Our overnight bus to La Paz was smooth and comfortable, though overly hot at times. The bus had a toilet but for whatever reason it was locked. A stop at 3am in a village somewhere helped with this issue!

We arrived in La Paz at nearly 8am on Friday 27th . With German and Danni, we had arranged to do the Death Road that day - on the proviso that we had arrived before 7.30am, as the tour left early. This didn't happen and we couldn't get hold of the tour company. German and Danni were on a tighter timescale than us, so decided to head straight to Copacabana in Lake Titicaca. We said our goodbyes and wished them well with their travels. As we'd arrived so early in the morning, and wouldn't be able to check into a hotel for some time, and as La Paz itself held little of interest for us, we decided to go straight onto one of the attractions we wanted to visit - Tiwanaku.

We hopped on a bus and made our way to the "the most important historical site in Bolivia", so said the guide with us. We made our way around two museums, viewing the artefacts, models of the site, and a mummy excavated from the burial ground. There were some huge carved stone statues in the museums (10 metres tall), and more in the site itself . The carved pumas were most excellent. We went to two ceremonial centres where the Tiwanaku worshipped and enjoyed a couple of hours wandering around the sites.

Once we arrived back in La Paz, we were dropped off in the centre with a recommendation for a hostel from our guide. It was also recommended in the Lonely Planet so we decided to go with it, though of course the Lonely Planet lied about the cost of the place. We wanted to do the Death Road the next day, so made our way around 5 different agencies on our road alone. We were pressured into booking by each agency. We also wanted to leave La Paz the next day, knowing that Bolivia basically shuts down on a Sunday. So we asked about buses to our next stop, to be told that there were none that would be leaving after we returned from the Death Road. We also asked about buses on the Sunday, to be told that there were none.

We asked around a bit more and it transpired that there are usually loads of buses, leaving from the city's bus station or cemetery . But not on the Sunday we wanted. Eventually we managed to find a bus company, Titicaca, who were doing one run on Sunday at 7am. This meant no breakfast, but at least we would be on our way to our next destination in good time. This also meant it didn't matter what time the tour returned to La Paz. With this information, we booked El Camino de la Muerte (Death Road) experience for the following day.

On Saturday 28th, our tour began well; we were picked up on time and it became apparent that it was just the two of us, plus our guide, Joel. We drove out of La Paz and up to the starting point of the Death Road, at 4900 metres. We put on our safety equipment (helmet, knee pads, elbow pads) plus top and trousers the company supplied. We explained that Jayna is a nervous rider, and isn't very experienced in bike riding, let alone downhilling. Joel assured us that this was fine and that we would go at a pace which was comfortable. We left our backpacks in the van, which followed us down the road . Joel told us not to worry about taking pictures, as he would take pictures and videos and supply us with the recording of the day via a CD, together with our free t-shirts.

Unfortunately it quickly became apparent that none of the bikes were working at 100%. Jayna's bike was the most complete; though there was a fair amount of travel in the handlebars, making the experience bumpy despite the suspension. Ken's first bike had no gears. Ken's second bike had no back brake. Joel's bike had a buckled back wheel. So we mixed up the bikes according to the terrain, and made the most of it. The ride is 64 kilometres of downhill, including three very short stretches of flat. The first 20 kilometres is on a tarmac road, where we went fast and overtook trucks. Then followed a short ride in the van, for 7 kilometres, as this was an uphill section. The next 44 kilometres or so was downhill on bumpy trails, full of rocks, making difficult terrain. We passed under some waterfalls and over some streams . Jayna generally went slowly. We passed some stunning scenery, until we reached the cloud level; then we got very wet as it rained, a lot. Eventually the rain stopped and the cloud cleared, and we could see the pretty scenery once more. By the time we reached the bottom, Coroico, at 1150 metres, we were pretty exhausted from the day. Here we had lunch and a 'hot' shower, except that the shower wasn't hot. There was a swimming pool we could have taken advantage of, if it were not for it being so cold after the cold shower. We immediately gathered some bites as well, as we were back in jungle terrain, albeit for an hour.

The ride back to La Paz took a long time, as the newly constructed not-so-Death-Road is still dangerous, narrow and of poor quality. Plus La Paz itself is huge and very full of traffic. We were dropped off a couple of blocks away from our hostel, and Joel assured us that the CD and t-shirts would be dropped off at our hostel that evening. We informed Joel that our bus would be at 7am and so we had to have the CD and t-shirts that day . We were assured that it would be okay.

We very quickly made ourselves vaguely presentable, and went back out into La Paz to meet up with David and Jen again. We met at the Cathedral, which was the first site we'd seen in La Paz itself. We ventured to a curry house which was good quality food. We caught up on our travel experiences and learned that there was an election the following day. We also learned that we couldn't buy cervejas and pisco sours as the sale of alcohol from the Thursday to Sunday (inclusive) was prohibited! We realised this was one reason why getting out of La Paz was quite so difficult the following day.

Next stop - Copacabana, on the shores of Lake Titicaca!

Post entry note: the tour operator did not drop off our CD or t-shirts to our hostel, as promised. B*stards.

Post post entry note: thanks to Jen and David, we got the pictures and t-shirts after all. This entry has now been updated with the Death Road pictures.