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Published: March 4th 2007
After Potosi, we took the coldest bus EVER down to La Paz at 3600m above sea level. Home of the world´s most dangerous road. Naturally, we had to bike down it. Logical isn't it??
We arrived in La Paz nice and early, walked to our hostel, had a nap, then did a walking tour of the capital of Bolivia - courtesy of Lonely Planet! We found some great little streets and vendors with lots of cool trinkets. There's a street called Witches Alley that has everything from llama fetuses to healing stones - and everything in between. It was a sight to see that's for sure!! That evening we booked our trip for the next morning. A hair-raising 62 km bike ride down the precarious road (and 6 km uphill...man, tougher than you could imagine at 4700m!) that once claimed about 200 lives a year.
Anyone else think we're crazy? Well, we were guaratneed a t-shirt if we survived it..so we figured it was worth it!
Actually, the road has been closed to most traffic now because they have built a new road (with guard rails and two lanes!! and i think there might even be road lines!) Imagine, who would imagine that guard rails would help prevent a 500m tumble down the edge of a cliff?? Crazy Bolivians!
Anyway, the ride was incredible. Thought I was going to eat dirt only twice. Neither time off the edge of the cliff - thank God! Once I thought I was going to careen into the rock wall to my right, and the other time i thought i was gonna just slide on sideways through a big patch of mud. I bailed neither time. Go me!! By the lower portion of the road we were just ripping it around the corners and down the ¨death highway.¨ I now can understand all those aussie boys and their biking up at Whistler - can't wait to try it up there now!!
After the exhilirating ride down (from 4700 to 1100m in a matter of hours!) we arrived at this little jungle lodge type thing which had a bunch of rescued animals - ducks, parrots, cats, and a variety of monkeys. We had fantastic showers and then a great buffet lunch served up among all these animals in the jungle. After lunch we had free time to check out the pool, play with the animals, chill out in the hammocks etc. I was wandering around somewhere, when i hear this piercing shreik that sounded like a monkey being killed. Or something like that. I turn around, and realize that in fact it wasn´t only a monkey, but Callie who had let out that animalistic shreik. I run over and there's blood gushing down her arm. She had been bitten by a monkey. The mean monkey Marcel.
Now, Marcel had just been rescued a few weeks earlier, and so he was still not as comfortable with all the tourists as the other monkeys were - and in fact, he had escaped from the cage earlier that morning - but they figured that he would probably be OK as long as people kept their distance. However, they forgot to warm our group about Marcel, so as everyone was playing and taking pictures of the monkeys Marcel took a fancy to Callie. Or so it seemed. It started out harmless, licking her arm, grabbing onto her hand etc. And then...the teeth sort of started to show...and then he was sort of gnawing on her thumb, playfully at first, and then when she pulled away, he wasn't a fan...so he chomped down. Yikes! No wonder that scream was so crazy! As Marcel had his teeth firmly around Callie's thumb, she tried to fling him off to no avail at first (which was probably why it sounded like a monkey screaming also...) Eventually the monkey let go and scurried frightened back to it's cage. We got Callie all bandaged up, drugged up and disinfected (don't worry, the monkeys all had their vaccinations and all that jazz...so my travel buddy doesn't have rabies...)
What a story eh? We survived the World´s Most Dangerous Road...and then Callie got bitten by a monkey. Despite Marcel... we still both got those t-shirts.
ps - there will be a posting full of pictures when we find a computer place fast enough. For now the elaborate stories will have to do. I'll even put a mug shot of Marcel up - just in case you ever find yourself in that same jungle lodge. Stay away!!
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Chugalug
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biking Lozza
Yes Lozza, so proud of you, a 62km downhill, I wish I could say that, highest i've done is only about 20km. Lame ass. Yep, you'll have to hit up the bike park champ. With a ride like that under your belt you could probably just bomb straight into some black runs,hmmmm, don't quote me on that. Good times, enjoy the travels and keep the blog going, you're rockin. Chuga ox