Happy New Year!!

A quick summary of 2008; Started out with a three week IB- trip to Vietnam, followed by a solo one week tour in Laos. Coming back I had five long months in Trondheim writing my final diploma (still taking time to go to Switzerland to see my friend Max from Singapore and having two weeks at home for Easter with loads of snow getting to go skiing every day). My masters (which was the source of a lot of tears and woken nights) was handed in the 17th of June and luckily managed to get me a pretty decent grade in the end. Summer was relaxing, no work only pleasure. End of July I went on a 10 day sail trip on Libra doing parts of Svalbard - amazing! And then, the 19th of Aug I left for South America and before I know it; its 2009!!!

The 31st of Dec I and 3, significantly more fit and experienced, bike guides left La Paz for an alternative New Years eve celebration on bikes. Got to see parts of Bolivia that, judging on the attention we received, not many gringos get to see. This means no Lonely Planet who could advise us on where to stay, eat and drink, nor are there any maps of the area, or at least maps that are correct... This resulted in not quite knowing how far it was (further than first thought) or if we would get a room for the night. In the end we did find a small village that would let us have a room in the end. When we arrived we had a New Years eve toast with the local soccer team before pretty much laying flat in our "beds" getting served rice, chips, egg and tomato. The only reason we were awake at 12 was that the locals were partying hard outside and when we finally fell asleep around 1 am our drunk friend came barging in with some unidentifiable meat (Dale whom ate the whole thing in the dark said it was chicken, in daylight it was easily identified as pork), banana and potatoes. The morning after we paid, which pretty much involved insisting our amigo to take the money (he wanted the equivalent of 50kr or 7$ for accommodation, three meals and snacks for 4 people, we wanted to pay him 4 times that). Not our everyday in La Paz when it is a daily battle not to be over charged for everything.

New Years Eve

One thing we did take for granted was that we could get water on the way. I can now advise you the following; going outside the usual tourist areas bring loads of gringo friendly water, or at least purifying tablets!! The second day was quite a dehydrating experience with 5 hours uphill, 20-something-celcius and no water (our main source of liquid was coca cola!!). However in the end, after getting a lift the last killer uphill we reached Irupana where we could gorge in water, have two dinners and take a hot shower (great even though having to wear clothes we had been wearing a couple of days).

The ride

The 3rd day it was a five hour bus ride through the Yungas almost back to La Paz, jumping of (rough estimated) 30 km from home and then riding back. The last part was done through crazy La Paz in dark... the scariest part of the trip. Alive, home and clean the crew and Gus went to Argentinean Steak House having 600 gr of beef each...

A perfect way to end 2008 and start 2009....