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Well guys, Tim´s still recovering from his nasty bought of Salmonella so i´m afraid it´s back to me for the next blog entry.
So, after Potosi and the mountain of death we headed for Sucre for a few more Spanish lessons and then onto La Paz, the ol administrative capital of Bolivia. It´s 3660m above sea level which makes for some interesting side effects: mostly pins and needles in the face and hands, a general feeling of tiredness and lots of trips to the toilet because there´s not enough blood to digest the food. Yummy.
It´s an amazing looking city though, filling a sort of bowl like shape in a valley so that standing in the centre the red houses look like they climb vertically above you on the hillside.
There´s a crazy market too called the witches market where you can buy alpaca chompers, scarfs, gloves, hats, socks, finger puppets, badges, books, pretty much any object you can think of and stick the word alpaca infront of it. They even sold alpaca and llama fetuses to prove my point that are meant to bring good luck if you bury them under your new house…. Needless to say this became our shopping centre for all the tacky xmas presents we could find to buy each other, thanks again for the 5 scarfs Timmy!!!
After our trip to Lake Titicaca for Christmas, the highest navigable lake in the world and full of evil poisonous fish as we found out to our dismay, the less said about the 3 days of Salmonella the better, we headed back to La Paz to complete the Death Road by bike!
Otherwise known as Yungas Road it´s a 61 or 69-kilometre drop leading from La Paz to Coroico, 56 kilometres northeast of La Paz in the Yungas region of Bolivia. It´s estimated that 200-300 people were killed yearly on this road and according to Wikipedia,
´Because of the extreme drop offs of at least 2,000 ft and single-lane width – most of the road no wider than 10 ft and lack of guard rails, the road is extremely dangerous. Further still, rain, fog and dust can make visibility precarious, and the road surface muddy, and can loosen rocks from the hillsides above´
And so, with this in mind, we booked a full days biking with Radical rides and set off in the mini bus with another couple from the Czech republic. Wearing full body protection of whole head helmet, arm and knee pads, water proof jacket and trousers we set off after our guide down the tarmac part of the road starting off in the cool Antiplano among the mountains. The first part of the ride is pretty easy as it´s on the main road and all we had to do was admire the amazing scenery around us. A new road was built in 2006 so that the really dangerous part isn´t used by motor vehicles anymore, thank god, just by us bikers!
After an hour or so on the road we veered off onto the real death road with no tarmac and just gravel and loose stones beneath us. Having little experience in mountain biking it took me a while to get used to the fact that the bike could ride straight over big rocks and I didn´t have to steer round them which was actually more dangerous as the tires kept slipping. Tim was great though and was always at the front just behind the guide who kept doing wheelies and larking about right on the edge! Ha, no thanks!
We passed so many crosses on the side of the road as we spend down, covering 64km in 3 hours. The drops on one side were so steep but we were going so fast and concentrating so hard that there was no time to be scared. The adrenaline just kept you going until we stopped for a break and you could see how far the drops really were! Can´t believe buses and lorries used to drive along it at all, and a few years ago the bikers went down with them!
When we finally reached the bottom we were in thick rainforest and it was so hot!! With all our gear on we were absolutely dripping so luckily there was a bright green swimming pool waiting for us at the hotel and a buffet of all you could eat food. As the other groups arrived we heard there´d been an accident where 2 men colided with each other and couldn´t get up. We also met a guy at the hostel who´d taken a corner too fast and been stopped by the only bit of fence on the whole road. So glad there was only 4 of us in the group so that we could go at our own speed!
Drove back to La Paz with big smiles on our faces and a great sense of achievement. We even got Death Road Survivor t-shirts to prove we did it, yeah, it seriously was one of the best things we´ve ever done!
New Year was spent in La Paz with Tim in bed after another nasty bought of Salmonella whilst I went out with a few people from the hostel to watch the fireworks from a rooftop bar – pretty amazing!
However, we´ve officailly started new year in Arequipa in Peru, whch is where we are now. A lovely , clean city with amazing achitecture and a rooftop wine and olive bar which has done wonders for our battered bodies and stomachs. Bolivia was certainly an experience but too much of it was spent being ill for our liking so it´s a fresh new start for us here and we´re looking for volunteering work as I type so fingers crossed we can find some for next month.
Lots of love
Sadie
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