Advertisement
"I am a little nervous about biking the ´World's most dangerous road´, but it sure sounds like fun"
"Don't worry" says Santiago, a La Pazian sitting next to me at a bar who found my spanish comical. "We don't call it that in Spanish."
"Oh, what is it in Spanish?"
"The death road"
...
Well it was fun alright. Waking up very early (okay, for me 6:30 is early) I had a quick breakfast and jumped in the oversized minivan with Joe heading for the Death Road. It is called that, and its other name, because it has the more deaths per year on average than any other road on Earth. And, stressed my tour guide for the day with a smirk, these are recorded deaths. Lovely.
At about 10 am we arrived at the starting point of our mostly downhill descent from 4800 meters all the way to 1200 meters. Beside us stood a perfectly still blue lake (obviously as nervous about all this as I was) and towering ahead of us was a snowcapped Andean peak as a perfect V. We weren't the only tour group around: there were three other buses there pouring out
gringos in yellow and blue company jackets. The road was paved (well, this part of it) but the surrounding land was an orange-brown dust, perfectly settled by the lack of wind. As we stood around gearing up we caught our first glimpse of the bikes we were to entrust our lives with for the next six hours. Although alright they lacked some key features. Mine, for example, lacked a useful back break. Joe's was missing about a vertical foot. He looked, as he put it, like a clown on a mini tricycle. After having a good look at the bikes my mind drifted back to the waiver form we had to sign while sitting in the minibus: "...not responsible for death from any cause...". I turned more frozen in space than the lake.
After a detailed safety lesson consisting of, in broken but understandable English, "this is the back break - the baaack break" and various other things your father taught you at the age of six, we head out down the deathroad with one guide at the front and one at the back, presumably to collect bodies. The scenery could not have been more spectacular: winding down one
side of a valley, the walls rose up and up into heaven, a sprinkle of snow on the higher peaks. They were a greenish brown and looked so tidy - no oddly placed boulders or brown swashes of landslides - that you had the illusion that you were biking down a hugely oversized trainset. But, while barrelling down a road at nearly 50km/hour on a bike you were less than confident in you had little time to soak in the surroundings.
We stopped fairly often to regroup and to do the usual body count (8 for 8! alright!) and once stopped for a quasi-lunch just past a narcotics checkpoint. Here we were all again floored by the magnificant valley walls and were now able to see a mountain towering above in the distance with snow coating its peak. After about a half hour we were back at it, warned that soon we were to reach the uphill portion. Although not too bad, many complained that "this wasn't in the brochure" but all but one person managed to finish the uphill part. I for one enjoyed the uphill: at least you knew you weren't going to fall over the edge,
a thought that never fully escapes consciousness while barrelling down the narrow cliffside road. After a short break and snack we reached the dirtroad that would typify the rest of the day. Again we stopped for a detailed safety lesson: "do not pass the guide; watch out for busses; stay to the left; any questions?" Eight invisible hands went up but sixteen visible ones stayed down. "Good. Let's go". Lovely.
But the hype exceeded the reality, as is so common with these things, and the road (although it is literally the cliff, and at times there is a sheer couple hundred meter drop) was not as dangerous as I expected. At one point, though, I was caught off gaurd by a van rounding a sharp corner. Luckily my guide's instructions immediately sprung to mind - watch out for busses - and I swerved around without incident. From that point on, though, I was no longer tailing the guilde by a couple feet. I let Joe do that (my penguiln, right Daniel?). Our next stop was at a plaque covered with Hebrew beside a beautiful waterfall. The waterfall wasn't powerful at all: it looked like someone had turned off the
water and this was it peetering out. It fell from the top of the cliff above us onto the road we were to continue on (maybe 50 meters) and offered a great sight from our plaque/bench. It turned out what we were sitting on was a gravestone and the Hebrew and epitaph. It stated that an Israelli girl had flown off the road only meters above while biking this same route a few years prior. Again I decided to slow my pace a wee bit, and we continued.
The day was much the same, although exhilirating. We wound down the valley which continued to give, in the fleeting glances we took, some incredible views. At times you would encounter people, mostly kids, holding giant signs that looked like oversized ping pong paddles with one side green and the other red. This was to indicate to us, and motorists, that it was safe to proceed around a blind corner. Once it occured to me that I was entrusting my life to a ten year old who would rather be playing gameboy. But the road quickly drew my attention back to more important things, namely not flying two hundred meters to
a splattery death.
About six hours after setting off we arrived in Coroico, the picturesque mountain town that I was going to relax in for a few days. After a "meh" buffet lunch Joe and the rest of the group made for La Paz and I decided to go to a hostel that Claudia had recommended to me before. And I sure am glad I did. Although not the nicest place I had ever been to (just seemed... cluttered) the hostel was a series of clean, nicely equipped cabins centered around the restaurant and pool and all setup to face the amazing - AMAZING - view of the valley. Run by expat French people (and crazy ones at that... they talked to their dogs more than eachother) the restaurant was the greatest find yet in south america. Apparently, so Blackie the dog told me, the owners were ex chefs from France who, while on vacation, got stuck here after Jean "knocked a girl up". Fuzzy history aside I got a real, honest to god, strait from Mortons filet mignon and a bowl of delicious french onion soup served with the sun hiding behind a high valley peak but with
its rays still streaking accross the valley in bars of various brightness. Below, now a darkish blue like a snake, was the deathroad zigging and zagging and zigging again up and around the valley walls heading into the oblvion. After wine and a crepe I was stuffed, relaxed, clean, and more content than I have been in some time.
At dinner I met a couple of couples from Europe (Ireland, Poland, Scottland and Britain) who had returned to this hostel, as they put it, to get "fed again". We stayed up until midnight or so chugging beer and having some laughs before I decided it was time to go to bed. The next few days would continue much like this, with the addition of a pool and some marijuana. Let's just say it was a nice bit of heaven if a pause from my usual course of trying to get a hold of the South American way of life. And all this, for three days, for less than $25. Being Bourgeois has never felt so good.
Now I am back in La Paz with the task of getting my Visa renewed for another thirty days, which doesn't look
to be too complicated. I am, though, stuck here for longer than planned because of a bus strike. Joe and I have decided to part ways for the usual incompatability issues. He is heading to Patagonia and I wish him luck
I read in a book, which I recommend to anybody who wants to get a feel for what it is like to backpack South America, called "Chasing Che" (as in Che Guevara) a good line that I thought I would share. Symmes wrote that after a period of time travelling you go from a state of disorrientation - not knowing what day of the week it is - to a state of reorientation - not caring what month it is. He also talks about how the life of travel is one of material and situational reduction, one where you have nothing in your back but exactly what you need and the same for your psyche. It is a very strange way to spend seven months (I am almost five in now!) but also one that, once changing you, let's you observe life with a squeegied lens. Cheers to that.
Ciao for now
Advertisement
Tot: 0.073s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.032s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
pete
non-member comment
did death road when in bolivia and was a great experience! think the top to bottom is more like 4800 at top to 1200m