Blogs from Yungas Road, La Paz Department, Bolivia, South America - page 12

well we have survived! the bike ride was really tough, especailly as i was recovering from food poisioning and still throwing up for some of it! the scenery was absolutely incredible though. however its easy to see how the road got its name. its basically a dirt track cut into the side of the mountain. it was built in the 40´s by prisioners, and the locals believe that the accidents occur becuase of angry spirits pulling people over the sides. the drops are sheer and there is no safety barrier, and downwards trafic rides on the outside edge! nice! everytime a truck passed us (its the main road connecting bolivia and brazil so theres a lot of trade traffic) we had to jump off our bikes and perch near the edge to let it pass. the ... read more

{NOTE: The pictures marked with (*) are courtesy of Gravity Bolivia. Some of them were not taken on the day we rode, but the guys kindly included them on our ride's CD for our enjoyment - and they help illustrate rather well some of the things we talk about!} **************************** Arriving in La Paz we took a taxi from the airport and asked the taxi driver if he could recommend a cheap hotel for us. The place he took us to seemed at first glance to be rather expensive, but our now tried and trusted "Oh, errrrm, do you have any cheaper rooms?" managed to cut the price by more than 50%! For anyone other travellers reading this, we'd really recommend trying this, as we've often noticed that after being shown a room and using “the ... read more

November 29th 2005 I decided my short stint in Peru was coming to an end, it was time to head east to the border. My original plan of hitting Mancora in northern Peru and heading down the coastline, would have to wait to my next visit to these parts. Hopefully when I'm a more accomplished surfer and I'm able to take more advantage of the reputedley kick-arse sets. GNARRLY! So after two weeks in the Cuzco region, I boarded the economy class tuesday morning ten hour train ride to Puno. Pleased to see a newly acquainted face in the form of Sally "Kyles" Dawson. Bearing an uncanny resemblance to one of our great aussi exports. Pedros "The Greek" jumps aboard the train. Bringing with him Johnny "london" and kiwi chick "Flick". Unbeknownst to me, I would ... read more

The little town, Yolosa, was 7 km below Coroica. All it was was a few houses (all little cafeterias offering exactly the same things … about 12 of them) set up adjacently with one big street that everything in town took place in. Which in a town of 40 or so is not much, but quite varied: trucks and buses splashing through the mud and water that the townspeople were dumping their raw sewage into; stopping in the open space to breathe a collective sigh of reliefe after surviving the road and the toilet-less hot buses; being pounced upon by vendors selling nuts in long plastic bags, or soda in baggies, or ice cream from a dirty Styrofoam bucket. The town is devoid of bustle and hustle for 55 minutes of the hour, but for the ... read more

Let me begin by stating that Death Road is probably a lie - I just didn´t know where I was and thought that sounded good. Rachel and I began our day at 7am in order to be at our tour office by 8am. The other three on our tour, Gozo, Caralina, and Manuel, were also there on time. Unfortunately, the people running the office weren´t. I began to get nervous, but about 10 or 15 minutes later they did show. We eventually took off, which meant we drove to the border and waited an hour to get our passports stamped to leave Chile. We then drove an hour or so and went to get our passports stamped to get into Bolivia. We were to meet a desert type truck there and change cars in order to ... read more