Dear All

Bolivia is the land of 'the highest....in the world'. We are now in Copacabana which is on the shores of the Bolivian side of Lake Titicacaca (the highest lake in the world). Copacabana seems like a sleepy town and we are staying a great little hostel which overlooks the shores of the lake, very pretty.

We have just come from La Paz (the highest Capital city in the world). La Paz was a great city. we weren't really looking forward to La Paz but it was a busy, colourful place that seemed to have lots of culture and was lots of fun. The best thing was going down 'the worlds most dangerous road' on a mountain bike with a group of people from our Kamuka tour.

This is a 64km (40-mile) descent from La Paz to Coroico. We set off early in the morning and had about a 2 hour drive to the top of the road (which was about 4000m, I think!). We were then given a safety chat by the "Mountain Madness" crew and kitted out in gloves, jacket, helmet and of course a bike!

The 1st part was on a tarmac road, so we all whizzed down that with ease!! There was then an uphill bit for about 4 Km (some of us hopped in the van for that bit-I didn't sign up for an uphill bike ride at altitude!!). Once that difficult bit was over the fun really began. The road is narrow, unpaved and carved out of a cliff (what more would you expect from the worlds most dangerous road!!). This road used to have traffic on it until a year ago when a new, safe (!) road was built. It used to claim a few casualties both in motorists and mad cyclists. But now it is mostly traffic free it is much safer!!!

It was great fun going down this bit of the road. Sadly it was very misty and so the views were not that great at the beginning, but at least we couldn't see the shear drops and the debris from accidents!! But the weather did improve and the end of the ride was really clear and quite warm. We got ride under waterfalls, through streams and in lush grean vegitation. We all got down mostly in one piece and had descended about 2000m from start to finish. Getting to the end was also great because it was at about 1200m and so there were no effects from the altitude, wonderful!!! A great day was had by all. The most dangerous part of the day was the drive back to La Paz. There were a few near misses but we survived!!

In La Paz we also went to the worlds highest "Oxygen Bar" and I had a go. It is a bit like a hospital outpatients where you can pay to have 10 minutes of O2. Mine was flavoured with lime. It is meant to help with the altitude and although I didn't notice a great difference it was fun to do and it was good to feel some relief from the altitude!!

Well thats all for now, after Copacabana we head to Peru and hope the do a home stay on Lake Titicacaca. So till next time.....

Love Penny xxxxxx