The worlds most dangerous bike ride...

Hey everyone

Well we both survived a bike ride down the ´worlds most dangerous road´. This is basically a road from La Cumbre (4,700ft) to Yolosa (3,600) just outside La Paz. It starts in the mountains and ends up in a jungle like region and is amazing, awesome and vvvv scary. We went with the best company around (gravity assisted mountain biking) and if you go on their website you can see more about the ride.

www.gravitybolivia.com

Lots and lots of other companies offer this route but Gravity is the original and has the best write-ups in the guidebooks. They are probably more expensive but bearing in mind the need for safety they were well worth it.

The bikes were top quality (worth easilyGBP1200) with professional disc brakes and suspension. We were told if we didn´t wear the helmet, gloves and visibility bib we would be put on the bus and off the bikes. Emphasis was on safety and security as well as having fun and they catered to those of us who were ´nervous beginners´(that´s nina and glenn to some extent) as well as those who had mountain biking experience.

It was a ride which took c 4-5 hours but was broken up into sections. The biking instructions were like skiing instructions (direct with your eyes, move your body weight to corner etc). However, even the easier parts were dangerous- just like when you let your skis run on an easy blue run then you can easily lose control and head over the edge of the mountain. Ditto on the bike. But we had to contend with rocky roads, and staying on the left hand side which happened to be closest to the 600m drops.

It was surprisingly hard work (for biking downhill) and we were both tired at the end. We both had tummy bugs (everyone has them in Bolivia) so couldn´t fully appreciate the food included, but it did look nice.

We ended the day with one person down - he came off the bike and cut his face and dislocated a finger so went to hospital. It was on the first section and he went 15m down the cliff face. After that we kept our brakes applied even more!

We had tea at the animal sanctuary where there were hot showers, swimming pool and dinner. We didn´t have long there unfortunately but would have liked to stay longer.

The 3 hour trip on the bus home was up the road we cycled down. On the bikes we had focussed on the road, not the views, so it was good to see the views (and vertical drops) on the way back. The guides had some beers and were telling lots of amusing and not-so amusing stories. They told us about some people who had died on the route which was v sad. We counted the crucifixes on the way back which marked the people who had recently died. Lots of people agreed on the bus that if they had experienced the ride up the mountain before getting on their bikes, they would possibly have not done it. Someone said ís it possible to retroactively #### yourself´?

So why did we do it? It was a great day and really good fun. The company were very professional and gave us the right instructions to have a safe day. In all honesty, Nina didn´t know how dangerous it was before we did it and just thought it was a tourist myth. But it was awesome and to be fair, you could go as slow (or quick) as you liked.

We got a dvd, t-shirt, postcard and free pen so it we have some souvenirs at last (we haven´t bought any yet)!

We are getting a bus tonight to Uyuni where we will try and book a 3-4 day tour across the salt plains. The tour should take us across the chilean border to San pedro de atacama. So we might not be posting for a while until we get to Chile.

Hope everyone is well. Good luck to england vs the all blacks at the weekend,they will need it.

Nina and Glenn xxxx