Our first impressions of Bolivia weren't great. We came in via a bus from Puno to Copacabana, which turned out to be a total gringo town, full of crappy market stalls and extremely overpriced, average food. (It seems to me that in Latin America the more expensive a restaurant is, the more it's solely catered to tourists, and the more bad imitations of 'traditional' western food they serve). We nearly got stuck in Copacabana - even though it's a tourist town, it turns out there's no atm's anywhere in town. So we only had a bit of cash left we'd got at the border, which was just enough to cover our night's accomodation. We had to sell our Peru guide book for cash to get a bus ticket out of town.
Half way through the trip from Copacabana to La Paz, we all had to disembark the bus so they could put it on a rickety old wooden platform, to ferry across a part of Lake Titicaca. We were worried the ferry fare would exhaust our little supply of loose change we had left, but even though the ticket salesman ripped me off 1 boliviano (about 20 cents!), we had just enough to scrape by. The ferry ride gave us a good chance to meet the other travellers on the bus - all us tourists grouped up because none of us had a clue what was happening.
From one of these other tourists I learnt about the "Death Road" in La Paz. Apparently the main highway north from the city used to be a narrow dirt road which wound around the mountains and was notorious for how many people died on it each year (some estimates say about 300 people each year!). A few years back the Bolivian government built a new highway, which meant the old road is only used for local traffic, and for extreme-thrill-seeking-mountain-bikers who can ride the whole way downhill without having to peddle at all. There's a bunch of companies in La Paz which take you up to the top of the road, rent you a bike and gear, and then let you race from the mountains (at 4700m altitude) down to the forest (1000m altitude). I decided to sign up with one that claimed to have a perfect safety record and give it a shot!
Our tour had a great group of about 14 people, of which over half were Australian! After about an hour drive out of La Paz and up through the surrounding mountains, we reached the top, where we had a quick training session to familiarise ourselves with the bikes (and the brakes!). The first downhill section was paved, but was scary because it was still part of the main highway and was full of traffic... including lots of oversized trucks, which we had to grit our teeth and overtake.
After about an hours ride (about 20km, all downhill), we started on the "death road" part of the ride. This bit was really scary, with a slippery gravel surface and sheer drops on the side. The worst part was that we had to ride on the outside of the road - the side closest to the edge. All up-hill traffic has the right to the other side of the road.
We all survived this hard bit, but honestly I'm really surprised that more riders don't fall off the road. We'd had a few close calls on our trip, and there was another four groups doing the same ride at the same time - so it's a lot of people to potentially make mistakes. One of the other groups was full of idiots who were treating the whole thing like a competition too - they kept overtaking dangerously with no warning at all. (When I got back to our hotel later that day, I did a bit of googling and found that just last year a rider fell off the road to his death).
At the bottom of the ride, we'd left behind all the mountainous altitudes and were right back in the tropics. You could really feel the difference in temperature and mugginess in the air. Maryanne and I were really glad that we've passed that part of our travels - and that we were heading back to La Paz, high altitudes, and cool temperatures.
All in all, it was a fun day, and I'm really happy because I've achieved one of my goals for this trip - overcoming my fear of heights. I'm not sure when it happened, but now they just don't bother me - I can climb anything and look down massive cliffs without problem, when before I'd be freaking out at the slightest drop. Oh, and if anyone's looking for a good company to do the death ride with, I'd recommend B-Side adventures.
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