Joined out...

...of all that big snowy mountain thing. For a moment I forgot my no-guide principles.

Went up to the base of the mountain and had a look, that was all I felt inclined to do after hearing stories from novices of climbing 50-degree hard ice with a single walking axe on the summit slope, up towards a guide belayed on a single axe.

They didn´t know any better.

If I´d have had my own gear with me, or could have rented 2 decent ice tools, I might have have gone.

Instead, lets go downhill mountain biking into the Amazon basin...




Turned out to be toadly awesome. 64km mostly downhill, from 4300m to 1200m, on decent bikes with disc brakes. Includes an infamous 40km downhill dirt section known as the Death Road.

Yikes.

Only 6 of us, mucho bueno campadres. At the bottom you have shower, eat madly, then back on the minibus to drive back up to La Paz again. Brilliant.