Fun and adventure in La Paz

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After the jungle, we had a few days up our sleeves to play in and around La Paz. We explored the markets, oohing and aahing at the llama foetuses and jaguar skins. We also spent a good 3 hours or so experiencing the bureaucracy of the La Paz central post office trying to send a package home.

We also did a day trip out to some ruins near Lake Titicaca. The site was an important cultural and political centre for the Tiwanaku culture between about 200BC and 1000AD.

Unfortunately, the Spaniards were not fans of devotion to anything but Christianity, so when they arrived they pulled down and buried a lot of the site, smashing the faces off some of the statues believing them to be false idols, and even carving exorcism symbols into their arms. On the other hand, the Bolivians haven´t taken care of the statues either. One was sitting in the main street of La Paz for many years, before being moved to sit outside the football stadium. During some civil uprising, it got peppered with bullets, and lost some of its ceremonial mask. Luckily, it now sits safely inside at the site museum.

Tiwanaku is partially buried and so the archeological society is in the process of excavating the pyramids and finding new artifacts. A month ago, they found a mummy. We spent the day wandering around the site, and it being our first ruin experience, took a ridiculous number of photos of rocks and stones.

After that, it was time for an adrenaline rush down the ´Worlds most Dangerous Road´. This road starts from a pass at about 4,750m and drops a crazy 3,600m to the jungle in the amazon basin. Some bright spark thought this was a perfect recipe for mountain biking, and I think they were probably right.

At first we whizzed down the sealed section of road, occasionally being buzzed by buses and trucks. Then, we jumped onto a one lane dirt track - the old ´most dangerous road´. This used to be the principal road to the town of Coroico, and hundreds of tired bus and truck drivers used to drive off the edge each year or crash into each other on the blind corners. Nearly every corner had a cross or four on it.

On one corner, there was a stone memorial where some members of the opposition party were rounded up and pushed off the edge. They wouldn´t have bounced in the 500 or so metres to the valley floor. Interestingly enough, the memorial has since saved the odd driver or two who managed to clip it and bounce back onto the road. Lucky escape for them!

The road is not nearly as dangerous anymore, as a new road opened late last year, bypassing the dodgy section. I was quite happy to bike the worlds most dangerous road, knowing that most cars would be taking the ´less dangerous´ road! Despite the new road, some vehicles still use the old one, mostly to access the small settlements along the way. This meant we had to cycle on the left hand side. The road rules are reversed so that downhill traffic goes on the left hand side. This is so the driver can look out his window and see how close his wheels are to the insane dropoff. It also means mountain bikers must cycle rather more gingerly when their wheels are about half a metre from the edge!

Where most were gunning it down the tar seal, the majority held back a little on the gravel to avoid doing an ET style launch into the abyss. At one point, my back wheel hit a stone and I wobbled a little in a spot where you really don´t want to wobble. After a little freak out by Ben (who witnessed the wobble and has a distinct fear of heights), we were back on track and made it down in one piece. The only casualty was an Australian who managed two grazed knees.

My mouth was full of grit from smiling and squealing so much. Good times. At the bottom we had a late lunch at an animal sanctuary where we got to play with some abandoned pets - monkeys, parrots and a baby ocelot that bore a striking resemblance to puss in boots (from Shrek 2).

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Photos

In the process of being uncovered
The pyramid at Tiwanaku

Monolith
Unfortunately the Spanish thought these were false idols and smashed the faces of some statues. This one had some Christian symbols carved into its arm.

Comments

[Liz]

Cheeky Monkey
That monkey better be about to have lots of babies or it needs to go visit the America's Biggest Loser ranch and lose some weight!