La Paz and The Death Road

We had two reasons to stay a few days in La Paz. One was that we had to because of Uyuni and the second was downhill biking. Markus wanted to do the Sorata single track which is a downhill biking tour through mountains and jungle with jumps, drops and narrow paths on the mountains. The only problem was the price. Because Edda didn’t want to do it, Markus had to go alone, and if there’s only one person, it rises the price. It had been almost double price and over 100$ more expensive that the Death Road a.k.a World’s Most Dangerous Road a.k.a Youngas Road. After a short pondering, Markus decided to do the Death Road.

Nice views at Death Road

When we arrived from Uyuni back to La Paz early in the morning, around 6am, we had to find our accommodation we had booked. It was Arthy’s Guesthouse and it was an ok place for a budget price. Because we came back to La Paz early in the morning we were a bit worried when we would get our room and what to do in between. For our surprise, we got it straight away, even if the guy at the reception seemed to be a bit grumpy. Maybe we woke him up 😛  

We went in the evening to check out La Paz and to find Mayhem Bolivia (bike tour operator) to ask about the bike tours. Markus reserved the Death Road for the next day. In the morning Edda continued sleeping like a baby :D when Markus put clothes on and went for breakfast. Sigh… The morning didn’t start as wished. The pick-up was at 8am and 8.20am Markus asked an older man at the reception to call Mayhem. He called several times during the next 40 minutes. Yes, they were one hour late! 😒 Well, at least they apologized several times so it is a good sign. We picked up an Australian couple and they had also got worried when the pick-up was so late. We had a one hour bus ride up to the starting point of Death Road to 4650 meters. It gets its name from, well, the thousands of people killed on the road when vehicles, mostly buses and trucks, dropped down from the narrow mountain road. It has been estimated that around 200-300 people a year died on the road before. Nowadays there is a better road for vehicles and the old road is used mainly by tourists biking down it.

The dirt track is about 55km and it is a scenic road. Very beautiful views all the way. It is not a very challenging trip and one can do it with a normal condition because it’s downhill all the way. It was nice and strange that we could just glide down for 4 hours. Back home, the longest downhill ride would probably last 10-20 minutes in the forest if you do zigzag all the way😛 It is difficult to explain the ride on The Death Road so below you can find a short video about it. 💥😎

So, Edda had one day for herself when Markus went crazy-biking 😉 she had found a vegan cafe (Cafe Vida) online and went to try it out for lunch. All dishes sounded delicious but she found quinoa patties that came with all different veggies. Very delicious - food that you would like to eat every day! Edda discussed with one of the owners that it's difficult to find vegetarian places in La Paz. She recommended a few and even a fine dining restaurant! Hmmm, sounds interesting!

 Edda's lunch

Cafe Vida

Markus was supposed to be back at 7.30pm latest but he came around 8.30pm. At this point Edda was already a bit worried that something had happened! But Markus came home in one piece and we quickly asked the hotel's reception to call to the vegetarian fine dining reataurant, Ali Pacha, if we would still have time to go there (it closes at 10pm). We quickly walked a bit over 1km and found the place. We were the only customers! Our first waiter started to explain what we were going to have but it was too much Spanish so they switched waiters :D Everyone in their staff was really friendly and "our guy" explained what we were eating every time. If we looked like a big question mark, he brought the fruit or vegetable from the kitchen so we could see it and taste it in its natural form. Really interesting!!

Interesting dessert 😊

Ali Pacha uses a lot of local veggies and fruits, which is nice. We had a 5-course dinner and it cost only ~20 EUR! The food was divine and it was so nice to be in a fine dining restaurant that only serves vegetarian food! We have not seen such before. Edda was very happy 😃

Feeling better after good food 

We had time to walk around a bit one day to see mainly 'The Witches Market'. It is a few streets with small shops selling products made of traditional Bolivian fabrics (note: they look exactly the same as in Peru), other souvenirs and THEN... Lama mummies?!?! We haven't searched what they are for or why people would buy them but they looked horrifying! Small baby lama mummies... 😧 We didn't go to those stores.)

Disgusting views... 😞

The traffic was intense and people just ran between the cars to cross the streets. The amount of pollution was terrible and it was hard to breath every now and then. During our stay there were many demonstrations, then a Christmas parade 😃

Our stay in La Paz was short because we had to catch a few flights to Brazil and finally back to the warm and sunny weather 😊