Our first full day in La Paz was pretty slow and easy. Our hotel was directly opposite the witches market, where they sell all sorts of talismans, herbs, potions and even dried llama foetuses. They are the creepiest looking things, as they are all shrivelled, without eyes, their hair is still on their bodies and they are eerily stiff. Locals use them as a good luck charms for new houses, as they are buried in the foundations when they are being built as a sacrifice to Pachamama. There is an old urban legend that when skyscrapers are built in La Paz, drunken homeless people are lured into the foundations, as a sacrifice of a llama is not enough for such a huge building!
The first thing we did that day was to head down to a tour company that was recommended by our Lonely Planet guide book, and also an article in the New Zealand Herald that I had read. I was so excited to book a guided mountain bike ride down what was known as the world's most dangerous road, though the thought of it turned Ilona off completely. This all changed when Ilona heard that the end of the ride resulted in a visit to an animal sanctuary that had monkeys! Ilona was so keen to see a monkey on this trip, but had been quite disappointed up until Aguas Calientes where we saw a small squirrel monkey tethered up outside a small shop to collect tips from travellers unaware to the poor monkey's plight. We didn't really feel that it was right to take pictures or give any money, as the monkey was clearly suffering, being chained up to a tether not even two feet long, given only three little pieces of wood to jump between and not even swing from, and also itching away at numerous sores all over it's body.
So the chance to see some healthy, un-restrained and unexploited monkeys convinced Ilona to take the plunge down death road, which made me quite happy as I didn't have to worry about her being alone in La Paz all day. The company we were with; Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking was owned by a New Zealander and seemed to be very well organised with good equipment and safety gear, and since it was recommended by our guide book, we figured it would be a pretty safe choice. I also booked a ride on their zip line attraction, which is a three line course that traverses the valley at the bottom of the death road, over 200m above the ground and going up to 85kph. My kind of thing!
Lunch was at a Thai restaurant and the afternoon brought an interesting visit to an instrument museum, where numerous styles of churango were displayed, with a few interactive parts as well. We also visited the witches market and purchased a couple of stone carvings of animals and Inka figures, which we decided to turn into Christmas tree decorations once we're in the UK.
Our guide book recommended an English owned Indian restaurant that was only a short walk from our hotel, so we decided on that for dinner. As we were deciding on what to eat, we noticed a bold claim on their menu, saying that their vindaloo was the hottest curry anyone could find in all of South America, and if one were to finish it, they would receive a t-shirt for their effort. Both of us wanted to enjoy our meal, so we opted for something a little milder, but we did notice one poor guy at a table near us struggling and sweating his way through what we could only assume was a vindaloo. We got talking and he offered us a try of his, as he was in no way going to finish it. It was by far the spiciest thing I had ever eaten. I only had three forkfuls and I was in pain, sweating and becoming teary-eyed. It was apparently made with Bolivia's hottest chilli, seeds and all. Apparently one in five people complete it, but I have a feeling that it may be less than that. An Irish couple sat at the table next to us and we got chatting, it turned out that they were doing a similar thing to us, except the opposite way around; they were travelling South America and then going to New Zealand and Australia to live and work for a while.
We hit the sack early that night due to our next day’s adventure, though the large explosions going off intermittently hindered our attempts at sleep. The next morning we rose early and taxied to our meeting spot for our tour, a cafe on the main street of La Paz where we arrived early for some breakfast. 7:30 came and we were out the door, into a van with the bikes on top and off up north for an hour and a half to La Cumbre, our starting point. La Cumbre is set next to a lake at 4,700m above sea level, the highest place Ilona and I had ever been to by a good 700m or so. It was oppressively cold up there, and any movement faster than a walk bought about a good minute of panting, trying to get our breath back.
After a half hour of safety instructions and receiving all of our gear, we were ready to begin.
The company provided us with helmets, riding gloves, goggles, waterproof jackets and pants (mine didn't fit me as they seemed to be sized for Bolivian circus midgets) and a cool neck warmer that we were allowed to keep after the ride. Being in Bolivia, one must do as the Bolivians do, so before we set off, we paid tribute to Pachamama, the Inka god of the earth by each pouring 180 proof alcohol on the ground in front of us, on our front tyres and taking a swig. This is a traditional custom for travelling, and especially for this stretch of road as it is a tribute to the earth in order for it to keep you safe. I even saw a man in a passing van pouring some out of his window as we were about to set off.
The first 20-odd kilometres are on a paved road down from La Cumbre to the Chuspipata Cross Roads, where the Death Road begins. Setting off at the beginning was very fast, very cold and a lot of fun. There wasn't too much vehicular traffic on the road, which was good, as cyclists make up a good 90% of the road traffic these days. We passed through some incredible scenery, enormous snow-capped mountains rising out of the mist, deep valleys below us and gushing waterfalls alongside the road. We passed through a military drug checkpoint that was completely unmanned at the time, past a town that had a breastfeeding woman pictured on it's welcome sign and around a tunnel that people aren't allowed to ride through any more after a French girl forgot she was wearing sunglasses and rode straight into the tunnel completely blind, crashing and injuring herself quite badly. We finished up at a police check point where we purchased entry tickets to Death Road, the proceeds of which went towards communication devices, rescue equipment, machine maintenance, ambulances and signs for the road. There was then an optional 8km uphill stretch where we could either ride it, or hop into the van to get to the end. Bearing in mind we were still 3500m above sea level, I still went ahead and began it, along with half of the group, though Ilona didn't feel she had the lungs for it.
Trying to cycle uphill at 3500m with a 30kg full suspension mountain bike with dirt tyres is most likely akin to walking into a headwind with a parachute strapped to your back, shackled to a ball and chain. It was so hard I could only make it halfway, though am proud to say I made it the farthest out of the group. I jumped back in the van once it caught up with me and then we all headed to the beginning of the dirt section of Death Road. One unique thing about this particular road is that it is the only place in Bolivia where you have to drive on the left hand side of the road. This is so that when cars pass one another along the road, the driver can get a closer view of how close to the edge of the road his wheels are. This also meant that we would have to ride right at the edge of the precipice, as the drop off was on the left hand side of the road as we were going down.
There was heavy cloud around us at the beginning so we couldn't see the drops off the road, which I think was probably a good thing as it was only an eerie white nothingness that was over the edge, rather than trees and rocks hundreds of metres below. We took the first couple of stages slow(ish) as we got used to the road and how the bikes responded to the terrain. These bikes our company had were probably the best of the ones I saw all day, which was good as they could take any kind of punishment you could throw at them. The suspension was so huge and offered so much travel up and down, you could ride over almost any small rock and hardly feel it. The brakes were incredibly strong and were hydraulically operated, so any moisture on the brake discs made almost no difference.
Near the beginning we passed by a monument to the 'five martyrs of democracy' who were five opposition leaders to the military dictatorship in the 1940's who, when the current military government staged elections to win favour with the public started to gain more favour than the current regime. They were all swiftly rounded up, taken to Death Road and booted off the edge of a 600 metre precipice, hence being referred to as the five martyrs of democracy. Until recently there was a cross on the top of the monument, but when a jeep took the corner too fast, rolling over the top of the monument, removing the cross with it and then plunging over the edge of the cliff.
Our ride continued around tight bends, skinny portions of road, under and through waterfalls, and stopping abruptly as we encountered a digger clearing away a landslide that had occurred the previous week. We had to wait for a while as it cleared a safe path in the road, and even when we were allowed to pass, there was still a large boulder teetering precariously above the road. Riding down the road was so fun, I really let myself get into the adrenaline rush at certain points, getting a bit of air as I ran over large bits of stone and feeling the cool air whipping past me. Ilona was a bit more contained, as her fear of heights was still present, despite not being able to actually see the height she was at. I spent the occasional section riding with her, making sure she was ok and to keep her company, but my favourite parts were when I was going as fast as I felt safe going, being a boy and most likely grinning like a complete idiot.
Our guide Phil was from the States and had been working for Gravity for around 7 months, so he knew the track pretty well and kept us all in check. There was only one point where I had to stop myself and try to calm down, as I came round a corner a tad too fast and could feel my back wheel start to slip out a bit. I was making a left hand turn at the time, so was in no danger of going over the edge, but I could have scraped myself up pretty badly had I of fallen.
We had a second road block just after we crossed a shallow stream, where there we a couple of 4x4s parked across the road with ropes tied to the front of them that descended into the bushes below. Apparently what had happened is that a couple of days before, a rival company's van had gone off the road into the bush below, but luckily the driver had escaped with only a broken collar bone and the 4x4s were just there to haul the van back up again. After that point the rest of the road was pretty tame, with some fast bits, but mostly just wide flat sections of the road, through another stream and then into our finishing point in a town called Yolosa.
In all, we had cycled approximately 65km and dropped over 3500m in altitude. When we finished it was the middle of the day and very hot, as it was only 1200m above sea level and in the Amazon Basin. I had my zip line ride to do and was the only one in the group who wanted to do it, so they all made their way to the animal sanctuary while I hitched a ride in a passing flat-bed truck to the starting point of the zip line. If I hadn't of biked down the world's most dangerous road that morning, I would have probably been a bit more excited, but compared to the ride, the zip line just seemed too tame. Yes I was going up to 85kph and suspended over 200m above the valley, but being strapped in and only going in a straight line didn't excite me all that much. I must have been number by the huge adrenaline rush I had already had that day.
Slightly disappointed, I biked over to the sanctuary too meet up with the others and grab lunch, which was a great selection of pasta sauces, salads and some spaghetti. Ilona and I then walked around the sanctuary, checking out the Capuchin Monkeys, Spider Monkeys and numerous exotic birds, like a Macaw and some large parrots. We took a few pictures, downed a well deserved beer and were on our way back to La Paz, driving up Death Road.
I don't know if it was my fear trying to hide itself as excitement or just the fact that I couldn't be scared of the road any more, but for most of the trip back up I laughed my way around tight bends, skinny patches of road and through the lack of guard rails. Our driver had been driving that road almost every day for 12 years, but I didn't know if that was a good thing or bad as he could have been so blasé about it at that point. At one stage we had to stop because of a tyre blowout and then again when we got to the digger clearing away the landslide, where we climbed out of the van and took a bunch of pictures.
Thankfully, our guide left most of the horror stories to when we were driving back up, as he pointed out spots where people had died over the years, such as one corner where three cyclists had been killed, one because she was clearing away the fog from her goggles and missed the corner, one because he just took it too fast and another because he was taking a picture looking away from the ledge and just took one step back too far. Crosses are littered long the road, some of the larger ones pay respect to major accidents, such as one in the 1970s which had been deemed the worst road accident ever, when a truck carrying over 100 people toppled over the edge, all of whom died. Then there was another corner when a cyclist had been going too fast and gone off the edge, and as it turned out, the company he was with actually encouraged it's clients to race each other! One of Ilona and I's favourite stories however, was one that only occurred two years ago, when a woman from La Paz had taken to hiring taxis to drive her to the town at the bottom of Death Road, stopped the driver at a certain point along the way, killed them, dumped their body over the edge and then take the taxi back to La Paz and sell it. She had done it three times when one of the guides from the company we were with started to smell something bad and when he came back the next day, he looked over the edge and saw three bodies lying on a ledge about 30 metres below. The woman managed to kill three more times before she was eventually caught.
Once we returned to La Paz, Ilona was dropped at the hotel where she could get a head start on packing for the next day's bus and train ride to Uyuni, but I stayed in the van until it got back to their workshop, where I could grab all of the photos of the day and put them on a hard drive for us to keep. Both of us were incredibly tired when I made it back to the hotel, so we ran out to get a quick feed at a cool Mexican place with day of the dead themed murals and shrines around the restaurant (which was very tasty) and then back home to bed.
Yesterday was another early start, as we hopped on a 8am bus to Oruro, where we would catch a 3:30pm train to Uyuni. We needed to be in Oruro by 12pm to pick up our tickets, and according to our Lonely Planet guide, the trip would take us three hours, leaving us with plenty of time. Unfortunately, this was a local's bus, so had to make its was up the valley in rush hour traffic to La Alta (the flat plains of La Paz above the valley where the city originally began), through impossibly small streets to try and find more passengers to fill the bus. Had we been on a tourist bus, it would have been a direct shot straight down to Oruro. We had hardly made it out of La Paz by 10am, leaving us wondering whether we would make it in time, but thankfully, even though we made it to the train station by 12:30, our tickets were still there and we were able to board our train.
The ride took us through some incredible desert scenery and past one of the most beautiful sunsets we had ever experienced, for 7 hours until Uyuni, the starting point for most tours into the Salar De Uyuni, a vast salt desert 3800m above sea level that has lots of geothermal activity, huge volcanoes around it and unique towns created out of the salt. We ran into the Irish couple from the Indian restaurant again on the train, who ended up staying in the same hostel as us.
Today has been spent shopping around for a decent tour company, as many are supposed to be quite shocking with reports of drunk or stoned drivers, exploitative actions towards many of the Salar's natives and disregard for the environmental impacts they have on the desert. We settled on a company who will take us on a three day tour starting tomorrow, the Irish couple Aaron and Aoife are doing it with us too, then afterwards we will take another train to the Bolivian border town of Villazon, cross the border into Argentina and make our way down to Buenos Aires, where we will fly out of in two weeks.
It's hard to believe that our time here is almost up, but I'm going to make sure that I pack as much into those two weeks as I can. Though it will be sad to leave South America, I have been really looking forward to South Africa and the UK, so I don't think I will be getting any post-holiday blues for a while!
Mike.
What an amazing read. Thanks Mike!
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