La Paz and a nice little cycle ride
Wednesday, May 17th, 2006
Wired in La Paz
After catching another dodgy bus out of Cochabamba we finally managed to make it to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. For superlative fans, it`s the highest capital in the world, but it seems like everywhere in South America has got some sort of similar claim. All I know is that it`s bloody hard work walking up the steep streets when there`s this little oxygen in the air. The city is set in a big crater between the surrounding mountains, so flat streets are unheard of and breathless hill climbing is unavoidable.
There are many things that make La Paz, and to some extent the rest of Bolivia, quite unique in it`s strange ways. There`s the shoe shine boys who wear balaclavas to disguise their identities (freaks you out a little when you first see them coming for you armed with a shoe brush), the old ladiers in traditional dress which involves wearing a lot of skirts to give them a fat arse and a bowler hat which doesn`t fit, it just sits on the top of their heads, and then there`s the wiring on the overhead pylons (see photo above).
One attraction of the city is the witches market, where they sell everything from the obligatory colourful blankets and llama/alpaca wool indigenous clothes, to herbal remedies for everything under the sun. Then there`s the llama feotuses, gutted frogs covered in glitter with marbles for eyes (if I thought I could get it through customs he would be sat in my bag now), bird skeletons and other unidentifiable `things.´
After four days in this city we had to escape the madness so we booked our trips in the jungle and pampas, starting first with a mountain bike ride down, wait for it, The World`s Most Dangerous Road, or Death Road as it`s more affectionately called.
A small stretch of the Death Road
This dirt track of a road set on the side of a valley has the dubious claim to fame of having the highest number of deaths on it per year, so naturally you want to take a bike and fly down it avoiding the trucks and buses which drive up and down it. In reality, biking it is the safest way, you don`t want to be in a bus when there`s a truck coming the other way trying to pass on the narrow track. The drop in altitude from start to end is something like 3000 metres and it makes for one hell of a ride.
Coming out unscathed at the end I just wanted to do it again, but instead opted for a shower, food and a night in Coroico, the nearby town, before heading off to Rurrenabaque the next day for our jungle and pampas tours.
Ed