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Motoventure Day 25: To La Paz, End of Motoventure

P1060011 (written 11/14 @ 4:30PM)  Alas, my motoventure is over!  I now have to deal with a day of flights home starting tomorrow, but I can handle that bit.  I'm chillin' on the 9th floor of my hotel in La Paz in this cool cafe, sipping cafe con leche and finishing up my blog stuff before I crash.  In spite of everything, I really had a lot of fun – it could have been better, but hey that's life eh.

 

P1060015 Woke up at 5AM cozy as a bug in a rug, packed my gear up and headed north the 160km or so remaining to La Paz.  Immediately noticed that the problem with my rear brake being locked was worse (even though I loosened it as much as possible), robbing me of a lot of power – and it was bloody COLD at speed.  For the first hour I got into the normal process of stopping every 20min or so to warm up, but then it got bearable. 

 

P1060017 All of a sudden as I'm completely mentally checked out I notice a yellow mototaxi heading towards me!  Who could it be?!  As I get closer I see a giant UK flag flapping and I know it's crazy Danny heading south!  I crossed the border into Bolivia with him though, what could have held him up?  We pulled over and caught up for awhile, turns out he had some major problems (not surprising, his moto has been nearly destroyed in a few crashes) and spent a couple days getting them fixed in La Paz – then he's off to try to the salt flats as well.  I gave him all my info on the roads and we said goodbye…  he would be the last junketeer I see before I leave.

 

P1060050 Not much else to it – rolled into La Paz and found an internet cafe to quickly pull the directions to the transport company for the moto dropoff, then tried to follow them.  With the advice of a bunch of locals in various spots (and two awesome salenas, which appears to be a deep fried empanada), I finally found it!  Dropped off the moto and paperwork and took a cab up towards a decent hotel recommended by a guy at the export company.  Showered, started sorting my gear, wandered the town for a bit…  now I'm chillin' on the interwebz after eating a great steak and chicken kabob.

 

P1060049 Wicked.  Maybe a bit anticlimactic (no crazy finish line party as expected – didn't even make it to the finish line), but I'm happy.  We'll see how things fall out over the coming weeks with the others and with the Adventurists – I really hope they refund a fair bit of the entry fee considering all the extra money we had to pay for paperwork and all the delays they didn't handle well.

 

Heading home tomorrow!  Will see everyone at happy hour at RFD if I make it!

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