La Paz – How does anyone breath here??? AND DEATH ROAD!!!

As people were shuffling into midnight mass we made our way to the market to sample the local fare. Hamburgers were fifty cents, sausages were fifty five cents, fresh squeezed juices were forty five cents, and they were giving away deserts (all converted into American currency). It was pure madness. Not only has this city bought every single Blue Bird school bus from the United States, they have also figured out how to make them pollute even more than we did. Hats off to them. The streets were filled with buses and minivans taking people all across town (and probably right back), every other store was a soccer store, adventure center or a hostel, and the sidewalks were the width of half a person. Vehicles were everywhere. You couldn't cross a street unless the traffic was gridlocked (which it almost always was) and breathing really wasn't an option.

We walked around until we found a place to book our Death Road experience for the following day and then tried to find a safe retreat from the hustle. We probably would be completely caught up on blog postings had our hostel not been overtaken with a group of Asians who had each brought three laptops and had them all hardwired into every available port in the place. They were uploading millions of pictures in which they were giving the good old thumbs up. I kid, I kid. Kind of.

So...the next day we actually got to experience DEATH ROAD! It is a road the Bolivian government all but closed in 2005 due to the casualty count surpassing 300 annually. Now it's open to extreme bikers and the occasional local truck that needs to make the venture out of the city below. The most dangerous part of the highway is just over 60 kilometers and from our starting point, was down the whole way. From what we can recall, it's over 2,500 meters in overall descent over the course of the ride along with a whole lot of DANGER! We found Hanna a safer spot in the 'Byron Support Van' that was driven by the more than capable Juan. Of course we all know that Byron don't need no support van, so she was there to cheer his name every once in a while.

Death Road was spectacular. The views were as incredible as the road was crappy. We stopped every couple of minutes to let everyone catch up and discuss what dude had gone flying off this corner last year or how dangerous the next twenty minutes were going to be, etc. The road was complete with sharp turn after sharp turn and gorge after gorge. I've ridden on cliff side roads before, but never ones where the cliff extends over 1000 meters straight down. This is no exaggeration if you can't believe our scenic pictures. They also took hundreds of pictures of us all dressed up in their gear and looking super suave. After we rode for over 4 hours, we reached a nice hotel complete with a swimming pool, hot showers and a late lunch feast prepared for us all

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We drove back on the new highway that was constructed as the safer alternative to the Death Road. They call it the Pansie road. It's for those people afraid to live dangerously.

Oh, and check out the doggies they had at the hotel at the bottom....cuties.