La Paz a continuacion...

So, still in La Paz, and I'm undoubtedly going to be ready to leave in two weeks. The city itself continues to be fascinating from both an engineering and cultural perspective. The longer I spend here the more evident the cultural division between the gringos, the Ketchuans and the more middle of the road Bolivians. This strange meeting of values produces an almost uncomfortable feeling in the city; the gringos being unwelcome from a Ketchuan perspective, but hounded by the more progressive Bolivians for the tourist benefits. Theres an absolutely massive ex-pat community here, to the extent where you could genuinely live in this city without ever speaking Spanish or meeting any Bolivian's other than those you run into on the street- indeed I've met many who do. And after a mere three weeks here I can walk into many of the resturaunts and bars within this city and be greeted on a first name basis by the bar staff- La Paz is a very seductive place to be, you feel like you know everyone here almost instantaneously and for this reason people seem to struggle to leave this place. However, as many of my friends I've made through work are leaving tomorrow I strongly expect the biggest tie I will have pulling me back to this place will be the children I work with in the orphanage. The city itself is unlikely to make my favourites list for this trip, although I did enjoy seeing a bit more of the real La Paz yesterday when I enjoyed my first whole day off for 16 days in the local park and actually got to speak to some of the locals, who, when the eventually stop trying to sell you things, are actually a lovely and chatty people (the Ketchuans excepted- they dont talk at all). Plus also I enjoyed getting to break out some more challenging Spanish to meet new people here.

Aside from that, this weeks activities have included more volunteering at the orphanage, which only tugs more at the heartstrings as I get to know the children better and they in turn recongnise me. This Friday was particularly difficult as one of the little girls, Daisy, turned one. Its seems spectacularly unfair that through no fault of her own Daisy was left to turn one without proud parents to bake her a cake and take hundreds of photos of her smiling and happy in her highchair (as she was, the children at the orphanage are spectacularly well behaved- I strongly suspect simply because when they cry there aren't enough people to look after them, so they've stopped). One of things I learn daily on this trip is how ridiculously lucky I am.

On Thursday of this week the girls who work behind the bar at Loki decided to throw caution to the wind and be a tiny bit touristy and signed ourselves up to bike the worlds most dangerous road. A 43 mile road that hugs a cliff as it winds from a snowy mountain peak into a tropical rainforest and finally finishes at an animal sanctuary. For those interested the link to the wiki article is below. We forked out for the best tour company to go with, and luckily they gave us pleantly of time to practise with the top end equiptment before embarking on the road. Which was just as well because I became rediculously overconfident on my hydraulically breaking bicycle, flew round the final practise corner not realsing my guide had stopped, locked out my breaks and did a youtube worthy skid for about 10m along the gravel road. If I had been stupid enough to be going so fast even 10 minutes later I would have skidded over the edge of a cliff and had more than a few scrapes and bruises to show for my adventure. With the thought 'mum'll kill me if I die' constantly alternating with the llama song in my head for the remainder of the 5 hour descent, I decided to take a more sensible place further back in the group, and took no more risks ('llama, llama, duck...'). We reached the animal sacturary a little after 1 in the afternoon, and I was able to have my first swim since leaving the UK, which was very welcome. We then took the minibus back up the road, just to see how amazing the views had been on the way down (you really only look at the gravel path, as our guide explained 'your bike goes where your eyes go, two weeks ago a bloke went over the edge. When I asked him why he said he watched a butterfly fly past. He now has two arms in plaster. And he's the luckiest man I ever met'), and it really was the most scary road I have ever seen in my life. An amazing experience though, and a wonderful day out with my friends Zoe and Leah. It's nice to have some girly mates out here in this very masculine environment, and we´ve become very close as a result of having to stick together (especially on 'offensive Sunday' when the boys are allowed to say anything they want and frankly it all becomes a little bit much sometimes). We stopped on the way back to take the typical silly photos, and then totally wiped out on the way back to the hostel- an impressive feat to sleep while driving a Bolivian road!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yungas_Road

Its been a good week, a busy week no doubt, but a good one. La Paz is definately the most exhausting place I've ever been. The babies require so much attention (and I want to give it to them) that I come from the orphange wiped out, and then if I'm working the mid shift I have 30 mins to shower and get behind the bar (showering a must as at best I'm doused in slobber, and worst in lower down excretia- Alex of three months ago would die of shock at the things I deal with daily now). The late shift requires a few hours sleep in the afternoon to enable me to be able to function till 3am and get up again at 7. None the less I really enjoy working behind the bar, more so now I'm drinking less. And I think some of the friends I've made here will last a lifetime. And I'm finally acclimatised enough that I can go proper running here, although I need to note that after 3 hours outside my suncream will wear off and I'll be a beetroot, attractive. But, like I said at the start, this is a big continent, and I'm starting to feel like there's not much more of La Paz to explore, so when my flight to the Amazon comes in 2 weeks I'll be ready to jump on it and see something new of this amazing and diverse place!