla del Sol. The island contains over 80 incan ruins, has no cars, and no paved roads. I walked up a large case of stairs to see the Incan garden, but quickly had to retreat to the boat, I only went for half day so that I could get to Peru early! Which I did! I am in Peru, in Puno, at Lake Titicaca. Tomorrow I will go on a tour through the floating islands, I will enjoy my single bedroom wiht my priate bath, with HOT water, for two nights, and head to Chivay, to see the Colca Canyon!! I´ll get back to you soon! Caio Andrea