After we spend two more nights in Sucre (didn’t wanted to miss out on quinoa cake and another round of squallyball) we took a morning bus to LaPaz. Actually we wanted to take an overnight bus but because of the election all over Bolivia on Sunday absolutely nothing was going to work from 0:00. They stop selling alcohol already on Thursday, every kind of traffic is prohibited except bikes, and absolutely all shops are closed. So we arrived in the biggest city of Bolivia which was paralyzed.

Just one day later these street was blocked with cars and busses.

On Sunday we literally walked over streets of LaPaz following the constant ascent of the altiplano surrounding LaPaz taking out our breaths but giving an amazing view over the hundreds of thousands red brick houses forming the city. And over and over again somebody would greet us with a friendly „buenos tardes“, a kindness being new to us in Bolivia.

If you live here and don’t have a car (most don’t) you don’t need to go to the gym.

The red bricks tower over the higher houses of city core on their hill sides.

The day of the election was a holiday for most people but the kids really got some fun out of the empty streets, because not one is flat.

In the afternoon just aiming for some food we ended up in a cafe with Kim and Ben where we spontaneously booked the adventure for the next day: a downhill ride on mountain bikes over the formerly deathliest road in the world.

Still smiling (before we got on the bikes).

The day started with a simply breakfast before a guide and a driver loaded the four of us into a Minibus and driving us up to 4700 m to the starting point. There we were dressed as warriors and put on full suspension bikes and off we went racing down the paved road with 40-50 km/h

This downhill bikes seemed a little overkill for the paved road we started on, until we got to our real destination.

As soon as I got used to that we were loaded again in the Minivan and driven to the road that really was the death road. This was the real challenge being hardly broad enough for a car, of rough gravel and with a very very steep cliff to the left side we were told to drive close to it all the time so passing cars had less trouble!!! Unfortunately (or not because you couldn’t make out the steepness of the cliff) the day was very foggy blocking the view on the incredible Bolivian landscape. To sad  also because we were passing several climate zones on our 3000 m altitude race down.

I am not sure it was bad, that I could see, where this cliff ended.

The death road kind of looks cute snuggling its way around the hill side until you recall that once upon a time trucks were using due to the lack of alternatives (for an impression watch TopGears Bolivia special).

On the finish line we were brought to a „hotel“ (rather a falling apart barack, but who really cares) with a swimming pool and lunch. Which was okay but while hanging out we were eaten by sun flies and my whole body was itching the next day. The trip was pretty fun but I still think 80$ is a bit of a rip off considering average Bolivian prices.

First when the fog cleared the beauty of this country came into it’s own.

To finish off our visit to LaPaz Tom needed a ride with the newly build cable car (Evo paid the Swiss company Doppelmayer 300 mil. US$ for 7 lines.Very modern, clean, shiny and so not typical for Bolivia). They make traveling to the high ends of LaPaz really effortless and would make a good way to get a great view over the city, if the inhabitants wouldn’t just build houses into the view.

The very shiny and still rather cheap cable car makes the trip into the hillsides of LaPaz effortless (but of course it’s shut down on the election day).

What a view over the LaPaz, if there wouldn’t be this buildings everywhere. Bolivia still has to work on its touristic infrastructure.