La Paz is the highest capital city in the world at around 3600m above sea level. This was a shock after the nice warm jungle. We were back to being cold and being exhausted after walking any slight uphills. Unfortunately La Paz is built in a big valley. Hence, lots of hills. As shown below with the urban sprawling up the hills (4000m) that surround La Paz.
San Pedro prison on the right for those who know its story. Smack bang in the middle of La Paz.
And Bella sitting next to a pretty garden.We mainly spent our time enjoying ourselves being back in a big city. More than 5 restaurants to choose from and a good cup of coffee with a muffin. But the main reason we came here was to do a mountain bike ride on the 'World's Most Dangerous' Road. It was called this because 100 people per year use to die on this 60km section of road. Mainly due to stupid overtaking, drink driving and in general Bolivian drivers. The World Bank and USA stepped in and funded a new road. This only took 36 years and was only finished 6 months ago. The first part of the bike ride is on the new road.
You basically went as fast as you want with the guide out in front. We stopped regularly to regroup at sites such as this. We start at 4600m asl so it is freakin cold. We had cloud for the first bit. They had had to deal with snow a few days earlier so we were considered lucky. We had 20km of this fast paced bitumen surface before the real road began.
Some nice tight corners above. And the picture spot below. With a 600m drop down the edge.
It was 64km of road, in about 6 hours dropping 3345m of vertical descent. A great day out!!
