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Published: June 22nd 2006
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Dinosaur Tracks
This cliff is criss crossed with perfectly preserved dino tracks, quite cool Sucre is a delightful old university town; founded in 1538, it has retained much of its colonial charm thanks to numerous plazas surrounded by grand building painted in their original colonial white. It’s no surprise that the city was chosen as Bolivia’s constitutional capital. On my first afternoon in Sucre I jumped on the aptly named dino-bus, which ferries groups of tourists to a nearby archaeological site/quarry in a mock safari type vehicle. The site was created in the Cretaceous Period when a big swamp was frequented by huge numbers of dinosaurs whose muddy footprints were preserved, then fossilized in the soft algae ridden mud. The upshot of all this was an 85m high cliff covered with footprints of such famous dinosaurs as Velocoraptor and Brontosaurus; seeing the footprints of reptiles so long extinct was very cool. For the past ten years the site has been an active limestone quarry used for cement manufacture, the original 120m high cliff has been slowly whittled down to its current height along with layer after layer of irreplaceable dinosaur tracks. Luckily UNESCO has persuaded the Bolivian authorities to stop blowing up the cliff face to make cement and to preserve it for future generations.
View from La Cumbre
This is where the train began. It turned out to be quite a fun day out despite having to wear hard hats and follow a guy wearing an “I rode the dino-truck” t-shirt around.
Every Sunday the small town of Tarubuco 64km outside Sucre holds a Gringo market, tourists flock here and barter for supposedly cheaper local textiles. It was a pleasant enough way to spend the day, wandering round colorful stalls trying, often unsuccessfully, to convince the locals that I really didn’t want there produce. On the way to the market our bus got a double puncture and we had to hitch all the way there on the back of a truck. This was probably the best part of the day, since perched atop a sack of who knows what, our party had fantastic views over the local scenery.
At only 2,790m, Sucre is the lowest I’ve been in Bolivia so far, it was a great opportunity to strip off to a t-shirt and relax in one of the local gringo bars. One in particular called the Joy Ride Café seemed to contain every person I’d met in Bolivia to date, I spent almost every night with a different crowd. After three days I needed
On the Trail
My cycling garb, a guide & the mountains. to move on, a twelve hour bus ride found me back in La Paz for what had turned out to be one of the highlights of my trip, the world’s most dangerous road.
The road was hewn out of the side of a mountain by Paraguayan prisoners of war in the 1930s, in the decades since it has acquired the name of “The Death Road”. Every year an average of 38 busses tumble off its side, the most that died in any single crash was 100 people and the most in one year 358. The reason behind these fairly morbid statistics is that the road is the main thoroughfare between La Paz and Brazil; every day HGV’s travel along this single lane dirt road trying to pass and overtake despite the 400m precipice that shadows much of the route.
In 1998 a bright spark started a company called Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking, which planned to take tourists down the 64km road. Since then the company has grown and now takes between six and seven thousand clients down the road each year. The chance to do a 3,650m vertical decent mountain bike trail sounded too good to miss and I signed
Corners
This is one of the more spectacular corners we rode around. up sharpish.
A forty minute ride from La Paz took us up to a spot called La Cumbre, at 4,760m, this was the start of the trail. Before we set off the bikes were blessed with a splash of CEIBO, the 96% alcoholic drink that is the Potosi silver miners favorite tipple, we also had to take a gulp for luck- not very pleasant. For about an hour we sped down the initial section of asphalt road at over 80km/h, it was exhilarating to say the least. At the top it was bloody cold, the descent to 3,150m and relative warmth was very welcome; it was here that we officially started the WMDR. The transition was marked by the end of the asphalt and the start of the dirt track. During our decent the brown mountainous landscape that is so archetypal of southern Bolivia was gradually replaced with thick tropical rainforest, which somehow managed to cling to the shear mountainsides.
Over the next few hours we rode along winding rocky tracks surrounded by stunning mountainous views (which we were not meant to look at). At one point on the trail we rode under a vast waterfall which gave us all
a good soak. The biking was hard work, I was constantly riding off the saddle, and it took every bit of my concentration to maintain the correct line and keep up a good speed. From the start the people within the group spread out into a long line depending on their speed. The guide led the way and was followed by a group of about five of us; we maintained a fantastic speed all the way down the mountain, stopping every half hour or so to let the others catch up. For most of the ride the front group was accompanied by a venue of vast Turkey Vultures, which circled ominously above us. Apparently the previous week a keen ornithologist had paid so much attention to the vultures, that he ended up joining them - mid air. Luckily he hit a tree and escaped with a broken arm. I did wonder how well the vultures knew the roads history.
The shear cliffs that lined the road were quite an incentive to pay attention, but the trucks and busses that seemed to pass every few minutes also played their part. A series of volunteer human traffic lights lined the road and
Fun in a bag
This was taken towards the end of the ride when things had warmed up considerably. waved red or green flags depending on weather it was safe to go round a blind corner. Every time a vehicle came close our guide would blow on his whistle and we would all have to find one of the well spaced passing bays in which to shelter as the trucks rumbled by. Since we were going downhill and didn’t have the right of way these bays were always on the cliff side of the road, it always proved interesting when we came across two vehicles passing. At the very end of the ride the road forded a small stream, unbeknown to us this stream was about eighteen inches deep, the guides splashed through without any bother, about half the group weren’t so lucky and went for an unscheduled swim. I almost fell, somehow I managed to stay upright but amazingly it was the closest I came to falling all day. It may be advertised as the world’s most dangerous road but it must also be one of the world’s most scenic; I had the best mountain bike ride of my life, I just wish I could go for another run!
Once the bikes were all loaded up, we were
Group Photo
This is the entire group at the end of the ride. I´m at the back looking too big to be allowed as usual. taken up to Coroico for a gorgeous all you can eat buffet and a very welcome hot shower before the bus ride back to La Paz. Incredibly at the start of the WMDR a brand new, unused, properly surfaced, two lane highway has been built over the last 15 to act as a bypass. It has been open for a grand total of three weeks in the last year, the only comments I received about its continued closure were “bloody politicians” and “welcome to Bolivia, the world’s second most corrupt country”. On the bus ride home along the road our guide kept us entertained by pointing out where various people died and by show us the wreckage of some of the busses. It was quite nice to finally be able to appreciate the scenery.
Section for FM
The DH KONA bikes we used were well maintained and appropriate for the trip, our experienced guides made us all feel very safe, GAMB is the best company available, which is why no one has died on the road with them after eight years and 20,000 customers. Some smaller cheaper companies have recently been running trips with cheap, unreliable, poorly maintained bikes, which is why eight people have died cycling the road since 2003. Surprisingly riding the road by Mountain Bike is statistically much safer than going by bus!
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Anna O'D
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Green Eyed Monster
You have no idea how jealous I am of that mountain bike ride, sounds incredible. I think Rich and I are going to have to get ourselves to Bolivia. Glad to hear you came through unscathed. Lots of love, Anna xxx