Stupid rip-off bicycle death ride...

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Am I being an anal jerk or am i right to feel like i got scammed on my death ride?

So the World Health Organization actually declared this specific road in Bolivia "The world´s most dangerous". A bunch of busses, some driven by completely obliterated drunks, others by just semi drunks, go over 500 meter cliffs on a painfully twisting gravel/dirt road each year and Bolivia feels like something has to get done. By gosh, there are lives at stake. So with all the momentum the nation can muster they build a new highway to replace the 40 or so deadly miles. Being Bolivia, this takes them only 15 years or so...not bad, they should go into business fixing New Orlean´s potholes, we can use the improvement.

Anyway, the old road has been given up to idiot gringo´s with more money than sense. Lucky for me, if you shop around, the trip is also available for people with as few dollars as sense too.

The guidebook says only go with reputable companies that use fancy bikes with dual shocks and hydraulic brakes. Yeah, I´ll do that the same day i choose to prance around in a pansie field singing Kumbya. 75 bucks for one of these reputable safe companies...my fannie. Wait whats this? 39 dollars for an unknown company on counterfeited Treks...count me in.

So here´s the ride (I think, as with all our blog entries, this happened at least 2 weeks ago, and I may have to make up facts where needed)...25 kilometers on the new highway, dodging busses and testing your brakes before 45 more kilometers on the so called "Death Road" For those readers who don´t know what a kilometer is, you are not alone...its a foreign unit of distance, seemingly smaller than a mile, because everything foreigners try to do, including measuring, comes out smaller than the ways of the great United States. I think with some pressure (ie. a war or 2) we can get the world to switch over to our more sensible methods.

Anyway the so called "Death Road" started off by living up to the hype. We lose 11000 feet in altitude in the 65 kilometers, the turns are hairpin, and the drops can easily be 1500 feet for those that end up flying over the edge. Only one complaint, and the problem is I can´t find the Bolivian Better Business Bureau to register my it. None of the 7 other people I did the ride with died. What Bullshit. You bill it as a death ride, I wanna see some god damn dying, even if I´m paying 39 bucks instead of 75.

Not one death...not the Argentinian hussy, not either of the nice Brazillian couple, not even the Scottish Embassy desk worker. Nobody. Sure, we did get plenty of snacks...chocolate bars, cookies, yogurt...the drinks were cold and refreshing, and they even took picturesof the whole thing and gave us a CD with it all so we can show off later. I got an ugly T shirt that doesn´t fit bragging of my survival. It was shaping up to be one of the best days of the trip, but when the ride ended, and they dropped us off at the hotel pool for our lunch buffet, I did a head count and all heads were counted.

Boo.

Two weeks later and I´m still pissed, and I don´t get upset easily. Anyway, mommy, Ihope you didn´t read this, cuz I´m pretty sure I promised you I wouldn´t do this. Ask my friends about suckers who trust me.

PS, Lycia has not been mentioned much in this entry. I'm not one to say nothin´ and she can defend hersef as she wishes, but near as I can tell, as I was so called death riding on the worlds most dangerous road, she was prancing around a pansy field singing Kumbaya.

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