La Paz

My bus to La Paz arrived at 6am. Still half asleep, I made my way to Adventure Brew hostel near the bus station. It would be a a week before I would check out.

Some of my days were spent just walking around; sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, and one day on a walking tour. La Paz has an interesting feel to it, sometimes reminding me of the cities of Vietnam, although with its basin like structure, the countless hillside house lights look like a giant constellation of stars wrapping around the city at night. There are numerous markets; some selling clothes, some selling food, and in the witches market, some selling llama foetuses and peculiar powdered potions. And then there is San Pedro prison, a bizarre compund with its own unique community locked up behind four walls. Many travellers here rave about the book Marching Powder which documents the strange life going on within the prison.

Much of my time in La Paz was spent with Willem and Alies, who I had previously got to know well in Sucre. On Sunday I agreed to join them to see some wrestling. In my naivety, I originally assumed it was real wrestling; possibly some kind of Bolivian Judo. In reality, it was as fake and staged as Hulk Hogan in his prime. As the fighters worked up the crowd, it was obvious who was a goodie and who was a baddie. There were numerous overly dramatic throws, air-bound punches and fake faces of agony. At one point even a couple of tourists were dragged into the ring to join in on command. Most of the foreign tourists sat at the front happily went along with the fun, although an hour later they were all clock watching, leaving the locals at the back to do all the cheering and jeering.

The following evening I was walking back to my hostel with Willem, Alies, and a couple of other people we had just met. Alies was walking a few metres infront of me talking to the guy. I was walking behind talking to the girl, aware of Willem immediately behind me. Just moments later, the girl I was talking to asked where Willem was. I turned around, but he wasn´t there. He had vanished. I shouted to Alies to stop walking. The new guy and girl checked the two nearby open restaurants to see if he had gone to the toilet, while I walked back to check around the corner, but he could not be seen. I stopped for a moment to think of what possibly could have happened. He had literally been right behind me ... or had he? I started to doubt if I knew for certain if the figure behind me had been him.

Maybe a couple of minutes passed, and there was still no sign. We all stood looking lost in the street. "Should I be worried?" Alies asked me. "Nah, there's no need to be worried", I replied. This was a bareface lie. What I was actually thinking was "Yes! Of course you should be worried! Willem has just dissapeared from the side of the street! He had no reason to suddenly run away, and there's nowhere left he could possibly be! Of course you should be worried!". But I hid that thought. Alies walked alone back down the street to peer around the corner I had already checked. In her own words, this is the moment she felt her crying face come on.

Willem suddenly emerged from one of the restaurants. He had been feeling ill, and upon seeing a toilet door, he promptly made a move; he chose the women's toilet, where we did not think to look. And he vowed to never suddenly dissapear again.

Just north of La Paz there is a road. It is known as The World's Most Dangerous Road, or if that name isn't scary enough, Death Road. Until a new road was built nearby a number of years ago, the steep twisting cliff bends claimed countless lives and vehicles. Now the new road has been built, most deaths, albeit rarer deaths, are tourist cyclists. And I think it is no underestimation to say that the majority of La Paz's tourists give it a flirt. I hastily booked myself a ticket on Tuesday evening, and woke up more than once on Tuesday night wondering why ... not for the first time in South America!

The following morning I found myself on the tour bus to Death Road. I chose to cycle with Gravity Tours, by far the most expensive company, and also the original. I was very quickly pleased with my decision. The bikes were high quality and tested before each use, and safety was the primary focus ...well, safety and fun. And fun I certainly had. Most of the journey is downhill, so the only tiring parts for most of the way were on my braking fingers. And as the hours past by, I became happier to increase my speed ... usually followed by an inner voice telling me this was neither the time nor the place to scour for my cycling limits.

Deaths are not particularly common on the road anymore, but they do happen to the foolhardy or those pushing themselves too far, and our guide told us the story of those who had fallen off the edge at each particular interval.

Four or five hours of downhill cycling later we had finished, but the day was not over yet. Only one of our group of eleven declined the optional ziplines. They were very long, very fast, and very very high. And they were great. On the second of the three I was offered the chance to do it Superman style. This means attaching myself to one of the organisers, then flying head first. The extra weight makes it even faster. And through a lack of volunteers and a lucky coin toss, I was able to do it again for the final zipline. Click here for a video.

There was a little more of La Paz I still wanted to see, but that would have to wait. A week after my arrival I took a morning bus to the airport. I had a flight to Rurrenabaque to catch, by The Amazon.