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Published: April 3rd 2007
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Death Road
Group Pic at 4700m Welcome back again bloggers, the last week or so has been fairly action packed so i have chosen a few highlights to keep this blog of mine ticking over.
Having left Cusco, Peru and headed to Lake Titicaca on the Bolivian border a day after the rest of the lads but accompanied by Sarat, Laura and Ciara.....we were left fairly underwhelmed by the place. Sure, its beautiful and the Cathedral there is awesome for a small town, but other than that and possibly the worst meal i have ever paid for there was little else to see or do. That in mind, we headed back to La Paz, Bolivia in order to find some semi decent nightlife and to arrange some more adventure.
So, we leave Copacabana on Lake Titicaca we hop on a bus and head for La Paz. The journey makes for one of the most interesting and boring i have been on. About an hour into the journey we arrive at a Port, the name of which i have no idea, we are tyold to get off and get a ferry across the lake to the far side, this is all fine........until you see the
bloody great big coach that you hvae just been on beiing loaded onto a raft a slowly drifted across the lake...strange to say the least. Anyway, the rest of the journey is fairly boring though the views coming into La Paz are amazing once more, the city is in the centre of a valley in the Andes and buildings and home´s spread out from the center and scale the sides of the valley....pretty cool.
Right, thats the boring stuff out of the way, onto my exploints down the Death Road. A bit of background is needed, the death road is so called because (before it was bypassed) more people died on it than on any other road in South America. When you see the pictures it is not hard to see why, in parts it is no more than 10 feet wide, and has a drop of upto 1km on the side that falls straight down to the jungle floor beneath........why did i want to do this after rafting in Cusco.........who knows...when in Rome and all that.
Its up at 6 am as myself, Gar, Niall, Graham, Sarat, Laura and Ciara make our way to the tour compaines
Death Road
300M Drop off the side office to get fitted out with our helmets and rain gear and to have our briefing. The briefing was short and went something like this- 'We start at 4700m and cycle 68kms most of which is down hill on gravel, so try not to be an idiot and get yourself killed'.
An hour and a half later we are standing at the snow level in the Andes......freezing our tits off. Then off we go, a group of about 15 of us from all over the world. The first 20kms or so are all down hill on tar-mac around mountain roads....awesome fun, that sees myself and the lads get close to 60kmph in parts and overtake trucks and busses with some awesome scenery aroound us.
The second leg was not as much fun, 7kms more or less up hill, tough work....so trough infact that most of us get of the bikes and walk up the last big hill.....with that over the real fun can start.
We all pul over at the top of death road, we cant really see much off the side as the cloud is coveriong most of everything and that visibility.....probably should have heard some
Death Road
TARMAC sECTION alarm bells ringing there, i think i have become deaf to them at this stage.
For the next 2 hours we biked down the side ofthis mountain, going as fast as our dispositions would allow, some of us faster than others but most getting the same buzz from bouncing round corners with a sheer drop on onside and a cliff face on the other, probably the most fun you can have standing up.....sorrry mam.
About 45 mins in my front wheel catches a weird stone and turns sideways, though i some how manage to hurdle the handle bars and jog to a gentle halt a few meters later......fairly nimble even if i do say so myself.
A few more hairy moments and about 1.5 hrs later we stop for lunch at the San Pedro waterfall sight. The cliffs above strect vertical for aboutr 100m and the 3 waterfalls that cascade over them ont the road make great scenery from a lunch site.......until i get my barings and realise that the Israeli flag that is on the road marks the point where a guy went off and died about 2 weeks previous, the lunch area immeadiately becomes less
Death Road
At the top of death road, me at Sarat in the front just left of centre attractive and a little morbid.....oh yeah to add to the flavour there was a cross in the distance near the Israeli flag, when i asked what it was for i was told that it was a memorial to 42 Bolivain soldiers who's truck went over the side 3 years ago. Why they felt they had to stay in the truck while it went through a waterfall on a road that was no more that 15 feet wide i do not know.
Well, about 30mins later we ste off again and all take our chances hockeying (a new word!!) around the bend trying to navigate the slippy road whilst being bounded from above by the waterfalls......pretty fricking cool i have to say. To make things even more spectacular we were now below the clouds and the view of the valley and jungle off the side of the road was awesome....if a little daunting.
More of the same death defying cycling for about another hour and a half as we make our way towards the finishing point and the town of Corico. About half an hour from the end our tour company took a different route to that of the
Death Road
Death Road rest, that route being down through a forrest. This turned out to be the best part of the day, flying down a tiny track trying to avoid massive rocks and your fellow bikers all the while being eaten by mosquitos and baking in the 35 degree heat. And that was that once out of the forrest the journey was over, we had all survived with only myself, Gary and Fergus having the most minimal of tumbles.
Well thats it for now bloggers, next time will be the journey into Rurrenbarque for our trip along the Rio Amoazonas in search of all sorts of weird and wonderful things.
Until then, you keep it SEXY San Diego.
Al
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Vanessa Coffey
non-member comment
Hello
Wow, good for you. I never know there is this kind of tour. Keep it up! My blog is http://khhchronicle.blogspot.com Dave says hi!