La Paz

The bus stopped on the outskirts of the highest capital city in the world, La Paz (11,913 ft). Adobe colored buildings line the massive valley surrounded by towering, snow capped mountains. We snapped some photos and hopped back in the bus for our decent into the center of the city. The first thing I saw when I stepped off the bus were two smashed Bolivian guys sleeping on each other on the front door of a hotel. They tipped over without even attempting to brace the fall and one of the hotel employees cracked a joke about ''AA Meetings''....apparently alcoholism is not really a joke here, but I'll get to that later. We flagged down a couple of cabs to transfer our army of friends to the ''Wild Rover'' hostel and got lost along the way. We didn't have the address nor did we know the exact cross streets...so we just drove around asking random people where it was. We finally ran into an English couple that I met in Cusco and they pointed us in the right direction. We had a few beers and played 30 games of pool in the hostel (because I kept losing...stupid British rules) and went to bed.

The next day we woke up and booked our bike ride down the ''World's Most Dangerous Road'' for 2 days later and set off in search of food. The Bolivian working at Gravity Mountain biking told us about a ''tucumanas'' stand and said that they were similar to empanadas, only better. We spent the next 2 hours walking around the city trying to find these mysterious tucumanas, but to no avail. We finally gave up and looked to Kroopf's travel book for answers. It said there was a great ''saltenas'' restaurant on the other side of the city, so we headed over there. There was nothing at the address....there wasn't even anything that resembled a restaurant on the entire street. So we asked a nice looking older lady where we could find a good saltena restaurant and she gave us the name and crossroads of the best one in town....back on the other side of the city. I swear to God that the Bolivians have some tv show called ''Screw With the Americans'' and we are the stars and every Bolivian is in on it. We walked back over to the other side and couldn't find the place, so we asked another person where we could find saltenas. Apparently that is like asking a New Yorker where to find a piece of pizza....but I didn't see the problem. After another 2 hours of deception and 10 more Bolivians laughing in our faces we finally stumbled upon a restaurant that had fresh saltenas. They were like sweeter tasting, baked empanadas with a surprise. The surprise is that there is steaming hot juice in the middle that explodes in your face if you don't eat them right. We are Americans and we just devour.....I ate 3 the wrong way and burnt everything from my ankle to my eyebrow before someone explained the proper technique to us. We were exhausted from our wild goose chase and got some doughnuts for dessert.

We had one more free day before our big trip, so we went to the infamous ''Witch's Market''. The market was a few streets of creepy shops with things ranging from alpaca fetuses and dead alligator babies to powders that claim to make you rich and smart. I was tempted to buy the rich and smart dust, but I think it was an illegal substance...so I stayed away from it. Apparently the alpaca fetuses are used to bless new homes. They bury the fetuses under the foundation for good luck...it just seems weird to me, but who am I to judge? After being thoroughly creeped out, we continued strolling through the side streets trying to get lost. The city is way more interesting than I had expected. It is 450 years old and has some very unique architecture. Old colonial style buildings line the side streets and the main street, ''Prado'', is filled with newer and nicer restaurants and stores. I went back to the mountain biking store to have the guy show me where the illusive tucumanas are. He left work and came with to the stands. Walk down the main street then duck up the stairs with the rooster statue and follow until you get to the top. They had 2 stands with dozens of locals standing around trying to get in on the action. Each stand had a section set up with 6 different sauces and a bowl of onions. The tucumanas were top notch. Empanadas on steroids.....stuffed to the brim with beef, chicken, potatoes, onions, hard boiled egg, and some other stuff. I tried all the sauces until I came up with the perfect combination and woofed down 3 of those suckers. I told them I would be back, but I don't think they believed me...or liked me...not sure what that look was that they gave me. Later that night I hit the jackpot in the midst of this admiration of the city.....a cheap Chinese restaurant. You could get soup, entrée, dessert, and a drink for $2. As you can guess, the waiter knew my name by the end of the trip.

The alarm clock went off at 7am the next day to wake us up for our 65 km bike ride down the World's Most Dangerous Road. I am sure you are wondering why it is called that....well, the government was trying to get funding to build a new road from the north and needed evidence to support their claim that the current road was too dangerous. They discovered that this road had more deaths per number of drivers than any other road in the world. The 300-1,500 ft sheer cliffs, 10 ft wide ungroomed dirt roads, hammered Bolivian drivers, and lack of medical and emergency accessibility all contribute to the number of people that fly off the cliff each year. We took a bus to the top of the pass at over 15,000 ft, 22 km before the start of the actual road, and received our speech from the guide. He made sure to point out the fact that there is a reason this is a thrilling trip and that is because you can actually die from it. In fact, 13 people had died that Wednesday when two buses collided on the road and fell off the cliff. He also made us watch the Bolivian truck drivers dump out a clear liquid as they went over the pass. I thought it was water, but it was actually a liquor that tastes like jet fuel. They dump out a little for their homegirl ''Pacha Mama'' and then quench their own thirst with 3 to 4 big gulps....like I said, they have a little alcohol problem here. It seems more like a commons sense problem. Anyway....the weather was freezing up top and a thick fog rolled in just in time for us to start our ride. The first part of the trip was amazing. We were given permission (and encouraged) to go full speed, reaching 70+ kmph speeds as we passed buses and trucks. The scenery was stunning....massive mountains, waterfalls, and valleys the whole way down. We stopped to pay a toll and then made the decision to do the hardest part of the trip (a 5 km uphill ride at 10,000 ft elevation) on our bikes instead of hopping into the van and driving through it. Supposedly we were one of 3 groups to have everyone make it to the top...so we were very proud of ourselves. The road split off into a gravel road to the right and we stepped foot on the most dangerous road in the world. We had a snack and another pep talk before embarking on this winding and sketchy section of the ride. We had another 44km and 5,500 ft in elevation to go down. We started off going a little slow, as the 400 m cliffs were a little daunting....but some got accustomed to them and zoomed down in the $3,000 mountain bikes. It was quite a thrill to dance on the edge of the steep drops and cruise through tight corners at high speeds. We stopped every once in a while to have our guide explain car debris and crosses on the side of the road and the bottom of the valley.

We decided to go to the Bolivia vs. Peru soccer game with very little recovery time. We had our Team Gringo Bolivia jerseys on and bought a few flags along the way (we are always the biggest fans). This game wasn't as fun as Ecuador because half the stadium was filled with Peru fans and I think the fact that they didn't sell beer made it a little less appealing to me. Regardless, we had a blast...Bolivia won and the stadium spewed out cheering fans at the end of the game. Just another notch on the belt for me.

We spent the next 3 days doing pretty much the same thing....waking up, eating tucumanas, walking around, eating chinese food, then repeating steps 1 through 3. Some of our friends went to tour the infamous prison in La Paz, where you can pat to meet murderers, thieves, and drug dealers that work with the guards to sell cocaine to visiting tourists. The tour costs almost $40 and I didn't feel like supporting a bunch of scum bags, so I spent that $40 supporting the tucumana stand ladies. We finally decided that it was time to leave after I had a batch of bad tucumanas and purchased a ticket to Uyuni in southern Bolivia. We paid extra to get the ''good'' bus that had a toilet and reclining seats. But we got caught in another episode of ''Screw With the Americans'' and were told that the good bus didn't arrive so we had to take the public bus....they kindly returned 30 Bolivianos (the equivalent of $4) for our troubles. This was the start of the worst bus ride of my entire life.....

Next up....the bus ride from hell, the salt flats, and the struggle to get to Argentina.