COOKING AND BRAAAAPING AROUND THE WORLD: Mikey gets to Bolivia!!!

DAY-190

5/10/2012

Woke up ready to go find oil and a new back tire, after looking around and asking around I realized it was going to be more of a mission then I have encountered in other major cities. Although after a little more research I found a shop outside of town and decided I will take care of the bike after Mikey leaves. I decided this because he is bringing me a bunch of new stuff for the bike so I will have to work on it after he leaves anyways. I met a nice girl from Australia and walked around La Paz with her getting my bearings set for the city. I took a pretty easy afternoon and then had a little too much fun of a night and passed out excited for Mikey to get here.

DAY-191

5/11/2012

I woke up around 6am to go to the bathroom, when I heard someone on the computer down the hall. I peaked around the corner and there he was Mr. Mikey Benedict in Bolivia!!!! I was so pumped to have one of my best friends to travel with for two weeks. I quickly threw some clothes on and off we went, what the hell were we thinking nothing is open, not even breakfast joints till 7am here. We ran around for a bit ate some breakfast and drank some coffee. Mikey is a big Mountain biker so he really wanted to ride “Death Road” so we found a good company and signed up for tomorrow morning. We walked around visited the Witch Market, Alpaca Market, and the Coca Museum. I found out that Coca Cola still uses Coca in their product, just the leaves for taste. (Barely any, but still in there) We had some local Bolivian set Menu for Lunch and just walked around. Mikey was in a little shock I think, but you have to remember this is his first time traveling, he went to Belize once but it was to a friend’s house with his ex and they never traveled just sat on the beach (doesn’t count). We didn’t go to crazy had a few beers, played pool, and just relaxed. Passed out early so we were ready for the next day of biking. After a lot of talk and research we decided to change our original plan. We had been planning on doing a 10 day paragliding course in Cochabamba. Due to road blocks and the fact Mike has never had a chance to travel and see another country we decided not to spend his whole time in Bolivia in one place doing a course. So we decided we would take buses around Bolivia our first stoop would be Uyuni for the Salt Flats.