La Paz - Ed why is my face tingling?

After our frankly Crocodile Dundee like escapades in the rain forest it was good to get back to civilisation in La Paz (which means the Peace if you ever enter the pub quiz at the Wild Rover on Sundays).   The city seen from any height is amazing but especially on your way in from the airport, it is set at over 3500 metres in a bowl-like impression at the top of a mountain.  The city centre is at the bottom of the bowl with all the poorer, ramshackle houses clinging to the slopes all around some on almost impossible slopes.

We stayed at the Wild Rover Hostel, an Irish themed hostel with a nice bar and lovely food (the shepard's pie in particular was a group favourite).  The timing couldn't be better as we were probably in the best venue in South America to watch the now infamous Irish V
France playoffs.  Fortunately the Bolivian national team also wear green so Trick and Mark could show off their allegiance to all.

  

Kevin Eddie took it a step further and bought tricolour facepaints.  The woman in the stall assured him that they would be safe on skin and our still rather limited spanish prevented us from understanding all the warning labels FOR USE OF CLOTH ONLY.

The slight tingling felt just after application gradually gave way to a sharp stinging pain.  Random other guests at the hostel were still sporting burn marks on their faces a week later but noone ever twigged on to who had bought them so we got away with it.

The hostel has a great idea in running a tab at the bar for all your food and drink based on your bed number.  You then settle up when you check out.  They have a safety net in the "Wall of Fame" where your name goes up once you reach 1,000 Bolivianos and you must clear your tab.  Mark and I won the race to the wall with style.

We did a day trip out of Cusco to mountain bike down the "Death Road" a 70 km length of track falling over 3,500 metres towards sea level.  After hearing about the experiences of some of our friends from last year and the amount of people wandering around the hostel with casts of their legs we decided to spring for all the safety gear (full face helmet with elbow and knee pads).

Kevin Eddie decided to test these out early by taking one of the first corners too fast and ending up head down, legs up in a ditch.  Fortunately his ego was bruised more than anything else.

The first section is on a tarmac road before you veer onto a dirt track for the real exciting bit.  The scenary is really cool but usually we were concentrating on not falling off on the slippery gravel and tight corners so there wasn't much chance to enjoy it.

The road is really narrow flanked on one side by a rock face and a sheer drop on the other.  Wiith the pace we were going to was easy to see how some people have died on the road.  The most tragic story we heard was of a guide last year who was taking a photo of his group and took a step back into thin air and went over the side.  Fortunately everyone in our group made it back ok, even the two French lads who we had to some resist nudging over for the whole day.

Back in La Paz we walked up to check out San Pedro prison.  Anyone who has read the book Marching Powder by Rusty Young will have heard of this crazy place.  The book tells the story of an English drug trafficker (Thomas) who ends up in San Pedro.  The prison system itself is unique in that the prisoners must rent their own cells and wealthy inmates can live quite well inside.  All prisoners families usually live with them inside and leave every day to go to work or school.  Inside the prisoners run shops, restaurants and even have cocaine factories.  Thomas ended up running tours of the prison for passing backpackers.  He was later released but the tours contined until authorities shut them down last year due to the corruption and bribery involved.  There are rumours of tours still being conducted but we didn't search very hard to get in.  Conor almost got in trouble just for taking this photo.

The book is being made into a film at the moment with Brad Pitt producing and Don Cheadle the main star.  When that comes out I'm guessing the whole prison will finally be shut down.