La Paz, 'Death Road' to Coroico - Week 36

20th to 22nd May

We spent Sunday afternoon and Monday mooching round La Paz in the endless markets and booking tours to keep us entertained until Katie's Mum and Dad arrive on Saturday.

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Interesting markets, live guinea pigs for sale to fry-up!!

Yet another Bolivian demonstration, bus driver´s pay this time.

On Tuesday was the long-awaited 6 hour mountain bike trip down 'The World's Most Dangerous Road'. James was mega-excited and Katie terrified. We booked with a really professional company, B-side Adventures, who had excellent bikes. They were Iron Horse Yakuza Ojiki 2006 if you´re interested?! We left La Paz in the mini-bus and drove for a couple of hours to the summit at 4800m, which was actually not yet the 'death' road but 32km of nice wide tarmac. Katie began to feel a bit better about the whole thing and we whizzed off down the road. There were still incredibly steep drops from the road but the tarmac made everything feel very safe, even though we were going over 35mph! There was about 20 minutes of uphill and we were both very pleased to be the only ones that didn't get off the bikes and arrived at the top first!!

Ready to set off at 4800m with snow capped mountains in the background...

The scenery was unbelievable (the only reason Katie got on the bike in the first place!), we were cycling down a road through an enormous valley, completely surrounded by huge mountains. It was hard to keep our eyes on the road!

So, all was going well and then we reached the 'death road'. We had been very careful not to use this term before we did the trip as it just really sounded too much like tempting fate but, hey, now we've survived...!! It looked absolutely terrifying (to Katie, to James - not so much!). It was a stony one lane track with a sheer drop (in some places over a 900m drop!) that we were to cycle and we had reached cloud level (aprox 2800m) so you could barely see the scenery any more (which turned out to be a bonus as you can't really be scared of sheer drops that you can't see!). Katie and one of the other girls were seriously about to cry but there was no turning back at that point (imagine the ridicule!!) so off we went, very slowly.

Our group next to hundred of metres of nothing...

It´s not called dangerous for nothing! It is legendary for its extreme danger and in 1995 the Inter-American Development Bank christened it as the "world's most dangerous road". One estimate is that 200-300 travellers are killed yearly along the road, with 2 vehicles going over the edge every month. On July 24 1983, a bus veered off the Yungas Road and into a canyon, killing more than 100 passengers in what is said to be Bolivia's worst road accident. There were lots of memorials on the wat down to those who had lost their lives in falls.

There is some positive news. They have opened a new section of road to bypass the dangerous section 6 months ago. Now the mountain biking is much safer, we didn´t come across another car on the whole run down. It still is very dangerous though. Just a couple of months ago an exuberant Israeli slipped off the side of the road on a mountain bike tour falling 190m. The pictures below show what it was like before the new road opened - Bolivia really is a crazy country...

Saying all that, it was great! Really not technical at all which inevitably split the group by speed so James raced off with another practised mountain biker from the Netherlands and one guide and Katie proudly brought up the rear with the other five and the second guide [remember here, I DID beat them all UP hill ;) ]. All was going well in the B team until Katie had a recurrence of food poisoning cramps which were enough to make her cry but there were only 20 mins to go so she made it to the end!

Can you spot us, we´re the little yellow dots.

So after starting surrounded by snow-capped mountains at 4800m we finished up at 1100m in tropical jungle. Then after packing the bikes away we went to Coroico, a lovely little town settled on the edge of the valley at about 4pm for a lovely hot shower and buffet dinner in one of the hotels. We decided to stay for the night and walked up the hill to a beautiful place to stay, Sol y Luna. It was a group of cabañas on the hillside, really secluded and comfy:

Grampa James & Granny Katie in our little abode.

After hanging round in deckchairs reading our books and admiring the view all the next morning, we headed back down into the town and bumped into Alex and Matthew that we had met in Mendoza two months ago! It was the Champions League Final too, so what better excuse for a few afternoon beers??

The minibus back to La Paz in the dark and the fog on the new road was actually far more scary than the bike ride. We just had to put our faith in the driver and hope for the best!! We were back in the La Paz hostel safe and sound by 9pm.


Books we read: Crazy in Alabama by Mark Childress