Uphill, Downhill, Madness in La Paz

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You would not believe the things that we've been up to over the last week! Blow me off a cliff and call me 'freefall' it's been exciting. Well, more exciting for one of us than the other, it has to be said. Upon arrival in La Paz, Ant's action button went into overdrive while Jen's belly button went into, well, let's just say she wasn't well for a few days. Like most people who worked at Inti Wara Yassi, Jen left with a little present in her tummy. Unlike some others, it wasn't Salmonella or E-coli, and we were very grateful for that. So, while Jen was in bed feeling sorry for herself, Ant found the freedom of a single man and hit the town. The excitement in La Paz came in three forms: wrestling, mountaineering and cycling down the most dangerous road in the wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooorrrllllllldddddddd!

And so, after a couple of days pottering, we'd assembled a crew of five former Inti Wara Yassi volunteers: ourselves, Tom and Katie and the freakishly tall Harman, a Dutchman who's height causes Bolivian children to cower behind their parents in terror. With Katie in the same pickle as Jenny, it was to be a boys day out when we headed to the first of the triple-header of life changing events - the wrestling. And my-oh-my what a treat this was. Imagine, if you will, how American Wrestling would look in a country with very little money, no health and safety laws, and populated by people with an unhealthy disregard for personal safety, fashion, self-consciousness or the ability to dispose of food without spitting or throwing it at other people. Welcome to the world of Cholita Wrestling. Strictly speaking, Cholita's are the indigenous women-folk of Bolivia who wear extraordinarily silly hats, massive skirts and usually weigh in at about three times the size of Bolivian men. In this case, there were two Cholita's wrestling, amongst about ten men who came in various forms: Spiderman in a tatty velour outfit that could have done with a few patches; a skeleton man who just wiggled about, but not enough to dislodge the paper bones sellotaped to his wrists, and others who, for the most part, should never have attempted to squeeze themselves into lycra at home, let alone in front of 300 rampant wrestling fans. We were lucky enough to be escorted on our bus by one of the Cholitas, a woman whose girth could be measured in fathoms and whose voice challenged that of the late, great Barry White. We cowered on the bus, fearful that the three of us would be the only people engaging in this counter-cultural display. We could almost hear the tuts of more ethno-sensitive tourists as we drove through the streets of La Paz. But soon enough, other heathens joined us and as we made our way up the hills of La Paz towards the hill top city of El Alto, we came out of our shells enough to buy some wrestling masks and get thoroughly into the spirit of things.

And so the games began. After a sedate first fight, we realised during fight two that throwing food onto the stage was compulsory, and as the rounds went on, popcorn, orange peel, toilet roll and even chicken bones flew towards the fighters. It was almost as much fun watching the crowd as the wrestling, as it appeared that the population of El Alto don't have much else to entertain themselves. Strangely, and most entertaining of all, were a couple of women - one of whom had the traditional baby strapped in a multi-coloured cloth attached to her back - who were taking it all a bit too seriously. They just didn't seem to get it. And as the referee cajoled the crowd by sticking his own boot in, and as the numbers of wrestlers in the ring grew to double figures, the women took it upon themselves to punch any wrestler that came within arms length of the crowd. But this was not jovial slapping - they meant it! It was hard to know where to look - especially when the Cholitas entered the fray and began pulling one another’s pig tails until one completely lost her skirts somewhere in the middle of a half nelson. Gringos, locals, young and old, but mostly young who looked much older than they probably are, were screaming and jeering as men and women of dubious athletic ability leapt from the horrifically unstable ring into the equally horrific and probably unstable crowd, but somehow, it seems, no one got hurt and the wrestlers managed to make it look like they knew what they were doing. More or less. In no time, the champion had retained his belt for another week and we were filing out wondering if what we had seen had been real. A glance back to see the food missiles being swept under the ring to rot - the classic Bolivian out-of-sight-out-of-mind technique - confirmed that we had indeed been privy to a kind of sporting event that only Bolivia could produce.

You would usually expect to need a few days to absorb the visual vomit of the wrestling, so garish, frightening and...unclean....and yet so much fun. But we had plans. We weren't in La Paz to pussy foot about and with only a day's breather, long enough for the girls to peel themselves away from the toilet, we were on to mission two - mountaineering. By now Harman had left us, but our ranks had been bolstered by Angus, a young man who lost more flesh and blood to a monkey than the rest of us put together! But even with a small chunk missing from his hand, he was hardy enough to join Ant and Tom in the anticipated ascent of Hauyna Potosi, the small matter of 6,088 metres (or 19,976 feet) of mountain, an hour or so outside of La Paz. Meanwhile, Jen and Katie would begin their convalescence by pottering around the nursery slopes of the mountain, occasionally glancing up and worrying that the boys had fallen down a crevasse. Now, let it be noted here that 6,088 metres is not to be sniffed at, especially when Angus had only just travelled from nearly sea level two days earlier. It's higher than Everest Base camp and in the words of Tenzing Norgay, 'Jolly bloody fucking cold, actually.'

And so, utterly under prepared and already wheezing as we said goodbye to Jen and Katie, leaving them with no cameras to record their adventures, the three lads headed up to base camp, following hot on the heels of the two coca chewing guides. Two hours later, we arrived at a tiny hut, just above the snow line, to be met by a group of six others whose general reaction was, 'You're doing this in just two days?! Good luck!' We would have responded, but we couldn't, we couldn't talk. The air is quite thin at 5,300m, and so instead of doing useful things like breathing, all we could do is squeeze ourselves into the row of sleeping bags and lie there, hoping to get some sleep before the 1am wake up call to head up the hill. Fat chance. There's nothing keeps you awake better than being unable to breath, especially if your head is also pounding like a drum and you're rushing out into the ice to puke every hour or so, which was the unfortunate state for a few of the hut's inhabitants. In the meantime, Jen and Katie had enjoyed a lovely walk to the foot of a glacier, and were, by this stage, enjoying a nice game of cards in front of a log fire.

When 1am arrived, it was met with relief, the end of a torturous seven hours of non-sleep. Out into the unknown went one group, then another, then another, until finally just the three of us were left, watching our guides chomping down more coca leaves for half an hour, before they announced that it was time to go. At last. We strapped on our crampons, avoiding dubious patches of yellow snow, and finally, lurched out onto the slopes of Huayna Potosi. We got about thirty yards before having to stop because Ant had a loose boot. This proved to be the first of quite a few stops on what was a far more gruelling jaunt than we'd anticipated. We set off well, but after a while it occurred to all of us that we were fighting something unexpected. It wasn't our legs because they soon got in gear; it wasn't the altitude because once we'd got going the effects wore off; it took a while but we realised that the hardest part of all was the lack of sleep. In spite of the freezing cold and in spite of us all plodding along, hauling ourselves up ice walls and steep slopes, the hardest thing was keeping our eyes open. As dawn approached and the summit came within sight, Angus chivvied us along and got us to the top. But then, with our goal in sight, we came across something that frankly, we should have anticipated - a massive ridge. The last 50 metres consisted mostly of a ridge the width of a human foot, with a fifty metre drop down to rocks on the left, and a nearly sheer 1000 metre drop down to the right from where gusted a sudden and pretty gusty wind. Seasoned mountaineers would relish such a finale, but for Ant this was nearly a bridge too far. But even a coward of Ant´s proportions couldn't give up so close to the finish line, and with the war cry of 'No me gusta!', the three of us hauled our heavy legs up onto the summit....and fell asleep. Well, not quite, but nearly. We were buggered. Properly bloody buggered. And nearly as surprised to find ourselves up there as the others who had written us off the night before. Unfortunately there's not many photos from the top as a combination of fear, exhaustion, frostbite and deliriousness prevented any of us from taking our cameras out for more than about one minute. In the meantime, Jen and Katie were still asleep.

We had about ten minutes at the summit, every single second of it, Ant spent shitting himself at the prospect of coming back down that ridge. But somehow, no idea how, we did it. And with the sun now up, we could see for the first time the beauty of the walk, which had been hidden from us in the dark. Massive ice cliffs and shards of ice like frozen waves made the effort seem all the more worthwhile. The beauty of the scene was probably hindered somewhat by the state of us three wobbling down like a trio of drunks staggering home from the pub, barely able to walk in a straight line. Through groggy eyes we still managed to appreciate just how steep the slopes had been on the way up, as our toes pounded the ends of our boots on the way down. We reached base camp in two hours, half the time it had taken to ascend, and then, hardest of all, was the final two hours back down to the refugio where Jen and Katie would surely be ready to welcome us home with open arms, warm blankets, cups of cocoa and loving praise. And to be fair, they did. Unfortunately, most of the above went to Angus who had well and truly lost the plot. The man was far from well, utterly exhausted and proof, if proof were needed, that going from sea level to 6000m and back again in under three days is probably not advisable.

But by jingo we did it!

And so, finally, the Road of Death. And by now Jen was feeling recovered enough to brave a saddle, proving that she was well and truly back in action. So again, with one day to recover, we joined 'Downhill Madness' to risk life and limb on what has been justifiably dubbed the most dangerous road in the world. Ant was particularly delighted that the group had chosen Downhill Madness, as it gave him the chance to shout the name and wave his hands in the air as if Alan Partridge himself had just walked in the room. The group now consisted of yet more former IWY volunteers, but no more Tom and Katie who were off trekking. Enthusiasm, it has to be said was mixed. Ant has been mildly obsessed with this road for years since seeing pictures of trucks trying to squeeze past one another above 600m cliffs. Jen welcomed the adventure with 'I don't like my bike.' But the bike was fine, as was Jen, and from the off the scenery was so mind blowingly spectacular that any fears or doubts were soon forgotten. There was a good hour of (mainly) downhill through stunning high passes before we actually reached the Death Road itself. Unluckily for us, by the time we reached the 34km of hairiness that claims many lives a yeatr, we were at cloud level and for most of the Death Road, the cloud hung thick. It didn't detract too much - for the most part we couldn't see the bottom of the drop, which lay about 2 metres away from our wheels - but just because you can't see the bottom doesn't make it scary. In fact, the cloud just made it feel like there was the possibility that the ghosts of all the dead drivers and passengers would come out and get us around every corner.

Now here's a fact that sums up Bolivia. In spite of the fact that this road claimed the lives of, on average, 100 people a year, and was the main road from the north east to the capital, it wasn't until 2005 that a new road was built. And that was only after locals from the towns along the road rallied in La Paz to stir the government into action. You'd have to feel pretty pissed off if the government of your country considered a road like that to be a worthy part of your infrastructure. Still, in the caring, sharing nature of tourism, and taking into account the suffering of all those grieving relatives, hundreds of us now pay a small fortune to hurtle down there on mountain bikes and collect a t-shirt at the end. And that's what we all did. And it was ace. The set up was great - everyone went at a pace that suited them, which meant that Ant and Angus occupied the leading pack while Jen tottered down like Miss Marple wobbling through Darraby on her way to discover a nasty turn of events at the vicarage. And when we finished, many of the group were already sporting their t-shirts which claim 'I survived Death Road'. Except we hadn't accounted for the journey home. Indeed, we had survived Death Road, at least the going down on bikes part of it. But we hadn't accounted for a bus driver who favoured returning back up the same road. Not the brand spanking new, safe new road. Not for our driver. We had to endure it all over again, but this time in a bus, being driven by someone else, quite fast. This was the real thing. This was what real Bolvians had to put up with, but us? We're tourists, surely not! And it was scary, much scarier than cycling down. But then that's a thrill we hadn't expected, and now that we have come out the other end safe and sound, we can say it was an even better experience for it.

So there we go. Wrestling, mountaineering and cycling down the Death Road. Told you it was exciting. But there is a smidge more. It would send things out of kilter to end this blog here because after eight weeks in Bolvia, we were nearly done. But we had one more, slightly less exciting thing to do before leaving this mad, beautiful, dirty, enchanting and bonkers country. We said goodbye to all our IWY friends, and headed off once more, just Ant and Jen, towards Lake Titicaca and the town of Copacabana. Every tourist passing this way has their time at Lake Titicaca. It's reputedly where Inca civilization was born and so that seemed reason enough to wander along. Sure enough, the signs that we were back on the gringo trail were all around. A lot more hippies selling the same necklaces and carrying guitars filled the streets of Copacabana and a lot more camcorders and groups of people shuffling slowly nowhere except in your way. There's not a huge amount to do in Copacabana except look at the lake or take a tour to one of the islands, and instead of taking a boat tour to the Isla Del Sol, we decided to walk it, a 17km trot along the lake shore. A lovely walk, but one in which we could never get the temperature right - boiling in the sun and freezing in the shade. Deceptively, this led us both to get sunburnt and chills at the same time. A language mix up saw us accidentally get in a guys boat somewhat short of our 17km goal, but we made it to the island in time to sleep the rest of the day out. The following day, we'd walked the length of the island by 11am and spent the rest of it being lied to and ripped off by boatmen. It was pretty, but not what you would call a spiritual experience. Not enough for us to dreadlock our hair and start wearing stripy trousers. It was time to leave. We'd been in Bolivia long enough. We'd loved it and, at time, not loved it so much. It's one of those countries, in a way a bit like India, that is still raw enough to fascinate and infuriate in equal measures. Brilliant, bonkers, Bolivia. Good luck to it.

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Photos

Spidey Struggling
He eventually overcame the fat bloke.

La Paz
And the city of El Alto on the slopes, with Illampu looming over.

Getting in the Mood
Just before the real wrestling began

Dirty Ref
He really was a cheating bastard.

Bolivian Bowler Hats
I apologise for not having photos of the full range of silly hats worn by bolvian woman. They really are very silly indeed.

Huayna Potosi
Presumably not the graves of mountaineers in the foreground, but we never found out.

Touching the Cloth
About to set off. We had no idea...

Sausages
Crammed in like a bunch of sausages, it was actually an effective way of keeping warm, if not sleeping.

Summit
Angus, Tom and Ant, buggered.

Summit
Tom and Angus at 6,088 metres.

Road of Death
As yet, this is the only half decent photo we have.

Random
We climbed this terribly religous hill in Copacabana only to find women selling hoardes and hoardes of toy lorries. Utterly bemusing.

Pigs in Shit
On the shores of Lake Titicaca

Down with the Dogs
One of several dogs that was far cooler than most of the people in Copacabana

Blessing Cars
On Sundays people get their cars blessed. Presumably they think this will save them from the perils of driving drunk and too fast on the wrong side of the road.

Big Sheep
Or an Alpaca in disguise

Donkey Mong
Jen inspecting the Isla Del Sol's donkeys

It's not just a head
A couple of the Isla Del Sol's yoof showing off their donkey.

Summit
Angus, Tom and Ant, buggered.

Comments

[freakishly tall Harmen, AKA the Dutchman who's height causes Bol]

awesome
Another awesome piece of work. I couldnt tell the story any better myself. Just a question though, would you "perhaps" have some more photos of the wrestling event and the rest of La Paz? I didnt bring my camera that day and would love some visual material. I've got a special mailaddress for photo mail purposes. Please let me know.