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Published: September 17th 2006
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The vast majority of our time in La Paz seemed to be spent drifting round the city aimlessly not really knowing what we wanted to do. Although we were there for 4 days I can only recall walking through the witches market looking at llama foetuses and going to a couple of very small museums. The best one of these was a musical instrument museum that allowed you to play some of the instruments, which was good fun.
It is no disrespect to La Paz but the highlight was undoubtedly leaving. This was due to our mode of transport out of town, mountain biking down the "most dangerous road in the world." I have put it in inverted commas as I don´t know who has decided this, but the number of stories we were told on the way down and burnt out shells of vehicles that could be seen looking over the edge seems to indicate there is some truth in the claim.
The ride itself was fantastic, both of us really enjoyed it and most importantly didn´t die. It begins at 4700m above sea level, shivering in the barren mountains and ends approximately 70km away at only 1100m
Extreme Sleeping v Extreme Fear
The most dangerous minibus on the most dangerous road above in the sticky heat of the Yungas. The road is twisty most of the way starting on smooth tarmac before devloping into a bumpy unpaved track that at times is very narrow and has passing points to enable traffic to get past one another. Occasionally looking over the edge gave us a bit of a shock, as the road just ends and it is like a cliff face over the lip. It is no surprise that when there are car and bus accidents here no-one really survives. The scenery was also interesting cycling down as it gradually got greener with more trees and plants and you could smell the life and warmth that we didn´t in the altitude.
We stayed in Coroico at the bottom for a couple of days before heading back up in a minibus. This proved to be far more hair-raising than coming down. Like most Bolivian drivers, ours seemed unconcerned with the death rate statistics and flew up the bumpy unpaved road, at times overtaking lorries on the narrowest sections so our wheels were right on the edge of the cliffs. To be fair to the bus and minibus drivers in Bolivia they have all been technically brilliant, accelerating out of bends, using the racing lines, showing no fear in overtaking, its just unfortunate they forget they are not in a race and have passengers on board. I´m suprised there are not any famous Bolivian rally drivers but I suppose they would lose valuable seconds stopping to squeeze extra passengers in the back to earn a few extra pesos.
What shocked me most again on the drive back up was the natural ability shown again in Bolivias most popular extreme sport, Extreme Sleeping. Of the 10 of us rammed into the tightly packed minibus six must have slept the whole three hour journey. This was in spite of the bus hurtling round corners and bouncing across the road. The head of the man in front of Lucy appeared to be attached to his body by a spring, rebounding off the window, the roof and the shoulder of the woman next to him but yet he didn´t even stir from his sleep once until La Paz. This has been common across Bolivia and been met with great jealousy from Lucy and I who seem to get woken up from such mundane movements as emergency stops.
This has at least been preferable to the other popular alternative Bolivian sport, Extreme Pissing. Despite the unpleasantness of the sport as a whole I have admired some of the skills shown by locals. By the edge of the road with traffic hurtling past, on steep hills squatting precariously or even balancing holding on to heavy bags at the same time, men and women alike have been keen to show off their technique in public. My particular favourite was an old man who decided the gutter was his favourite location. By the side of a busy road. In rush hour. Next to the main square in the capital city. This was all achieved with pedestrians bustling back and forth past him yet not a single one batted an eyelid.
Getting back to the subject, we arrived safely back in La Paz suffering from only one puncture and immediately suffered from altitude problems again which gave us the perfect excuse to be lazy again.
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Maurice
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Great stories
And a damn sight more interesting than Kennys weekly China updates. Good to hear your both ok and having a fab time. !!