Bolivia - Viva la Coca

In Uyuni we took in some of the Carnaval spirit (just metaphorically speaking) before taking the same day´s bus to La Paz, but soon our good mood got clouded as much as the busdrivers drunken or sleepy vision, when, after 2 hours of drive, the bus for no apparent reason crashed into the ditch, almost tipping over. This left us waiting in the cold rain for 2 hours, stretching the already 16-hour bus drive into an 18 hours (18 Bolivian bus hours are, roughly converted, 36 felt Argentinian bus hours.) I am still wondering how the entire bus managed to go the whole way with only one piss stop after the accident..


Carnaval in Uyuni


Tilt

In La Paz we put up at a hostal called "The Wild Rover", which came with pool table, pub quiz, funny green hats and everything the Irish can dream of. Although the culture shock hit us hard when we saw the first group of redheads taking in their breakfast (beer and aspirine) in the early afternoon, we soon learned that is it not too bad in La Paz to have a good bar at your hands, without having to leave your home at night.


That´s hardly healthy, but obviously fun


Bowler hats and Ponchos


Coca a la carte


La Paz and Illimani


The labyrinthine streets of La Paz


Bankrobbers? Bolivien task forces? No, shoeshiners!


But nevertheless we got our quantum of adrenaline when we did a downhill mountainbike tour on the notorious Yungas road, advertised as "the most dangerous road in the world", where in the last year alone 43 people died, according to a roadsign, 30 of them bikers, according to our guide. The good thing is, during this 3 hour trip you knock off 3000m of altitude, the bad (or exciting) thing is that the street is not broader than 3 or 4 meters and you have a constant drop between 100 and 700 meters to your left! (Yeah, I´m letting numbers speak for me today.) This is by the way the only road with left-hand-driving in Bolivia, plausible if you imagine two trucks trying to pass each other on this road.


The Yungas road...


...carved into the mountains

After the ride we visited the Wildlife Rescue Park at the end of the track where abandoned animals are being taken care of and slowly introduced into their natural habitat again.


Stevie got really indifferent to beggars after 1 month of South America...


The turtle whisperer


But what would have killed me in Bolivia finally, wouldn´t have been a bike or bus accident, but Stevies intentions of climbing a nearby, relatively (!) easy accessible 6000m-peak, of which there are many in La Paz´ vicinity. (Un)fortunately the weather was upsetting our plans and we finally left South America without doing our masterpiece.

Microsleep and its effects at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephan_mittas/sets/72157616232728906/
I went down the most dangerous road in the world and all I got was a lousy sunburn on the nose: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephan_mittas/sets/72157616143733865/