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Other entries in La Paz

Stuck in the big smoke.

So I made it ok. A bit of a mission on a crowded local bus for 8 hours coughing and sniffing constantly, but arrived just at sunset to see one of the most amazing cityscapes I´ve ever seen. La Paz is the world´s highest capital city, starting up on El Alto and falling down the sides of a valley towards Zona Sur. Everywhere you look a red brick buliding is holding onto the side of the valley, almost falling into it´s neighbour, and towering over it all a triple peak snow cap over 6000 metres high!!
Things went from bad to worse as I got robbed the first night and lost my camera and a bunch of cash, but yesterday was awsome as I mountain biked the "world´s most dangerous road" named in 1997 after a count of the number of lives lost mainly to drunks driving off the edge of the road. Its a 65km ride starting at a pass of 4700m and finishing in a dusty town at 1200m. Along the way fast paved sections where you pass trucks and busses, a gruling 3km uphill section with very little atmosphere to breathe, a single muddy track carved out of the face of a sheer 2000m cliff, and very very rough and dusty road to finnish. Fantastic trip down, it took almost as long to drive all the way back up.
Right now I´m sort of stuck in town. All the roads leading out are blockaded by demonstrating locals unhappy with the government over natural gas sales. This happens fairly often. People flood the streets and let of fireworks and try and break into businesses, the police fire a bunch of tear gas and scare them all back up the hills where they block the roads and bring everything to a halt.

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