Blog: Sitting on top of the world

Greetings from La Paz, the world´s Highest Capital City (unless you count Amsterdam, but thats for different reasons altogether). We are sitting at 3600m above sea level in the Andes mountains. Friday we were surfing in Lima, in the warm waters of the Pacific, and Saturday morning (6am) we arrived here for the start of Carnival. Unfortunately we forgot to take into account the massive altitude change, and for the first 2 days here we were definitely feeling the effects of altitude sickness. But we managed to escape aneurism´s, and were able to partake in the Carnival Festivities – which in La Paz apparently means throwing water balloons at EVERYONE, including those nice enough to participate in the parades (3 days of parades!!!). The downside to this is being a gringo, which means we were targets ourselves, but i guess thats just part of the fun. Last night was the “Grand fiesta de Carnival”, which we figured meant “everyone get drunk and party in the streets”. But we tried to go to a happening looking club and were denied at the door. Disappointed and rejected we just wandered the streets drinking our beer, and went home happy and drunk. And today, Fat Tuesday, the day we figured would be the climax, was more of just a holiday. Everything was closed, except for the Fried Chicken shops and Pharmacies (connection!?!) and a few places, like the internet cafe we found here. But whatever, we´re still having fun.

Tomorrow morning we are going to the Brazilian Embassy here in La Paz to get our Visa´s, which could take anywhere from “a few hours” to 15 days. We figure because its our birthday that they’ll just let it slide, and assuming this, we will be heading off into the Amazon Jungle! But of course thats assuming we survive the what is known as the “Worlds most dangerous road”, which will take us from an elevation of 4600m down to 1600m in a 80km stretch. According to Lonely Planet “”””What makes the road so dangerous is the drivers – a combination of weekend warriors, macho bus drivers on sleep deprived binges and tenderfoot tourists. It see´s an average of 100 deaths per year!!!!!!! So on this wonderful note, i shall depart…. peace!!!