La Paz and surrounding area

We arrived at the edge of La Paz, running into the usual chaos of South American cities. La Paz, although it is the world´s highest capital, is built in a crater. It is also one of latin america´s fastest growing cities, and the sprawl is spilling over the edges, like adobe lava, out of a volcano. The fact that it is in a crater also means that you almost always have to walk up a hill to get somewhere, which at 3660m, is a work out. We stayed at the hostal Loki, which is a good place to party but not to sleep. I can not say that La Paz is very high on my list of favorite South American cities, but we found some good coffee, which was much needed after a prolonged stint of Nescafe. We took advantage of the cheap prices in the markets and did lots of shopping for presents. One intersting area was the Witches´ market, where you could buy dried llama fetuses (Peter, guess what your Christmas present is!) and other unidentifable items. There was also a large balck market but we were unable to find anything remotely illegal. I think we just didn´t go down the right alleys.
We needed to relax a bit so we went to see a movie at the cinemas. In La Paz you are actually assigned a seat in the theatre but no one seems to pay any attention to this system and sits where ever they want. We saw Lions for Lambs, the only movie playing that was not dubbed. We had not idea what it was going to be about, but ended up enjoying it for the most part. I felt like it was trying to make a point, but the director wasn´t quite sure what that poinst was.
After the movie, we witnessed a fender bender, where one taxi driver cut off another. With the way South American´s drive, I am surprised I haven´t seen more crashes. I was curious to see what would happen next and how this sort of thing was resolved. The resolution process involved both drivers duking it out in the middle of the road. The driver who had cut off the other had a signigicant size advantage and quickly took out the little guy. I guess in La Paz, Might is Right.
We also went to the Contemporary Art Museum, which had some really interesting art. There was a very interesting exibition on, but I will have to get back to you on the artist´s name.


Disclaimer: Roxana should not read any further than this.

Just outside of La Paz is the World´s Most Dangerous Road (you can google it to get some pictures.) It has become a major mountain biking destination, I had beeen considering riding down it since we set out on our trip. I felt rather conflicted about biking down a road, that the locals had to use and claimed so many lives. Upon arrival in Bolivia, however, I learned that a new road had been opened last year, and the World´s Most Dangerous Road (WMDR) was now almost solely used for biking. This was the deciding factor for me, as I felt a bit morally better knowning that I would not be creating unneeded traffic on an already dangerous road. I decided to go with Gravity Assited Biking, the original company to start touring the road, which was more expenisve but also the only company reccomended by the Lonely Planet. Once out on the road, I was definetly glad I had not gone with one of the copy cats, as they looked like quite sketchy operations.
The ride starts out a 4800 meters, at a high pass 45 mins outside of La Paz. We were given our gear (pants, jackets, helemts, gloves and gogles) and a new full suspension Kona mountain bike. I took it for a few laps around the parking lot, and jumped it off a few drops, only to be left gasping for breath. At 4800 meters, downhill is the only direction to ride a bike. The first section is along a paved road, still in use by traffic. It would be a crazy longboarding road, as it is full of hairpins and winding s-turns. We also passed through a drug checkpoint, designed to look for materials used for making cocaine. It was the beginning of the rainy season, so we quickly dropped into a cloud and the visibiliy was awful. Personally, I thought this was the most dangerous part, as passing large trucks on a wet, cloudy, windy road is a little scary. Technically, however, this is not the WMDR. The WMDR started about an hour down the road, splitting off the main road onto a narrow gravel road. We were given another saftey talk and headed off down the road. As a mountain biker, I actaully found the road pretty tame, although with traffic I would say it would be much scarier. I would say the road itself is about equivalent to a logging road on Vancouver Island. Not particularly bad, but you don´t want to go over the edge. I think the road claimed so many lives mainly due to the driving habits of South American drivers, which is really something that needs to be witnessed to understand. Everyone drives around corners as if they know they are the only car on the road. The other reasons that so many people have died is that it has become a large attraction for people who really don´t know how to ride a bike that well. Really, it is not hard to keep your bike on a road a car and half wide, yet people still ride off the edge, the last one being in March. The fact that most companies do not give good bikes (failing brakes, etc) and are not prepared for any sort of crash, does not help. On the day I went, a rider in another group managed to hit one of the five signs on the whole 40km road and went over the edge. He was lucky enough to land in a tree, otherwise he would have been the latest life claimed by the road. We only had one crash in our group, just a simple front wheel washout resulting in some scraped up arms. Our company had the training and equipment to clean the scrapes (or deal with something worse), something others did not.
After dropping down 3000 meters we arrived in a small animal rescue center in the Bolivian jungle. We had hot showers and a buffet lunch, while other groups were left at small shacks along the road to buy something that didn´t smell too goodlook that edible. After that we boarded the bus for the 3 hour drive along the new road (which is a year old and already falling off the mountain) back to La Paz. Overall, I would have to say that I did the ride simply to say to rode the World´s Most Dangerous Road. It was not nearly the most dangerous ride, or even the most memorable ride I have ever been on. As Damon, our guide said, it is the most boring ride they offer (they have a two-day downhill single track ride!) All in all, it was still a lot of fun and I got a free t-shirt. They just need to build a few kickers to make it more interesting!

Note: I only shot a couple photos on the ride as it proceeded to get very wet and muddy. I have some pictures that were shot by the guides that I will upload shortly.