Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
La PazI realise that I am extremely behind in my blogs as my father has kindly pointed out to me but it takes so long to type this up and is costing me a fortune in internet cafes! So apologies for this and I will try to type quicker, either this or get myself a PA to type it up for me...Upon arriving we found a radio cab to take us to the hostel (a very cool old hotel with an old ballroom as a bar). The taxi driver was just a little bit mad, drove like a maniac, spoke a little bit of English and seemed delighted that we were from England. He put on his mix tape especially for us and we had up to the minute tunes such as Michael Jackson's thriller, S Club 7 and some 90's dance classics. After going via a cash point he dropped us off at the end of the street which had a road block (apparently the police just put road blocks up in random places at night). It was quite late when we got there and we were shattered after all the excitement of Lake Titicaca so just went straight to bed even though we were pretty hungry (shocking I know).The next day we got up early and headed to the tour place to sort out the next few days. We booked the World's Most Dangerous Road mountain biking for the Sunday and then I booked to go on the bus to Uyuni on the Monday night while Kate booked to go back to Arequiba. After this was all sorted we went for a wander around La Paz. It is another high altitude city but is a lot bigger, smellier and dirtier than Cusco. It does have a really good vibe to it though and I thought it was a really interesting place with houses as far as the eye could see clinging onto the sides of the mountains surrounding it. We headed to the witches market, which sells all sorts of things including dead llama foetuses that people bury under their houses to bring them luck. Now call me old fashioned but I don't see anything lucky about it. They also had lot of other disgusting dead things like frogs as well as little charms with symbols for different areas of life such as family, travel, money etc. Needless to say I wasn't tempted to purchase any of the dead stuff but they did also have some fab jewellery that was very cheap so Kate and I indulged. We then went to a place for lunch recommended by the Lonely Liar and it was pretty horrid. We just had salad but it was a huge plateful and really really bland. We later found out it's best to avoid salad in Bolivia due it being washed in local water -you can't even clean your teeth in the local water. In the afternoon we wandered to the coca museum, which turned out to be really interesting. It explained all about the leaf, how it has been used for centuries in a non harmful way by the Andeans to relieve tiredness etc and to help miners to be more productive. Then how the white man came along (typical! We seem to have done that alot in other countries -just shown up and pretty much ruined stuff there) and pretty much made it into this evil substance (cocaine) which apparently America is the largest consumer of. The Bolivian government tried to control the growth of the coca plant for its own use , coca tea and other products but it was very hard to do when most farmers know they can get much more if they sell it to produce cocaine. Also, I was interested to learn that coca cola used to contain coca and that Sigmund Freud was the first to try cocaine...he also late got nasal cancer and died so let that be a lesson to you. Afterwards, we went to the coca cafe and had some coca and chocolate cake. To be honest it would have tasted better without the coca.On the Sunday we went on a tour of the local prison (a bit unorthodox I realise). It is a very strange place where the wives and kids of the convicts are allowed to live with them in their cells,they have shops and restaurants in there and the basketball court area is sponsored by coca cola. This means that no other soft drinks company can sell their products in the prison and in return coca cola has slapped a nice big logo on the wall and provided someplastic chairs and tables to make the convicts more comfortable...tis the world gone mad! In the evening we went to the world's highest curry house and I managed to insult the waiter/chef by checking if what I ordered was actually chicken tikka as it tasted like korma. He told me he'd made it and could assure me it was definitely not korma. Ooops. We were up at 6am on Sunday to get ready in time for the bike ride and to make it to the cafe we were meeting at. We got there with plenty of time to spare and waited with the others for the guide to read our names out from a list. He didn't so I told him we were here to which he rudely replied, "you're not on my list, you should have been here yesterday and I have no bikes for you today." We were stunned and also really angry as we'd paid our money and specifically asked for a Sunday, we'd even checked the weather with them for the Sunday! The guide wasn't up for offering a solution but Kate asked if there were any spare bikes or if anyone hadn't turned up. He said they were waiting for one more person and he had one spare bike but with a sneer said, "but I doubt one of you is 6 ft." I was sat down at the time but stood up and said, "well I'm 6ft," which immediately shut him up. And just as that had happened, the other guy turned up to do the ride....in jeans and extremely drunk. He'd blatantly just come straight from a club and expected to ride down the world's most dangerous road. So bad luck for him when the guy told him there was absolutely no way he was going to let him be in charge of a bike and great news for us!We set off in the minibus to the starting point of the world's most dangerous road. So called because of the amount of deaths on it per year. However it is generally not used so much now as there is a new safer road. Even though the road is extremely narrow in parts and there are no barriers next to the cliff side drop and there are very tight corners, it is mainly due to people driving carelessly or drink/drug driving that there are so many accidents. Even so, the numerous crosses on the side of the road and the lorries still at the bottom of the cliff are a stark reminder of how dangerous it is. Even though the guide had been extremely rude, he did turn out to be really good at his job. All our mountain bikes were consistently checked for punctures and to make sure the brakes were working and we all kept at a safe distance. He did say that it was called the WMDR for a reason and wasn't just a tourist gimmick so it was best not to ride too fast/too slow/if you had been taking drugs/like an idiot. These were the things that were apparently the most likely to lead to injury or death. He said most people to be injured would break their collarbone but there had been some deaths too. One was a French girl who got off her bike into the oncoming cars and was pushed over the edge of the cliff by one of them. She was there for 3 hours before the ambulance arrived due to the way the system works in Bolivia. Basically you have to go to the ambulance office in La Paz in person and pay them cash and only then will they turn on the flashing lights and come to help you. So after all these warnings everyone was extremely sensible. It was a really good day and the bike ride itself was good fun, even if there were a few hairy moments. The big rocks and gravel and the fog at the beginning of the day made it harder in places as did the hairpin bends. We got to the bottom at about 3pm without a single accident and had an early tea at an animal reserve. There were monkeys running around freely which was fine until we went to get our food. We were eating in this separate room but one of the monkeys managed to push the door open, jumped up on the table and was literally grabbing handfuls of tagliatelli off people's plates. It was pretty funny but they're so naughty. To then add to the drama we got told to stay where we were as there was some kind of animal on the loose that had attacked a girl a week earlier and she'd had to have stitches in her head. It would have been a travesty for us to survive the WMDR and then get viciously attacked! Not only did we have to survive the road coming down, but also going back up it again in the minibus as this was the only way home. I dread to think what the driver's insurance premium was, if he had any. It was nice to actually see the scenery this time round instead of concentrating on not falling off my bike. There were beautiful waterfalls that spill over the road and lush green mountainsides. It was a bit scarier going back up as the driver was quite blasé having done this drive many times and taking corners quite carelessly. The guide and one of his friends getting a lift back were drinking some really strong local spirit on the way back and their tongues loosened. The guide's friend was telling us how our guide had missed a corner and gone straight over the edge of the cliff on his first time down - I'm glad they saved that story for the journey home. When we got back I went straight to bed as I still wasn't feeling well. I was rudely awoken at about 5am though by a very amorous couple. I was on the top bunk of one of the beds and actually thought for a second there was an earthquake and the earth had moved, the amount my bed was shaking. Dirty beasts.
Kate and I both had to get up early the next day as we were both leaving that day and we had stuff to sort out. Kate was panicking a bit as we kept hearing rumours that there were no buses to Peru but hers seemed to be running fine and she left early that afternoon for the orphanage in Arequiba. It was really sad saying bye to her, as even though it was only for two weeks I didn't really know what to do with myself and felt a bit lost without my traveling buddy! So after she'd gone I just spent the rest of the afternoon on the internet. I also went back to the Gravity Shop to get our t-shirts, CD with photos that we'd ordered and an apology. I got the apology but the t-shirts were the wrong colour and size and the photos weren't ready as Mike the guide had gone out and got drunk the night before and hadn't done them. A perfect end to a perfectly organized tour. Well done Gravity. I'd met a girl called Bex on the bike ride who was also going to Uyuni that evening so we got a taxi to the bus station together. On the bus there was a leaflet proudly telling us there was no other bus like this one in Bolivia and amongst the tips offered on how to enjoy the bus ride more was one that read, 'don't drink too much liquid as you'll become indisposed.' Brilliant. They also warned us that 180km of road out of around 560km to Uyuni was unpaved. We didn't think much of this until we woke up in the middle of the night and it was like sitting on a washing machine on spin. For the next three hours. I don't think many people slept, Bex was worried about the TV falling on her head that she was sat directly underneath. One guy from the back of the bus came to retrieve his boot from near the front. We arrived into Uyuni at around 6am the next morning and feasted on a delicious breakfast of 2 Oreo cookies courtesy of the coach company.
- comments