La Paz and the World's most dangerous road.

Although Potosi is a relatively cool colonial town, after recovering from the tour of the mine, we headed off to La Paz. From what I'd heard of La Paz, I have to say that it kind of scared me. Rumours of kidnappings for your credit cards, crazy drivers and a smog filled valley made me ask myself 'Did I really want to go there?'. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I needed a new chain ASAP. So we had to stop by.
After getting caught up in the world's entire population of minibuses, on a Saturday night, and scraping through a street parade, dancers in traditional constume blocking the main road into the city, we find the Autopista into La Paz down town. If I thought all the mini buses were on the outsirts of the city, I was sorely mistaken. The hotel that we had booked, on the proviso that it had parking for 'Dos Motos', turns out to be to be a dud. It's a nice hotel, and after several clutch burning hill starts to get there, I was rather disappointed/furious when the hotel manager points to the sauna as being the location to park our bikes. At a push, with panniers off and both bike and rider breathing in, we still would have had little chance to fit. Ok so we can park in the courtyard, not quite as secure but it's off the street. Well that's great but how the hell do we get the bikes up a flight of non DDA compliant stairs where the risers are much taller than the treads? And all this in a country full of short people. Once again I'm very happy to bump into Andreas and Kristina again. Turns out they have a hotel with secure parking. Within half an hour and many near mises with some minibuses, Mike giving some drivers a whole lot of his left indicator, the horn being badly located on the BMW, we were parked up, checked in, and unpacked.
We spent the next couple of days souvineer shopping, Alpaca wool products abundant in Gringo Alley. And Mike bought a Charranga to calm his guitar playing urges. We also had the pleasure of meeting some very nice, unscarry locals and Police with the KLR also getting a much needed new chain and sprocket.

The bikes get a wash

Then it was time to attempt the infamous, Road of Death. After gettting some prices for the mountain bike tours, we opt for taking our own motorbikes down. We'd met a couple of bikers who'd given us the GPS way points and shown us some photos. Couldn't be too hard, surely!
Fortunately after 15 years of construction, a safer, just as scenic road opened about 3 months before our arrival, taking all of the traffic off the Road of Death. And that day we didn't even have to contend with the mountain bikers as the tour groups were on strike over a local toll rising from 3 Bolivianos to 15.

I had a good reason to be a bit cautious.

I admit it was a bit scary at first, the road is quite narrow, but getting into the swing of things and the bikes getting a wash under the many waterfalls, we spent a lovely 4 or so hours slowly bouncing down the track. We arrived in the lovely Yungan town of Coroico in time for a late lunch and decided to stay the night. It was warm, the people friendly, and the altitude was low. Not to mention that the setting was beautiful. This part of Boliviar I really like.