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After a long overnight bus to La Paz, we checked into Wild Rover hostel. Well... we couldn´t check in until 1pm and it was 7am so we didn´t really check in, we more hung out in the TV room and fell asleep on the couches. I guess it didn´t seem weird because there were still people awake at the hostel. I don´t mean getting up for the morning, I mean still awake from the night before. Immediately, the cocaine culture was present and at times I felt as if I was the only traveler not coked out of my mind. That is not my idea of fun. I mean I enjoy the occasional night out drinking, but staying up all night on drugs is not my idea of fun. Neither is hanging out with people like this so I already knew it would be hard to meet a good batch of backpackers at the hostel. There is even a bar in La Paz that you can go to strictly for cocaine. They have a menu and everything. We didn´t go, but this was the story we got from others.
The first couple days, we spent relaxing and not really doing
much in La Paz except walking around the city. La Paz is the administrative capital of Bolivia and has a population of 789,585 making it the most populous urban area of Bolivia. It is located at an altitude of 3,660 meters (12,008 ft) and is the world's highest capital city. There are cars everywhere and they all honk. The traffic is amazing. It is probably some of the craziest traffic we have seen since China. There aren´t really any rules and people just come and go as they please, often leaving it in gridlock. There are always protests in the streets. You can hear firecrackers going off most days and parades of people in the streets. The locals like to keep Morales (el presidente) in his place. The cops often use tear gas to get rid of the crowds, even when they are peaceful, and we even met some fellow travelers who got caught in this.
Clint and Shannon were still with us at this point, but they were on a tighter schedule than us, so after a couple days we said our goodbyes to them. They were a really great couple and just some of the many great
people we have met along the way.
After a couple relaxing days, we decided to bike ¨The Most Dangerous Road in the World.¨ The road from La Paz, to a region known as the Yungas was built by Paraguayan prisoners of war back in the 1930s. Many of them perished in the effort. Now it is mainly Bolivians who die on the road, well and stupid tourists like us who decide to bike it! In 1995, the Inter American Development Bank christened it the most dangerous road in the world. Crosses at the roadside mark the locations of fatal accidents. The road itself is barely three meters wide. After the initial tarmac it is just dirt track. And yet - incredibly - up until three years ago it was a major road for cars and trucks. You start the day at over 4,000 meters high and by the end you have dropped 3,000 meters. When the road was still in use an estimated 200 to 300 people died on the road each year. In one year alone, 25 cars went off the edge. A month before we were there six bikers died when the support vehicle carrying four people
lost control and took two bikers off the edge with them. We also biked past a very narrow part of the road where two Israeli tourists died five years ago while biking.
So... after you scaring you all to death I will tell you about my experience on the road. Thank God there are no cars on the road anymore. They completed a new paved road three years ago. I could not imagine doing this trip with cars on the road. It was hard enough to pass other bikers let alone huge trucks. We spent a lot of time researching companies and deciding who to go with. We decided to go with a company called Vertigo. They provided full face helmets, should pads, knee pads and gear to put over your clothes. They are also Bolivian owned and their guides are on the Bolivian racing team. I trusted them to get me down safely. They did a great job. We got all suited up and went through a safety talk before we started. There were 20 people, 5 guides and 3 support cars that followed us in case of emergency. We could get in the support cars if we
were tired, they have first aid equipment, and carried mechanics to help with the bikes. The first part of the trip is down windy roads, but at least there is tarmac. My bike was brand new, but still when I got going too fast I could feel it wiggle around. I was not as comfortable as I would have liked. I hung towards the back and took my time so I could get used to the bike. We passed so many crosses marking where people had died. I tried not to look at them! Then we got to the hard part... the dirt part of the road. The rest of the day would be spent on roads like this. Riding the bike on dirt was harder than I thought. It was straight downhill and if I fell I could plummet off the huge cliff to my left. I tried to stay in the tracks of the other bikers, but I was pretty shaky. Again, I stayed toward the back of the pack and went slow. I was riding my brakes the whole way down and feeling every bump in the road. I had a couple near falls, but I was
able to catch myself and put my foot down before I fell. I was getting pretty frustrated with myself for not feeling comfortable, but I knew that if I pushed myself I could go right off the cliff. We took a lunch break and Chris gave me some advice on how to hold my breaks and it helped alot. The second part of the day was amazing. I realized that when I actually got some speed it was easier to go over the bumps. I wasn´t riding my breaks anymore and I was getting some speed. I felt way more comfortable! I wasn´t at the back of the pack the second half of the day and even was able to pass some people up. I didn´t really like passing cause it meant getting closer to the cliff edge, but I was feeling better. The guides were great. Even when I was going slow no one said anything or encouraged me to go faster. I could go as slow as I wanted, they just wanted to get everyone down the hill safely.
The scenery was amazing. We went from snow capped mountains to rainforest. The lush greenery around us was
beautiful and although the sheer cliffs are intimidating, they make for some dramatic scenery. We would ride through streams and waterfalls that were coming off the side of the mountain. I understand why people do this. There is no way you can see this amazing scenery unless you are on the death road. I didn´t really get the chance to soak it all in because I was concentrating so hard on riding, but when we did stop for breaks I tried to look around as much as possible. The next day we went to Vertigo to pick up the CD of photos they had taken for us and we watched some of the videos from our guide´s helmet cam and that is when I started to see how scary it was and how close to the edge we were. I was looking at it like ¨That is scary! I cannot believe I did that.¨ Luckily that part didn´t sink in until after we were finished! Overall, it was an amazing day and I am so happy we did it. I got my free tshirt that said Ï survived the death road¨ which was well deserved. I worked my booty off!
The next day we slept in and got some much needed rest and then saw some of the major sights of the city. We went to the Plaza Murillo and saw the Palacio Presidential and the Legislative building. The Palacio Presidential has all these bullet holes in it from former unrest in the country and protests that got out of hand. It would be like the White House have bullet holes in it. It was quite strange. When we arrived there were men playing instruments and dancing in the square. The police were all around and keeping a close eye on them. They seemed harmless enough, but I guess with the history of the country there are always police there to watch out. The square is also home to a beautiful cathedral that was built in the 1800´s, but it is quite weird to have these police, bullet holes in building and then a pretty cathedral next door. That´s the parody of Bolivia.
From there we headed to the ¨Witches Market.¨ I was a little disappointed in it. I had heard all these stories and was expecting a crazy market with tons of weird stuff, but it was
mostly souvenir stalls. We did manage to see some weird stuff though. There are blackened baby llama fetuses everywhere. Bolivianos believe if you bury them under your house it will be good luck. Not sure how it brings you good luck, but apparently it does. I didn´t buy one. The worst thing we saw in the market was a skin of a jaguar. People go into the Amazon Basin and skin jaguars to sell their skin. Very uncool! Plus they make guitars and other souvenirs out of armadillos. Armadillos are badly endangered down here and I tried to encourage other travelers not to buy them, but then I just sounded like an environmentalist hippie. Still, it is pretty uncool how they don´t really care about these animals or the environment.
We spent some time, checking out the San Francisco cathedral and plaza (I thought of you Scott!). It is a gorgeous cathedral that took a long time to complete. All around the cathedral are stands with people selling everything you can imagine. You can buy anything on the street here. Irons, underwear, makeup, magnifying glasses, posters of the human body and that´s just to name a few. We always
wonder if these people have stolen this stuff and that´s why they are selling it or if they wake up one morning and decide to go into the magnifying glass business? Weird concept! After a long overnight bus to La Paz, we checked into Wild Rover hostel. Well... we couldn´t check in until 1pm and it was 7am so we didn´t really check in, we more hung out in the TV room and fell asleep on the couches. I guess it didn´t seem weird because there were still people awake at the hostel. I don´t mean getting up for the morning, I mean still awake from the night before. Immediately, the cocaine culture was present and at times I felt as if I was the only traveler not coked out of my mind. That is not my idea of fun. I mean I enjoy the occasional night out drinking, but staying up all night on drugs is not my idea of fun. Neither is hanging out with people like this so I already knew it would be hard to meet a good batch of backpackers at the hostel. There is even a bar in La Paz that you can go
to strictly for cocaine. They have a menu and everything. We didn´t go, but this was the story we got from others.
Another random La Paz thing is the San Pedro prison. San Pedro prison is the largest prison in La Paz, Bolivia renowned for being a society within itself. Significantly different from most correctional facilities, inmates at San Pedro have jobs inside the community, pay or rent their accommodation, and often live with their families. More importantly, they sell cocaine to the tourists who come in the prison to visit. This provides significant income to prison and an unusual amount of freedom within the prison walls. Elected leaders enforce the laws of the community, with stabbings being commonplace. The prison is home to approximately 1,500 inmates, with additional guests staying in the prison hotel.
The book Marching Powder, written by Rusty Young about Thomas McFadden's experiences during a four month visit to the prison, was published in 2003 and has made the prison extra famous. It is one of the most famous ¨illegal¨ tourists attractions. Unfortunately for us, the prison has been closed for the past month to tourists. A British journalists went in to the
prison with a video camera and exposed the whole inside workings of the prisons: including the cocaine based tourism. So now... there are no prison tours for us. I was quite curious to go because of all the stories I have heard from other travelers, but I was not so excited about the cocaine tourism. Maybe it is a blessing in disguise that we couldn´t go. Still, it´s a pretty weird to have a whole prison full of families and jobs and stuff like that. There is this guy called ¨Mike from NYC¨who is currently running a scam telling tourists he can get them in and then taking their money. We ran into him twice in La Paz and were telling other tourists to avoid him.
On another note... I tend to write my blogs little by little as the days progress so I can try to remember everything. We found out today that the day after we did the ¨Death Road¨a 23-year-old British backpacker died on the trail. He was staying at the hostel around the corner from us and a few guys staying at our hostel were on the trip. One of the guys at our hotel
had tried to revive the guy, but to no avail. It put everything into perspective for us. We are happy to be safe and our hearts really go out to the guy´s family. I could not imagine my mom getting that phone call and we pray everyday that we stay safe for the remainder of our journey.
So, now on to a totally different story. Our last night in La Paz we decided to attend Cholitas wrestling. Now, what is Cholitas wrestling? We were not even sure when we went to it, but we had seen the movie ¨Nacho Libre¨and thought it was probably something like that. It was actually a form of Lucha Libre. Lucha libre (Spanish for "free wrestling" or free fighting) is a term used in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking areas referring to a form of professional wrestling involving varied techniques and moves. It started in Mexico, but has moved all over Latin America. So we knew it was going to be entertaining! They called it Cholitas wrestling because the stars of the show are the females who really kick some butt. We caught a bus from our hostel and were escorted to our front row
steats- RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE RING. When the wrestling started the first guy came out in such a comical outfit we couldn´t help but laugh. Throughout the night there were guys dressed as Spiderman, midgets and guys with flame throwers. We would cheer along with the rest of the crowd since we didn´t really know what was going on. Sometimes the action would come out of the ring and right up to our seats. A girl sitting near us got knocked over when the wrestlers knocked over her chair. It was hilarious. I wish it only lasted a couple hours, but we were there four hours. I mean... I could only take so many hours of the same thing over and over again! Luckily the main event was the women! There were two chicas and one midget chica fighting a couple of guys and let me tell you... they kicked some butt! They were dressed it these bright colored outfits that were shiny and were doing all kinds of flips and jumps and throwing the guys down! YOU GO GIRLS! It was a pretty fun night and I was happy we stayed in La Paz to see it. It
was definitely unlike anything I had ever seen before.
Our time in La Paz was great. It was nice to stay somewhere for a few days and we had a good time wondering through the crazy city and relaxing. It is definitely a not miss city. It´s crazy and overrun with people and everywhere you go there is noise, but you just have to experience it. It was like no other big city we had been to. I mean where else can you buy llama fetuses?
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Courtney Enriquez
non-member comment
How in the world...
did you not crash and kill yourself... Bravo! I for sure would have plunged to my death... I am terrible at mountain bike riding. Think I'll just keep with my beach cruiser along the coast! Don't forget your sunscreen and stay safe! love, Court