|
  | |  |
Camino de Muerte
Entry 60 of 70 | show all | print this entry |
|
Mar 1st - Mar 5th.
The other 3 bussed it the day before me, so met them in La Paz on Thurs 1st after a 12 hr journey from Arequipa. My bus was comming from Lima and on it´s way, someone died on the bus so there was a 5 hr delay. That was one delay I wasn´t too bothered about in the context of things... The next day we did the death road cycle - 80km downhill from La Paz to a place called Coroico on what had been internationally recognized as the worlds most dangerous road. A few months before, a new safter road opened (it took 10 years to build), so we didn´t have too worry about other traffic. The surface is unsealed and stoney, the road is something like 3.2m wide at it´s narrowest and the height of the cliff over the edge is 600m on average. Although it´s hard to see how the road could support bidirectional traffic in some places, for cycling, it felt quite safe. And the tour company we went with had good bikes. ($55 for the trip)
We started our descent from 4700m, so it was really cold. My hands were in constant pain initially from the cold air, and it was raining too and I only had a thin poncho to protect me. It wasn´t of much use so I just resigned myself to getting really wet and hoped that the weather would clear up further down. It did, but we were denied the usually spectacular views because of cloud coverage. Pretty soon, all we cared about was going fast down the road. But even with front suspension, your arms would shake wildly from going fast over the stoney surface, so that was a bit of a limiting factor... Whereas alot of people tell you they don´t like La Paz, I liked it. It feels like more than a population of just 500,000 as you can tell from walking through the busy streets. It´s bleak and grey and it rains there alot, but it has bucketloads of character. Just look at the parade photos I took. Having read about San Pedro prison, I was fascinated to have a look at that (no access inside these days). The hotel we stayed at was on the same street...
More thumbnails ...
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries from Peru or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
8 votes 
