Dinosaurs and Death Road

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“Bolivia’s own Jurassic Park”…..sounds promising? Maybe not, but definitely worth checking out! So from Potosi we headed to Sucre, a Bolivian city popular for it beautiful surrounding valley but also Cretaceous Park, a dinosaur theme park. Racked with curiosity, we caught the ‘Dino Bus’ (pretty much a truck with plastic dinosaur head stuck on the front) out to the park and paid a ridiculous entry fee. About 20 years ago, when the Bolivians were busy mining away their land, they came across fossilised prints of about 8 different dinosaurs…and hence have now turned it into a tourist attraction. Now standing there looking at the prints, it was pretty cool thinking about what they actually were, however it was hard to take the whole thing seriously when you were surrounding by huge plastic dinosaur figures and a soundtrack of dinosaur noises blasting in your ear. At the end of our ‘tour’ (which was led by an over enthusiastic dinosaur nerd who spoke complete gobedegoop) we realised that you could actually see all the prints from standing outside of the park. So feeling a little bit ripped off, we decided that the corny value actually had made for a good afternoons entertainment.

After visiting a local festival and spending a day at the markets, it was another overnight bus journey to La Paz, the highest capital city in the world! Built into the side of a mountain with snow capped peaks in the background, La Paz takes your breath away at first glance, and then literally as you puff and pant up the millions of stairs all over the city. First thing on our to-do list in La Paz was to organise our upcoming Amazon trip, so once that was checked off it was time for ‘the world most dangerous road’ (also affectionately known as death road). Now this is a 62km road from La Paz dropping down 2,500 metres to a small town called Corioco. It got its name and reputation from the number of buses, cars, trucks, motorbikes and of course passengers that have fallen over the edge since the road was created. With a cliff along one side for the entire stretch, narrow bends, tight corners, almost no barriers (oh and a few waterfalls and rivers to cross along the way) you can understand its reputation. In 2006 the Bolivian government actually opened up a new road for cars, a double lane and much safer looking highway, but the old road is still used by local traffic and of course now by tourists attempting to cycle it.

So we started out and about 20 minutes into the ride I went straight over the handle bars! Not because of the road, but because I hadn’t quite worked out just how sharp my breaks were yet. Luckily they had kitted us out with full head helmets, knee pads and elbow pads and I survived without even a scratch (just a few bruised ribs which I discovered the next day). Once I got the hang of it, Zack was already miles ahead, racing the guide and an Australia motorcross nut….Loco! Along the road there were continuous crosses and memorials to people who had died, as recent as March last year when an Israeli girl went off the edge in the rain. But our guide stopped us frequently to tell us about the road ahead and if you didn’t look at the edge, you felt generally safe. Overall the track was brilliant for mountain biking, but I couldn’t believe it was actually used as a main highway only 5 years ago, a sign of just how far behind the times Bolivia is. It was an adrenalin rush, but also an educating experience and once we made it to the bottom alive and celebrated with an ice cold beer!

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