The Ultimate Ride...

Hi Guys!

This morning for breakfast I had a malaria tablet, an altitude sickness tablet, 2 sinus tablets and 2 gastro stop tablets... Similarly, Leah chose to vary her buffet by substituting the last two items for some cough syrup and a caramel biscuit that was scavenged off a bus about a week ago...

Needless to say we weren´t feeling the best, but that didnt stop us embarking on our final Bolivian challenge...Cycling Death Road affectionally known as the Worlds deadliest road.....

The ride started at 4700m above sea level and covered 64km of downhill descent to a final destination at around 1200m... The vast majority of the road is unsealed dirt road which is only about 3m wide and,  requires you to navigate various obstacles like cows, dogs, kids, potholes , water crossings,  hair pin turns and of course the sheer drops of up to 600m with no guard rails.  In some sections of the ride you get up to between 40-60km per hour... 

The scenery (by daylight) was absolutely stunning and it really was a mental challenge more so than a physical one... When you relaxed and enjoyed the ride you seemed to glide over the rocks and it felt great.. The second you actually thought about it and looked over the edge, you would over correct and get all jumpy and start to skid... Due to the variances in altitude, the first part of the ride was quite cold, but by the time we decended below around 2500m, it got quite warm.

The bikes were great quality and the guides very professional.  To keep things safe we didn´t take any photos as we went but there was a team photographer that took shots along the way so we get the CD tonight and cant wait to see them.

Tomorrow we have a travel day as we head towards Puno and ultimately Lake Titicaca in Peru.. at which point we get billetted out to a local family for a homestay.  I think for the most part the most dangerous parts of our tour is behind us and we have survived  !! 

Hope everyone at home is doing well!.  Can´t wait to see you all and seriously can´t wait to see a real toilet.. Constantly paying for toilets that dont flush, or dont have doors and all of which means you can´t put the paper in the toilet is kinda gross...

Chances are our host family wont have electricity let alone internet access so we might be offline for a couple of days, but will definitely check in again as soon as we can.. but dont worry, it will be a tame few days if everything goes to plan...

Miss you all..

Leah and Katie.