Surviving the World´s Most Dangerous Road

We have just completed the ´Calle del Muerte´ or ´Road of Death´ which is the world´s most dangerous road and the route is from La Paz to Brazil. More people die on this road than any other in the world, it´s worth noting that the second most dangerous is the road into Bagdad, so we are off to Iraq next to try that! The deaths are mainly caused by drunk drivers, tired drivers (they work 48 hour shifts) or passenger buses crashing into other vehicles on the blind bends on the single, dirt track, then going over the 500m sheer drop at the edge of the barrier-less road. That´s why we decided to go down on mountain bikes! It was a great 67km down a 3,000m desent on dangerous dirt road. We paid a high price to go with the best company and had great bikes, cool guides, a t-shirt and lots of safety talks on the way down. The only downer was that we had to come back to La Paz on the bus, up the same road - which was more terrorising then the bike ride down!

The road is the most dangerous simply from the number of deaths per year and some people have lost relatives or entire families. At one time a bus went over and an entire community were lost. Now, those who have lost loved ones stand as ´human traffic lights´on the corners where the accidents have happened. The show red or green flags to indicate if traffic is coming and truely they´re a godsend, however they´re not on all the bends and don´t man the roads during the night, so you´re reliant on sounding your horn and praying that nothing is coming! There really were some sad stories of accidents, most easily avoidable as there is a new road that has been built, but it´s not open yet. Its taken 12 years to build to date and so far is not finished, mainly due to corruption - that´s Bolivia!

The highlight of the trip was Stu being attacked by a cute, little spider monkey who jumped on his head when we were chilling out after the trip with beer. Unfortunately I was a bit slow with the camera and didn´t catch the cheeky, little, blighter trying to bite Stu´s ear lobes off. He was cute mind… at least he didn’t have claws.

Pesky Bolivans

La Paz is beinging to really grow on us now we´re used to the crazy people, mad driving and general way of life. Almost 90% (not sure if that´s accurate, but it´s a pretty high number) of the inhabitants of La Paz are indigenous and the women all wear the traditional dress , which is at least five underskirts and loads of jumpers and shawls. This makes even the skiniest old lady look like really quite fat, or like ´pequeña gorditas´ (little fatties), but in reality it´s an absolute godsend for them as the weather is so cold and most of them sit around all day manning kiosks or selling goods off the pavements. These innocent looking ladies are also well shifty and will short change you at blink of an eye. Any chance to overcharge and they will, pesky buggers!

The streets are bustling with vendors selling everything from bread to batteries and socks to clocks. You really can get anything on the street without even going into a shop. There are so many stalls, street sellers and kiosks now that the government it trying to regulate them, and of course this is causing uproar. The people of La Paz get up in arms about anything and regularly protest and cause road blockades where the transport system (minibuses and taxis) block the major routes in and out of the city and this can happen for days on end. They literally just park up in the middle of the street, bumper to bumper and then leave their cars or vans until late in the evening. Added to this are marches, where the protesters set off fireworks, mainly bangers, which sound too much like gun fire for my liking, but I´m assured they´re only fireworks. Tomorrow it should all be back to normal and by the end of week we should be able to make it out of the city.

It´s spring now and the weather is pretty cold. It doesn´t get that warm in La Paz at all, mainly due to the high altitude. You´re reminded of just how high you are everyday as the La Paz sits in a steep valley between a range of mountains topped with snow all year round. The streets climb the steep sides of the valley and many of houses literally sit into the cliff face.

Stu and I are really feeling the cold. Our hosts, and probably most of the inhabitants in La Paz don´t have any heating (and we´re staying with a well off family, the man of the house is an accoutant), which explains the many layers of clothing worn by the locals and our hosts. The shower is also frequently cold, so itt´s certainly different after Rurre where we welcomed the cold showers!

Living, Breathing Spanish

Safely back in crazy La Paz now and we´re living with the family of our Spanish teacher. We´re putting in loads of hours and spending more the day either doing homework or in lessons. It´s pretty tiring, but hopefully it will pay off. Isabel is a great teacher and the best thing about it is that she feeds us at the end of the lesson!

Getting back to La Paz

Well, this was quite a challenge. On our last night in Rurre it absolutely poured it down and unfortunately the grass runway at the airport just couldn´t cope and so we just had to wait for the grass to dry and for our turn to come round to fly out. So we settled into a local bar for some more mojitos and watched the beautiful sunset over the River Beni. We finally managed to get to La Paz the following evening.

Crazy La Paz

After spending 12 hours rattling all the way to La Paz on a ´luxury´Bolivian coach we arrived at La Paz - a crazy, bustling town with hundreds of people milling around. As you first reach the edges of La Paz, you come across a huge area where most of the poor live. It´s not quite a shanti town, but still fairly rough around the edges. This stops at the edge of a huge cliff that looks down into a valley where the main city sits. The buildings are clambering up the edges of this cliff as the city seems to burst out of the valley in which it sits. Quite a site first thing in the morning.

As we made our way to the hostel, there were young boys everywhere - sitting begging for you to get your shoes cleaned or hanging out of minibus windows shouting the destination of the bus, just in case you can´t you read the signs on the front of the windscreen. That was half said with sarcasm, then I realised that 80% of La Paz´s population live below the poverty line, so it´s probably a credible job the boys do.

We´re not staying long as we get a plane to the jungle in a couple of hours. This part of the trip is going to be one of my key highlights and thankfully it will be warm. (It´s been freezing as we´ve been at altitude for so long - so it will be nice to have some hot sun).