Bolivia- Mountain biking down officially the 'Worlds most dangerous road' and touring the Salt Flats  After a rather dodgey border crossing from Peru, during which we we're pulled into a small office by border officials and had our wallets searched! Cheeky fella's, luckily I didn't even have a Dollar on me. Then being asked some questions about war in Spanish, I fired back quickly and repeatedly, “I don't understand” in Spanish; no way we're we getting caught up in that, soon we we're on our way into Boliva! La Paz is a crazy city, everything is corrupt and everyone is on the payroll. There is a massive police presence, though Police are under strict instructions not to haste tourists, and it felt safe enough, even though all the police carried guns, quite a few with automatics, just for patrolling the streets! 

One of the main reasons for being in La Paz was to bike down what is officially classed as the Worlds Most Dangerous Road. We knew of the best company to ride with from recommendations and their safety record; they were the only company with no fatalities, so got booked in. For the cheapest country in South America the $75 US was a lot, but worth it.  We had all the kit and great bikes (they cost thousands of pounds each) After a bus ride up to the top via an alternative route- and a safety briefing we we're away. The first section was a steep downhill tarmac road, fast, but nothing to hairy. Then we hit the start of the Worlds Most dangerous road, only loose mud and rock, waterfalls falling on to the road, reminisce of land slides, memorials to the unlucky, and 600 ft vertical drops with no barrier as we carved our way down he mountains from 4800m down to below 1000m.  It was a good ride, took a few hours with lots of safety checks, everyone made it down safely, on girl came off, but only had minor injuries. We finished at an animal sanctuary for lunch, some of which was stolen by the monkeys and parrots and headed back to La Paz. 

 We found out two days later that the same company we went with lost their no fatalities record. An American guy went off the edge and fell 40m to meet his maker. He was the first tourist to die in over 4 years. Cause of the accident is still unknown, his bike remained on the road in good working order. Then a bus smashed into a group of bikers and wiped out a few more... Anyway, next we headed south to Unyuni to do a four wheel drive trip over and around the salt flats. 

The Bolivian Salt Flats area dried up Ocean from donkeys years ago, thats left behind a rock solid floor of pure white salt; our first day was spent completely on the flats. In the dazzling sunshine, once you are out on the salt flats, all you can see is a white ground meet a blue sky, nothing else. Its difficult to imagine and doesn't sound too impressive, but its a fantastic sight to see. The scenery or lack of it, lends itself to taking funny pictures (www.picasaweb.google.com/lmcgrath85) as all the perspectives are screwed up. In the evening, we raced out of our hostel that was constructed entirely of blocks of salt and jumped in our Jeep to catch the rapidly setting sun. 

The sun set was impressive, but as we're heading back to our hostel we spotted the very top of the moon rising on the horizon. The sky was blue on the horizon fading through to silky purple above where the setting sun still bounced refracted light upwards, the moon was in full view in a matter of seconds, and high in the sky within a minute and a half, you could actually see it moving it was that quick. It was more impressive than any sunset I have seen.  

The following morning we went back out in the Jeep to see the sun rising, and got some brilliant photos of our silhouettes and the rising sun from behind. The next three days were packed with traveling off road in the Jeep, visiting loads of different rock formations, bright green and red lagoons-complete with wild flamingos, geothermal areas, geezers, hot springs and other stuff too, was a pretty cool trip.  

Although again, unfortunately we found out that a few days after we finished out tour, a couple of Jeeps collided and killed half a dozen people. Luckily we seem to be one step ahead of the game again!  Getting out of the town where we started and finished the Salt Flats was a nightmare, long story short, there was a blockade on the train line, no buses for days, had to hire a Jeep an driver and take a very dodgey road/track, conveniently we broke down half way, waited around in the cold for hours and hours, finally made it to the Argentinian border. I was stuffing a baguette into my mouth after over a days rough travel- while waiting in the borer control queue and watching the Argentine flag being raised. “ I know it's not your flag - but you could show a bit of respect” the army boss fella barked at me. Whoops.   

Photos       www.picasaweb.google.com/lmcgrath85