La Paz & World’s Most Dangerous Road (E)

We safely arrived in La Paz and found a nice hostel in the centre of the city. Hostal Loki is part of a party hostel chain but we found it to be a very relaxed place with spotless rooms and all the amenities – really recommendable… There isn’t much to write about the four days we spent in La Paz as all we did was planning the next weeks in Bolivia, trying to find decent restaurants and going for walks around the old town.

The one thing I wanted to do whilst staying in La Paz was biking down the “World’s Most Dangerous Road”, named by the Inter American Development Bank in 1995. The 64 kilometer downhill ride, starting at chilly 4,700 meters down to the Yungas valley at 1,200 meters, is one of La Paz’ main tourist attractions since a new road has been opened to cater for most of the motorised traffic, leaving the old gravel road for the bikers. Parts of the road are just wide enough for one car to drive on it - crossing would be impossible and many monuments & crosses remind visitors of how dangerous this road once was.

The downhill ride was great fun and not quite as frightening as I thought. It’s manageable with some biking experience and the guides take good care of the group. Driving back up by bus seemed far more challenging as we had time to look down the 600 meter drop-offs at the edge of the road.

Back in La Paz it was time to say good bye to Suse & Ulli after 2.5 weeks of travelling together. I wanted to see Bolivia’s Jungle and Pampas and booked a flight to Rurrenabaque in order to avoid an uncomfortable 20 hour bus ride. The girls would go for the bus after taking on the death road so we might meet again in tropical “Rurre”.