These are the two most common uniforms in La Paz. All women over 60 wear coloured blankets and bowler hats and all police wear full riot gear and shotguns (we didn't actually have the balls to take a photo of them - I found this one on Google). Most places in the city look like a combination of these two scenes.
One of the most popular things for gringo backpackers to do here is mountain bike down "the world's most dangerous road". It's a 65km ride, beginning on tarmac in snowy mountains and descending 3500m into the tropical forest of the Yungas Valley. I think the fact it has the most deaths per kilometer of any road in the world is partly due to the drunk/tired/stupid Bolivian drivers that used to take 4m wide trucks along a road that is only about 3m wide. Having said that, it isn't too hard to kill yourself on a bike as there really is slippery/wet gravel, a 500m drop and no safety barriers.
Obviously we made it down safely, which was a special bonus as the ride ended at La Senda Verde, an amazing animal refuge where we spent 4 days playing with baby monkeys, parrots, boars, a snake, a baby coati, an alpaca, a baby ocelot, a sheep, rabbits, dogs, cats, guinea fowl and some other things I can't remember the name of. Erin took about a 5000 pictures but I think this video will give you a good of what it was like.
No comments:
Post a Comment