La Paz and cycling the Camino de la Muerte (Death Road), Bolivia

The city of La Paz sits in a "bowl" surrounded by high mountains and as it has grown the suburbs now also cover the steep hillsides. At 3,650 m (11,975 ft) above sea level it is still hard to breath at these elevations. La Paz is a crazy, choatic place full of narrow streets, markets stalls, people, traffic and noise. Crossing the street is a pretty scary proposition as the traffic does not stop for you even when you are on a pedestrian crossing.

I did not think I was crazy enough to bike the Camino de la Muerte (the road of death) but obvioulsy I am. I had wanted to climb a mountain from La Paz but this was not possible and this was the only tour available at short notice. The ride is 63km and is all downhill. We started at the top of a pass about half an hour drive out of La Paz. It was drizzling and very cold.. After biking down the main road for a short distance we stopped and the guides started putting the bikes back on the van. When I asked why they said that the next 8km was uphill so they were going to drive us up this section. I was pretty gutted as I had actually wanted to get some exercise.

When we finally got to the Death Road I found it was no worse than anything I had biked in North America. What earns the road its name is the fact that there is a vertical drop off into the valley below. Every so often a car or bus does falls over the edge. Our guide even pointed out a car where a family had driven off the road 6 years ago. He did not mention that cyclists have also died on this road which I read in the Lonely Planet.

We started the ride wearing lots of thermals, jackets, overtrousers, gloves and hats as it was freezing. By the time we descended 1700m into the valley we were sweltering in the heat and humidity of the jungle. One of the highlights was seeing baby condors fly overhead. Even as babies they are an impressive size.

As it turned out the most dangerous part of the journey was the drive back to La Paz when our driver decided to race another car and they were two abreast on a windy and steep two lane road. Our van almost collided into the other car as they were driving so close together. Luckily one of the passengers in our van spoke Spanish fluently and told the driver in no uncertain terms to stop. Even here in Bolivia there are boy racers!

Camino de la Muerte

Relaxing by the pool at a resort after the surviving the road of death!

La Paz

Doing homework in La Paz

La Paz

On returning to our hostal that evening I found Sue still in bed. I had worn her out from all our travels! She did tell me that there had been a big protest in La Paz that day and she had seen the police with guns and firing tear gas at the protesters from the hostal window. I did try and find out what the protest was about but I could not really understand the issues as my Spanish is still not good enough.

The next day we caught a bus to Cusco, Peru as were due to start our classes at a Spanish school for three weeks. We had only one and a half days in La Paz but we plan to return to this crazy place after our stay in Peru.