The random adventurers: August 2015

The one must-do in La Paz is, indisputably, the famous "Death road".

It has been lovingly nicknamed like that because of the huge amount of people who actually died on it (according to Wikipedia, an estimate of 200 to 300 people yearly).

But no worries! Most of the deaths occured because buses used to fall off the super high cliffs with no guardrail protection (most likely because the road is carved off the mountain and only has one lane, most of it the width of one vehicle).

Actually, a few bikers have died also, but when you're biking an all-downhill road like this as some sort of "adventure sport", and going as fast as possible along the crazy curves, then of course you know you face some sort of danger.

Of course we wanted to look into it, since a few friends had recommended it, and it seemed like a very beautiful and scenic thing to do (my main interest), as well as a crazy adrenaline-filled thing (Chey's main interest).

When we started looking into it, the first we read were the "terrible" reviews on Tripadvisor, as we always do (it gives you a sense of worst-case-scenario and then, of course, we read the good ones).

Among them, there was a pretty grim and pretty recent story about how a 22 year old girl had fallen off the side of the road and died.

Most of the reviews, however, were good to excelent, and people recommended it like an amazing experience, but that death review left us thinking for a while, and we went to all of the agencies and had long talks to the people in charge until we made up our mind.

After speaking to two European girls at a cafe, who had done the DR the day after and said that it was easy to keep your own pace and take care of yourself, we ended up deciding that we wanted to try it.

And we were going to be careful and not stupid about it, since we trust our own ability to be in charge.

We booked with "Barracuda". A company that I really recommend, which is owned by the same people that own the biggest one (I think that one is called "Gravity").

They picked us up from a restaurant where we had a pretty good breakfast, and together with a group of (I think) 11 people we left on a minivan towards the mountain.

...

Our biking day started at 4,650 masl, up the mountains and next to a lake, where we got acquainted with our bikes, got our security instructions, and put on our helmets, gloves, pants and jackets (it was fairly cold, so all of us happily put the big pants and jackets on top of our own).

Getting ready.

The starting point was actually really pretty, though it didn't have anything
close to a toilet. We all ended up going behind a brick wall.

Before starting to ride, we paid our respects to Pachamama (Mother Earth) by "sharing" a sip of Singani (an insanely strong Bolivian sort-of brandy) with her.

We each burned our lips and throat with it, and then threw a bit on the ground for Pachamama to enjoy it as well.

Alcohol before a dangerous and possibly life-threatening bike ride? Welcome to the third world! (hey! remember I am from the third world, so if I say it it isn't derogative)

Drinking my Singani. I'll spare you the pain of
seeing the picture of my face after I tasted it,

Chey, on the other hand...

...a proud Australian, could've probably had some more.

The first hour or so of the ride is on asphalt road shared with quite a few cars and trucks. The view was beautiful already, but we couldn't really look at it much while riding.

The pre-death road

Luckily, there were plenty of stops for headcount ("no-one has died yet? awesome!"), taking photos and get feedback from our (lovely) guides.

After this first bit, we arrived to the proper Death Road. We had a second safety chat, and started the descent, riding inside a cloud of fog that only allowed us a visibility of about 10 metres ahead.

The group in the fog.

The proper Death Road is an all-downhill, super curvy (remember, real roads have curves) dirt road, that starts at a lush, cold, humid mountain.

As we rode we saw the crosses marking the many accident places (too many), the sheer drops (falls of hundreds of meters), the crazy curves and the wonderful view, all while trying to dodge the so-called "baby heads", which are rocks so big that if your bike trips on them you might fall to your death. Fun times!

I wish I could've stopped and take pictures of all of these.

Chey sits on a log at the edge of the cliff.

And then I do the same. The fog doesn't show the drop but it's huge, believe me.

"Natural attractions"

A bridge to go across a waterfall on one of the many curves.

Extremely cold shower.

The most popular cliff in Bolivia.

The group in general was nice, though some people were serious imbeciles trying to show off.

One of the main safety directions was that every time you were about to pass someone, you had to let them know, because otherwise you could cause a collision.

A particularly annoying and smug french guy was ignoring all the safety instructions, and nearly made me fall off a cliff. Luckily, karma arrived later in the shape of a flat tire for him. I won't say I was happy to see him wait for a replacement bike.

(Another safety instruction was "the biggest danger on the DR is not the road, it's the other people", and truer thing has never been said.)

...

Halfway down the road, the weather started to get super hot, and still humid. The sun started shining, the clouds left, and the rest of it was just a scenic world of beautiful sights and sounds and smells.

Our minibus and Chey (minus two layers)

YES! SUN!

Last long stop before Coroico.

Yours truly, happy that the hardest part was over,

A nice tour group (except for the ***hole that almost makes me fall)
(fun game: guess who the ***hole is)

All the stress of the high mountain gone, my favorite part was the last one, looking at the flowers and sniffing the flowers and basically cruising before arriving to the town of Coroico (1525 masl), where the road ends at a paradise-like rainforest landscape.

Chey after showering, watching the monkeys play
(no good pictures of the monkeys, sorry)

Very mature.

The guides and driver got crazy excited because we got to see this very
elusive tropical bird, which happens to be the official Coroico emblem.

We had lunch at a small place in Coroico, after taking wonderfully cold showers overlooking the river, and watched the photos and videos of the road on a big screen, all while chatting happily and rubbing our sore hands, legs and other body parts.

The way back felt ridiculously long as we drove up the same Death Road on the minivan, and then all the way to La Paz, where we had Indian food for dinner and went straight to sleep like babies.

The drop seen from the bus. That is the edge of the road.

Fun fact about the DR: there are no fun facts (that I know of), but we learnt two serious facts, if you're interested...

1- The road was carved off the mountain by Paraguayan prisoners of war (so imagine the conditions under which they worked).

2- During the Bolivian dictatorship, five people who were fighting for democracy were thrown off a cliff on this road. There's a plaque that honors them and reads "Mártires de la Democracia" (martyrs of democracy).

I find interesting looking into South American history and learning about all the pretty recent challenges that our nations faced in order to get rid of tyranny.

La Paz means "The Peace".

There were few places less peaceful through the whole trip, so the name was a constant source of amusement.
(Just for the record, I don't mean that the city was violent at all. Only beautifully chaotic and full-time crazy).

As we were approaching another big city, we got to book an Airbnb room again, hoping to replicate some of the charm of our lovely Montevideo experience.

We did get a clean, neat, comfortable room in a pretty good area of the city... but sadly, the spirit of Airbnb is already polluted with business owners trying to make some decent money (can't blame them) out of the tourism in a country that is, otherwise, in a fairly struggly situation.

So on this occasion our booking felt more like a "hostal" than staying with a local... because that's what it was.

On the very bright side, the place was extremely nice, and they had the best shower we experienced during the whole trip.

If you're at home while reading this, you might not have in mind how grateful us good-shower-owners should be on a daily basis.
Cherish your shower, mate. Love your shower. If you have a gratitude journal, write about your shower every single day. Hot water, good pressure... I can't praise showers enough.

But back to La Paz... we spent quite a few days there, strolling the streets, loving the chaos, appreciating the mix of localism and globalization, and pondering the fact that a capital city has pretty much no private vehicles.

All buses have stickers with either the driver's children's names, or something
about god, the holy dove, or some variation of "Jesus take the wheel".
Seeing the standards of Bolivian driving, the latter doesn't surprise me at all.

Seriously, we counted less than 10 (apparently) privately owned cars among hundreds of buses, taxis, minibuses, tourist minivans and others, and that was through an hour-long walk down the main avenue.

Minivan buses, or "colectivos"... that's how Paceños roll.

There's a lot to see in La Paz, though most tourists are found walking around Sagarnaga street, where most of the tour agencies and souvenir shops are.

You can't blame people for that, since Bolivian crafts are among the prettiest and cheapest I've seen.

Llama tile on Sagarnaga Street.

The gringos (including us) enjoy a day of souvenir shopping.

At the crafts market.

Power cables making a beautiful mess.

Kitty pattern rug. I want 10.

Nice advertising.

Also, everyone wants to see the "witches market", where diverse Aymara ritual-related goods can be bought, including some mystical instruments like palo santo wood (that ritualistic smell is everywhere in the Andean region), dried frogs, and llama fetuses (feti?).

Hanging next to other mystical stuff, a llama fetus gazes
into the sky with its empty eyes.
Creepy.

Fancy some llama fetus head with your tea, darling?

Spoiler alert: Witches Street is nothing like Diagon Alley, and you can't, I repeat: you can NOT buy a wand or Quidditch equipment. Believe me, I tried.

We found a few good places to eat, walked around a lot, saw the street markets that sell everything from food to furniture, bought a few insanely cheap and very pretty items of clothing (how good La Paz must be for a shopaholic!), and jumped on the cable car that's a way of public transport to get to the high part of the city.

A view of La Paz historical centre.

Cutest street art.

Beautiful little girls play with a box.

An amazing cafe that wasn't on the guide or Tripadvisor, full of quirky old things.

The same cafe, where I was seriously tempted to steal everything.

???

Looking down to the city, which is built inside a valley.
All the walls of the valley have been used.

Food safety standards. That is raw chicken in the afternoon sun.

Colorful veggies and local ladies,

Buildings and flags in the city centre.

The view from the cable car.

Public transport.

A sneaky pic of a family taken inside the cable car.

Sadly, one of my favorite things about La Paz I couldn't get a picture of...

Since very early in the morning, some of the back streets are fully taken by a huge flower market. It feels like walking in a dream, and the day we saw it was, of course, the day we didn't have the camera.

I hope that you imagine it. Or even better, that you can go to La Paz and enjoy it yourself!