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I had been told that the drive into La Paz was nice. After Medellin though, I wasn't sure that I was going to be impressed. How wrong I was. As we descended from the Altoplano, La Paz appeared sprawled across the hillsides. Medellin is similar but where La Paz trumps it is the snow capped mountains in the backdrop. The journey into La Paz was interesting. Just after we left Copacabana, on a particularly narrow stretch of road, one of the buses wheels came off the road and it seemed as if for a moment that the bus might tip onto its side. I was s***ting my pants but everyone else on the bus seemed to be perfectly calm as if this was something that happens every day. Somehow the driver managed to correct things and we were back on our way. After some time we approached a lake. Some of the other tourists got off the bus but Marco, Caroline and myself stayed put, along with some of the other locals. The bus drove onto a boat (I say boat, it was a metal frame with wooden slats to form the floor on which our massive bus was about to come to rest) and we proceeded to cross the lake. We were slightly concerned that the other tourists were nowhere to be seen, especially given all their stuff was still on the bus. The altruists in us became more and more concerned, but as it turned out they had taken a different boat across the lake, which is what we were supposed to have done in case the bus boat sank. Good thing someone told us that......
We finally got into La Paz and checked into Wild Rover. We knew that this was a party hostel and given that it was the weekend, we figured it would be sad not to get involved. We enjoyed a few beers and then headed out for some food at Casa Argentina, one of the recommended steakhouses. We decided to try and be economical and order a 1.2kg steak to eat between the three of us, along with some wine. It turns out 1.2kg is a lot of meat, especially when you´ve overdone it in the salad bar and have fries to get through as well. Marco valiantly smashed his meat back but I was sweating and probably looked slightly ill by the time I finished mine. It was definitely time to pay the handsome sum of $12 for our meal and head back to the hostel. The beers and wine soon turned into Cuba Libres as the spirits happy hour kicked in, and the Cuba Libres turned into more Cuba Libres at the club we ended up going to (Hard Rock Cafe). It was not a bad night, though we knew it was time to leave when the DJ decided it would be a good idea to play Israeli music because there were a lot of Israelis in there.
Sunday morning was all about relaxing in the hostel and recovering. We spent the day sorting out internet stuff, with the afternoon´s fun and games in mind.
We were picked up by the gringo bus from Wild Rover at around 4pm. I had in my hand my ticket for what turned out to be one of the most surreal experiences of my life.
We headed up to El Alto, stopping for a great view of La Paz on the way and got into the Cholita Wrestling venue at around 5pm. Our $11 (BOL 80) got us ´VIP´ ringside seats, a bottle of water, popcorn and a ´souvenir´ which consisted of a few really dodgy postcards. We took our seats and waiting for the action to begin. It started pretty slowly to say the least. First up was Skeleton Man vs Batman. Skeleton Man was about 5´10", overweight and dressed in a cheap skeleton morphsuit. Batman was about 5´5", 45 years old and his suit doesn´t need describing. Their fight involved some random homoerotic interecptions from the controversial referee, some dodgy WWF moves and a lot of bad acting, before Batman finally won. I was really concerned that this was going to go on for 2 1/2 hours. The next fight between Spiderman and a clown did nothing to change this sentiment.
In hindsight this was probably intentional, because suddenly the evening exploded into life. The next fight saw the first of the Cholitas enter the fray. To put this into context - the Cholitas are who I had been accustomed to seeing in the markets, dressed from head to toe in their colourful traditional clothing. Yet here I was, about to watch one of them wrestle WWF style. Weird. To add to this, she was going to wrestle against a bloke. The Cholita was surprisingly agile. She was pulling off all kinds of moves, from throws and locks to full on body slams off the corners of the ring. The crowd was getting more and more involved, both in terms of atmosphere and in terms of the wrestling. The wrestlers would take bottles of water from the unsuspecting gringos in the front row seats and splash the water into the crowd. This would often be followed by a crowd member returning fire. In a moment of excitement I threw some popcorn at one of the wrestlers who had been thrown out of the ring and had landed at our feet. He gave me a look, shouted and made to climb over the ´protective´ barriers in front of me and I duly shat myself even more than when the bus almost overturned on the way from Copacabana.
The next fight was between two cholitas and this was more of the same surprusing amount of flexibility from two rather large ladies in outfits just not made for wrestling. It was the fight after this that was the highlight for me - it was a mixed-doubles tag team fight reffed by the much hated controversial referee from the first fight of the night. Things hit the pinnacle of surreal at this point as a midget entered the ring dressed in a bright red tracksuit. I couldn´t believe my eyes and had to ask Caroline to confirm for me that I really was seeing a midget in the ring. At one stage the midget got thrown into the crowd, directly into Caroline´s lap. He wiggled around awkwardly for a couple of seconds as she freaked out and proceeded to roll him off her knees and straight onto the concrete floor. I was in hysterics.
This was when I noticed the old man in the stand to our left. He was around 75 years old, had some very bedraggled clothes on and didn´t have any teeth, but he was clearly the person in there having the most fun. I watched as he stood and laughed, shouted in anger, waved his fists around and bounced up and down like a ten year old child. It really put a smile on my face.
During the doubles fight, one of the wrestlers got hit over the head by a box made of wooden slats (the type you sometimes get fruit in). One of the slats went flying and landed a few feet from us. We looked down in shock to see a huge rusty nail sticking out of it and directly upwards. Given the number of wrestlers who had been thrown out of the ring exactly where this slat was we were somewhat concerned. We looked around desperately for someone official looking but with no luck. Finally, one of the tour company ladies came by and we drew her attention to it. She nonchalantly kicked it under the ring whilst giving us a ´what the hell are you so worried about?´ look.
The next fight saw a new Cholita take on the nasty ref. This fight was ugly from start to finish with all kinds of cheap shots (particularly from the nasty ref). The old man went into overdrive. I watched as he approached the railings in a fit of rage and started shouting non-stop at the nasty ref. At the opposite side of the venue were two commentators who sounded constantly like they were commentating on a horse race. I watched in amusement as the old man made his way to them and tried to grab a microphone out of the hands of one of the commentators. I really wanted him to have his say, but security soon ushered him back to his seat where he promptly resumed cursing the ref. At one stage, the Cholita brought the nasty ref through the crowd right where we were sat. In a fit of panisc we all scrambled out of the way and left our chairs. The Cholita picked up a chair that was in her way and casually threw it over her head. It missed me by 6 inches or so and hit the Swiss girl on my other side square in the head. Looked painful.
All in all, the Cholita wrestling was a great experience. For just $11 we really got out moneys worth.
On Monday we decided to take a walking tour of the city. We met the tour group in the afternoon and it really was a great experience. San Pedro prison was the starting point of the tour, and what a way to start. The prison itself operates like a little empire. Each prisoner when he enters has to try to rent space in a cell, or if he has the money, to purchase an entire cell. Those that have done this are able to rent out space or the cell itself, whilst others use to space for business purposes such as restaurants (with the food being sold to other inmates). The prison is also a drug den. The inmates produce cocaine which is distributed around Bolivia, and probably abroad. Finally, and most shocking for me was that the families of the inmates often live in the prison with them. The husbands tend to send their children and wives out into the streets to sell things in order to be able to pay their way inside.
Another fascinating point was the extent to which Bolivias previous (corrupt and sometimes downright stupid) rulers had cost the country. One particular leader (Malgerejo) fell in love with a white horse that a Brazilian ambassador rode in on and gave away an area of land in exchange for the horse - this land is now the Brazilian Pantanal which generates vast amounts of money in tourism and resources. There´s also the coast that was given away to Chile (the only bit of coast that Bolivia had) which the Bolivian government is now trying to get back. The tour also went through the Witches Market, so called because of all the strange things that are sold there for religious or superstitious reasons, the prime example being llama foetuses.
We had booked onto a Death Road tour for Tuesday which was set to leave at 7:30am. Marco and I managed to spend a little too much time at the Wild Rover bar on Monday night and so having had just 3 1/2 hours sleep, we were set to cycle down the world´s most dangerous road. We had signed up with Baracuda Tours and were taken up into the mountains around an hour´s drive outside La Paz. Here we were given our bikes and our gear which consisted of a regular helmet, gloves, mask, ridiculously baggy trousers and ridiculously baggy long-sleeved Baracuda jacket. We made a small offering to PachaMama (Mother Earth) by pouring a small amount of 96% proof alcohol onto the floor and then taking a small sip of the stuff from the bottle. The stuff almost burned my face off.
We were given the brief and then got on the bikes for the easy bit. Around 2 hours of downhill cycling on pristine new roads (this was the new road that had replaced part of Death Road). This was all plain sailing and although the weather was cloudy, obscuring what would have been great views, the experience was exhilerating because of the speeds we reached.
The next part was where things got interesting. We were a large group and had 3 guides, one of whom led, one of whom went in the middle and one of whom was right at the back, always behind the last cyclist. Behind all this were out two transport (slash emergency ambulance) vehicles. We set off on the real Death Road, which is a narrow winding path that consisted mainly of gravel-like stones. On one side was the mountain that the road hugged and on the other, a sheer drop to certain death. The fact that the drop was concealed by fog made it slightly more terrifying as you couldn´t actually see how far you would fall. As we went on I was concentrating really hard, making sure I breaked well in advance of every corner so I could stay on the few parts of the road that weren´t gravelly (and hence more likely to make me slide and lose control). Then the rain came. I had my glasses on and so they became like a winshield with no wipers. Covered in raindrops and very very difficult to see through. At the first break, I got onto the bus to get my contacts, only to find that my bag had a hole in it and one of them had fallen out. I had to stick with the glasses which meant that as we continued, I had to use them to scout the terrain 30m ahead of me for any big problematic rocks and then hope I could remember where they were if there were any. For 2 hours this was how things went on. It was terrifying on the one hand but really quite exhilerating on the other.
After 3 hours or so of difficult cycling, we reached the end game. We were all totally exhausted and relieved. It was whilst we were enjoying a post-cycle beer that we got the bad news. One of our group had fallen off her bike. Cherie, a slightly older American had gone over the front of her handlebars. She hadn´t gone off the edge, but she had gone straight into the mountainside. We later discovered that she had broken her jaw and a vertebrae in her back, and required surgery. The mood on the journey home was somewhat sombre as a result.
I realised in hindsight that Death Road seems like something that´s ok to do because they let tourists do it. At the same time, this was Bolivia. Anything you do, you do completely at your own risk. There are no barriers around Death Road, nothing to stop you going off the edge of the mountain. It might have been fun but it´s also ridiculously dangerous and if I could go back, I´d seriously reconsider doing this.
Our final couple of days in La Paz involved more partying, steak and other great food. Caroline and I said goodbye to Marco and set off on the bus for Rurrenabaque.
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