More than a diversion to Santiago

After running into a couple of friends we had made in Rio and catching up over a few drinks, we headed up the street to Uyuni’s “bus station”. It isn’t a bus station, but a street where the buses depart. We had been shown a picture of our nice bright shiny red bus but the reality was it looked like that about 7 years ago. At 3.00am we were required to change buses to reach La Paz.

Arrival to La Paz was at 7.00am and it had been light for about an hour on our approach. The city appears to be located on the plains of the Andes (the airport is) but in reality it sprawls over a couple of valleys. The city is (as most) not pretty, but the gradient of the land makes for an impressive view. As it was early morning we caught a taxi to a hotel in our guide book and checked in for a few hours sleep (overnight buses are tiring, even if you can get some sleep).

Sunday night we joined a tour to “Bolivian wrestling” which was described as “something you won’t have seen“. True enough, we never had seen Bolivian women dressed in full native attire wrestling each other (or a female wrestling dwarf for that matter). The event was packed, although 40% were gringo travellers. As with all wrestling (allegedly) it was somewhat contrived, but good fun to watch. The wrestlers kept the crowd entertained by continually hitting a young male wrestler in the nuts in an exaggerated way which was most odd. Anyway, we had an enjoyable night.

Mountain biking down the “World’s Most Dangerous Road” is one of the attractions of La Paz. The "WMDR" drops about 1.6km over 64kms. It provides a very scenic opportunity to get on a mountain bike and go head to head with death. We had reservations about doing the trip due to the imminent prospect of death, but succumbed after chatting with some fellow backpackers. (I should add that Leanny pointed out to me that we would probably be more appropriately classed as “slack packers“ due to our getting taxis and better accommodation). Anyway I digress - to book our duel with death trip, we needed to go to one of two destinations. The office we picked did not take credit cards, so we needed to cross town to the Gravity office. For the princely sum of 1 Boliviano (20c) we caught a micro (mini bus) to the required office. Now, there appear to be only 2 rules with regard to roads and driving in Bolivia. Rule No.1 - get a vehicle. Rule No. 2 - drive said vehicle but don’t hit anything or you will lose said vehicle due to inability to afford to repair. Other than that do what the hell you please (and they do). There are no yield conditions, the only rule we have encountered is that vehicles going uphill have priority. So in our micro we travelled through peak period traffic with just millimetres between us and other vehicles (I really do mean millimetres!). I got the front passenger seat and with the window open, I put my elbow out of the window. After about 3 seconds I realised that I would lose my arm if I put it outside of the vehicle. Our driver was a friendly middle aged chap so I tried a little Spanish on him, to which he replied in a torrent of the local dialect. I apologised that I did not speak Spanish to which he gave me a rather puzzled look (I think I have mastered saying I don’t speak Spanish so perhaps he thought I could). Traffic became tighter and I am just amazed that there are not more crashes in the city. Further along our trip we came upon a large intersection with people dressed as zebras who stopped our micro. I gestured to our driver to put his foot down, to which he laughed loudly in agreement. As one of the zebras was adjacent to the open window (Leanney was in front with me by now) I gestured that she should punch the zebra out and our driver found this hysterical and was very encouraging! I later found out the these zebras assist pedestrians crossing the road (Zebra crossings - I should have got that one!). With much gesticulation and shaking of hands we left our friendly driver with a big smile and headed for the Gravity office. After about an hour in the office (being provided with lots of information etc) we had our reservation for the following morning. Upon our return to our hotel we bumped into an American couple, she with arm in sling. She advised that she had fallen off her bike on the WMDR, broken her collarbone and that we “shouldn’t do it”. Too late we said, non-refundable booking. She explained that she had come off after applying the brakes "exactly as she was told to". Her boyfriend’s silence betrayed his thoughts on the matter!

Tuesday morning and a 15 minute walk took us to a café, the meeting point for the tour. The ride starts about 1 hour out of La Paz in a car park high in the mountains (4,800m for those interested). Safety gear and protective clothing were provided and each rider was shown how to use the bikes, which were rather heavy, sturdy machines very suited to downhill biking (crap uphill though!). Our guide, Kiwi Phil, was very adamant on safety for us and ensured that we were all comfortable. The first leg is on asphalt and Phil advised that we should ride as fast as we could (within our comfort zone) to get used to the bikes and the brakes which he advised would stop us quicker than we would expect (assuming you apply them correctly). On the asphalt section there is an 8km stretch that is uphill. Being brave (naive) I endeavoured to cycle this stretch, but after 400m of my lungs burning I realised that I was better off in the bus with Leanny (Leanny flatly refused to do anything uphill - very smart!). I should add that as I started uphill a truck passed me and turned the air black with its exhaust fumes, so I was off to a bad start to begin with. By the time we reached the unmade section of the road (the WMDR) I felt pretty confident and cycled behind our guide. Given that Leanny was behind me I think she felt pretty good too (yeah, yeah I did!). The WMDR is an unmade road for 43km with a downhill gradient of about 3%-4%. It is not steep, but in places becomes a little narrow (about 4m-5m). Now what makes it dangerous is that adjacent to the road is a 1,000m cliff so if you come off you may have a very long drop before hitting the ground. The scenery is stunning, lush tropical forests hanging off steep cliffs and clouds of mist hanging above the tree line. It’s like a movie set for Indiana Jones. We stopped at several points along the way to admire the view as, under the advice of Phil our guide, if you admire the view on your bike, you’re not looking where you are going and you will very like crash, so don’t look at the view, or the pretty little butterflies that flutter past and entice you to follow them over the cliff. Good advice I thought! The ride is great fun as you hardly need to pedal (which appealed to Leanny) and very exhilarating. We met no vehicles on the ride down, so we were not forced to make evasive manoeuvres or get squeezed against the cliff edge. It was a pretty smooth run down (the surface is rocky, similar to a disused rail track Down Under). At about 2.00pm we reached the bottom with whoops of joy and the promise of a beer. The WMDR I do not consider to be dangerous in the way it is hyped. However, if you go on a cheap or poorly maintained bike (and many companies provide them) then you really are asking for trouble. Also if you are gung-ho and cycle off like a mad man, then yes, it’s bloody dangerous because if you crash the consequences could be severe. If you are sensible then you will have a great day out (except the uphill bits!).

Wednesday we get up to get to the airport and catch our flight to Santiago. Catching a taxi from our hotel we are once again treated to the skill and agility that La Paz drivers have mastered in getting through the city. At the airport we were treated to South American red tape and queues. After an hour of waiting, we checked our bags, paid our departure tax (equal to one night in a decent hotel room - thieves!) passed through customs and had our baggage scanned. Unfortunately I had left my penknife in my carry-on bag so they confiscated it (cos I can do sooo much damage with a 2” blunt blade) but it was to be expected. Our flight was via Iquique (40 minutes) where we were required to get off the plane, go through Chilean immigration, have our bagged scanned, leave the airport, walk down the road 100 metres, go up a flight of stairs and re-enter the airport departure lounge to re-board the same plane. Although we had been given big plastic banners stating “Transito“, we were still required to present our bags for scanning and inspection (Chile obviously does not trust Bolivian security). As everyone was required to do this the queue was pretty long (but it was the same queue each time). Ah the joys of travelling. Santiago is only 2.5 hours flying from La Paz, but it takes all day! We experienced a great rort at Santiago airport by the local taxi company who have representatives passing themselves off as airport security. They assist with the baggage scanning and at the same time ask where you are going etc etc. Once the bags come out of the scanner they load them on a trolley and whisk you over to the taxi desk to arrange transport into town. Once at the taxi they ask for a tip. As we had no Chilean cash, all he got was about 20 Bolivianos. The actual taxi is reasonable in terms of cost as a transfer to the city, but the little creep is somewhat annoying!

Santiago is a rather attractive city with a nice collection of historical buildings and new modern high rise. The town has several malls in the centre and first impressions are reminiscent of Sydney, but much cleaner and without the grunge. Indeed after sitting at a café in the mall, we felt that it was very reminiscent of Perth, but with people! Having spent time on trips, Santiago was a chill-out spot for us and we spent that little bit extra to get a nice cozy hotel adjacent to the centre of town. To assist our chilling-out we popped into the bar next to the hotel for a bottle of red and ended up chatting with a few locals till well past our bedtime!

Good Friday we headed out of town on a local bus to Valparaiso, a coastal town with a working port. Whilst it was a beautiful sunny day in Santiago, over the mountains in Valparaiso was cool and cloudy. The town is grubby, but has some pretty coloured houses up the hillside. We were glad that our original plan to stay in Valparaiso got changed to a day trip. Up the hill we found a nice restaurant for a lazy lunch and another bottle of wine (a rather nice shiraz recommended by our waiter). The owner, an American chap, got talking to us and advised that this was his third visit to kick the staff up their proverbial so the restaurant would not go under. A nice chap, he gave us a lovely late harvest Semillon to try after we’d knocked off our bottle of red. A slow wander back through the town took us to the bus station and our ride back to Santiago.

Saturday the town was pretty quiet as a large proportion of the shops close for Easter (as in Perth, but there were still more people out and about). There was a market which consumed most of the morning and a fish market where we stopped for lunch (yes should have had fish on Friday) and another bottle of wine. The remainder of our time in Santiago was spent reading and lazing around as we were due to fly to Lima on Monday. We were very disappointed as we had read in the Lan Chile flight magazine that there was a wine show on in Santiago on Sunday. Unfortunately Lan Chile had printed last year’s details and we were a week early (stiff e-mail to Lan Chile required).

An early morning taxi got us to Santiago airport and once checked in we reorganised our flights to give us more time in Peru and Columbia. The flight to Lima was a couple of hours and in no time we were in a green taxi excitedly winding our way through the streets of Lima for a long awaited catch up with our good friends Brad and Eva. It was great to see them and the rest of the afternoon was spent catching up until our organised tour of Lima started. One of the guys suggested we visit the catacombs, which was rather spooky. Neatly stacked under the cathedral are boxes of the bones of people who died a couple of hundred years ago, before the cemetery was created. As our departure was early the next morning, most of us were in bed by 9.00pm. Back at Lima airport and after departure robbery (tax) we flew to Cuzco, high in the Andes (height 3,310m). We had a city tour of Cuzco and enjoyed a lovely dinner out, completely unaware of the pain and suffering that would be the Inca Trail!!

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