Tiahuanaco, Coca, the world´s most dangerous road, and what do you mean our tickets are cancelled

Passing through the urban sprawl become city el alto, we overlook the remarkable valley and city of La Paz. The border of snow capped mountains deliver an unparalled background and the world highest ski slopes. Breathtakingly 3,600 above sea, all foot travels suffer the effects of the altitude; where suicide is the term used by visiting football teams and lethargy and shortness of breath are common. Catering for between 1.6 and 1.8 million inhabitants it holds the power and privelledge of Bolivia, if not the official capital status. Incomparable to Lima or Quito where style, grace, and culture is interwined between poverty, street sellers, and open sewers. By far the cheapest destination thus far, a superb lunch for two with drinks is $5 unless you roll the dice on a friendly street vendor.

A trip to La Paz is not complete without a visit to the coca museum. Used by pre-columbian civilisations to adjust to altitude, reduce hunger, physcial increase output and as a basic anaesthetic, it was declared a path to the devil and banned by the church. After discovering it´s properties the colonial goveners overturned the ban and made it´s used by indigenous slaves mandatory in the mines to foster ¨shifts¨of up to 48 hours. At one point, it´s per kilo value was greater than gold. Avoiding the known history of the drug wars of the 20th century, Bolivia today legally produces coca for traditional uses, although much is diverted to neighboring countries for the production of cocaine. Interestingly, Bolivia is not one of the roughly a dozen western countries that can legally produce cocaine.... Also coke still uses coca leaves for flavour.

A visit to the pre-incan ruins of Tiahuanaco produced a tour guide garnering conjecture as fact and a site that after restoration may one day rivial Machu Pichu.

Reviewing the logistics of our impending travel, we head down to the local LAN office to book an early flight to Santiago. Much to our suprise, the officer, who we´ll call Juanita, informs that all of our forwarding tickets have been cancelled due Iberia, which we already loathed, incorrectly altering our flight changes we requested in Spain..... dumbasses... Our shock compounded by the knowledge that all of our future flights were fully boooked raised the old blood pressure just a tad. Luckilly, Juanita was up to the challenge with a wink and a nod a quick phone call secured our passage on the aforementioned flights.

It´s a wonder what boredom can ¨force¨ you to do. After daily knockbacks for an early flight and ingorning some fatherly advice, I booked passage by mountain bike on the Coroico road. In 1995, the Inter-American Development Bank dubbed the road ¨the worlds most dangerous¨ where a fatal accident is not uncommon every fortnight ... Starting early and high in the Bolivian Andes with white knuckles from the cold and a hearty grip of the handle bars, we embarked down a 64 kilometre, single lane, mountain hugging, waterfall disecting dirt and stone laden road descending 3,600 to the warmth of the sub tropics. One thing is certain, the fantastic setting would have been much greatly appreciated if my knuckles were not so sore two days later.