La Paz is the capital of Bolivia and definately one of my favorite cities in South America. It is often described as bizare and it has a feeling which is completely unique. You drive into La Paz from above and can see it all laid out beneath you in a sort of huge volcanic crater. A short walk from our hotel was the Witches Market where predominantly old Bolivian ladies sell all manner of charms and potions. Dried llama foetuses are hung up on their stalls to sell to people to bury in the foundations of new houses, dried cats, frogs and bats, statues of Pachamama, animals and other gods all bring luck in love, money, health, protection for the family or whatever aspect you feel your life is lacking. Herbs and flowers can be made into potions or small vials can be bought containing miniature representations of hearts, cars, people or whatever you want to bring luck to - its a hypermarket for the supersticious and needy.
The rest of La Paz is like an endless market. Whole streets selling the same things whether it be the street that sells 100s of varieties of potatoe, to the street where all the shops and stalls have giant sacks of brightly colured sugar puffs and popcorn and wheat shapes. The streets are solid with traffic all continually beeping to no avail. The most common forms of transport are the small minibuses which employ people to lean out of the windows shouting where they are going to. The larger buses are all 1950s Cheverolet buses in still in gleaming two tone white with either aquamarines, metalic yellows, or orange. They look fantastic. Everywhere women in traditional costumes bustle along carrying their wares or stall holders sit chatting or sleeping the day away. We even saw a demonstration with the riot police looking on menacingly.
I had heard about the Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking which you can do on Death Road and was keen to try it out. Just before 8.00am we met our English guide Aaron and his tiny black puppy Sam whom he had rescued 3 weeks before. We got kitted out with safety gear and great mountain bikes with hydraulic suspension to give added protection to backsides on the bumpy ride. About 45 minutes drive outside the city is an area called La Cumbra which signaled the start of our descent. We started up in the snow at 4600m and it was freezing. Luckily the first bit of the road is tarmaced and gives a good opportunity to get used to how the bikes handle.
The first landmark on our descent was the police drug checkpoint. The coca leaves are completely legal but police are looking for the chemical components to process cocaine as Death Road takes you into the Yungas which is one of the two major coca growing areas in Bolivia. The police show no interest in the dumb gringos on bikes who they know will be carrying nothing more noxious than sweaty cheese and ham sandwiches so we sailed through. With growing confidence I huddled down to be as streamlined as possible and enjoyed the fastest bike ride of my life reaching speeds of 55-60km an hour.
We reached the fork in the road where the tarmac runs out which signals the start of Death Road, so called because it is the most dangerous road in the world. It does exactly what it says on the tin. There are 5 of us who opt to go in the fast group. The road is single track, unsurfaced, winding through the mountains with no safety barriers separating you from the 600m drop over the edge. As we descend Aaron, our guide, points out all along the way the wreckages from where there have been accidents. The most recent was 3 weeks ago - a bus went over, 27 died but 21 survived. Aaron had been taking a group biking down shortly after it happened and they could hear the people screaming below.
We pass a crushed lorry cab which had gone over 5 weeks ago but they hadn´t recovered the drivers body for a week. Aaron was coming back with a group when they saw his body on the road with the police who had pulled the cab up. 81 people in a bus on this corner, 7 people in a truck 6 months ago on that corner. As you peered over the edge you could see mangled wreckage in various places. Other corners had names which bore testimony to some of the mountain bikers who have died. On average 3 mountain bikers and over 100 people in vehicles die each year on the road. The toll has been much higher as "The Balcony" with a huge drop over the edge was notorious as a place where in various periods of political upheaval in the recent past, political prisoners and enemies would be put in lorry trailers and pushed over the edge.
On the way down we would overtake lorries and coaches though at one point a lorry that I was passing started to reverse back into me so I took the decision to go into a big ditch by the rockface rather than go under his tyres. At other times if you took corners too fast you started to fishtail or skid. Unlike many of the other adventure sports I love, where you know they are ultimately relatively safe, with this there is actually a very real risk of serious injury or death. And we pay to do it! It was scary at times but great fun.
We pulled into the town at the end of our descent and had a welcome beer. We had gone from snow to lush green tropical forrest in less than four hours covering 65km and descending about 3600m. We were absolutely caked in grey dust so headed for a luxury hotel in Coroico where we showered, swam in a beautiful pool overlooking the valley, and ate. Then we had the 3 1/2 hour drive home back up Death Road in a mini bus. In many respects this was scarier than on the bikes. At first you could tell if something was coming towards you by the dust clouds but as it got dark and we climbed into the mist and clouds it became harder to see. We almost saw one accident as a lorry who had refused to wait for another lorry coming uphill, had to reverse around a corner in the dark. It was easy to see how the road had got its name and it was a thrilling day but we were all pretty thankful when we made it back in one piece.
La Paz Hotels
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