Jess' Mess: July 5th: El Camino de la Muerte

Well hello, welcome to July 5th, 2016. Danae and I woke up around 6? to have breakfast and check out of our hotel and walk a few blocks to meet our tour group for the day, called Gravity. Fun fact about staying in that hotel, it has 16 ish floors, and Danae and I wanted to 'prepare' ourselves for biking at high altitudes... so we ran up all those stairs the day before. We were out of breath after one floor, and high on giggles/no oxygen after the 5th. And you can't prepare yourself for exercising at high altitude in just one day.

a few stairs

Alright, we met our team at a pub in downtown La Paz. We walk into a very atmospheric place, dark wood, dim lighting, and a lot of men. One other woman ended up joining us because her fiancee convinced her to, but other than that we were a group of male adrenaline junkies.. and me and danae. However, a very friendly and welcoming group. Some from Germany, some from Australia, one guide from Bolivia and another from Holland, plus us two. We got into a bus with all of our bikes loaded on top, and head uphill out of La Paz, to La Cumbre, I believe. We started at about 15,000ft there. Took our bikes off the rack and did some test runs. They were very clear about not using just the front brake, etc etc. I felt a little like I was back running bikes at camp, because I did the exact same thing. Too many people take a dive over the front. May I just say, these bikes were amazing. The shocks especially. You could go over a larger than fist sized rock, just make sure you keep your hands steady and you barely noticed it.

our group at the beginning. It was pretty cold at this altitude, plus there were intense winds on the road, so this outerwear was really necessary.

The road itself is about 55 km long. It was built in the 1930s, Paraguayan prisoners of war, who all died because of either falling over the edge, or blowing up parts of the mountain to clear it and themselves with it, or sickness, or landslides. This is where it originally got the name of Death Road. For many years it has been one of the few roads to connect La Paz to the northern region of Bolivia, so it was well traveled. It is mostly a one lane, dirt and rock road, with a rock wall on one side and a deep valley on the other side, hitting depths of 2000 feet. Many many vehicles have gone over the edge. Starting in the 80s, a new road was built that serves the same area, and has been built not quite on the edge of the cliffs, is paved, and has landslide preventions in place; this road now serves the majority of the people here. Thus Death Road is mostly traveled by tourists and the local people who live along the road, not a lot of traffic at all.

Enough history! The first 20 ish km are paved and have guard rails, and is downhill. Sounds nice and easy, right? Well living in flat Manitoba means I don't have experience with biking at high speeds, and around sharp curves. The brakes on these bikes were used almost the whole time, while the pedals didn't get used at all!

Danae and I holding up the rear!

We stopped regularly, so we could regroup and rest our hands from all that braking!

Beautiful beautiful scenery

Alright after 22 km of smooooth sailing, we did 8 km of uphill, sitting in the bus and eating some food. The pavement and guard rails ended and we began a combination of gravel, rocks, dirt, clay, moss, and waterfalls. The guides emphasized over and over again, brake gently, do NOT look to the side because your hands will follow your eyes and you'll go over, don't go faster than you feel comfortable going, don't dodge the babyheads (rocks the size of babies heads) - go OVER them, keep your arms like chicken wings to absorb impact, etc. They were great, and didn't make me and Danae feel sub par for not going 200 km/hr.

the edge, a few hundred or thousand feet down

MANY of these

once we got 40 km or so down the road, it was significantly warmer and we started shedding layers.

This bus was with us the whole way down. What a great bus driver.

The group, minus a guide and the driver and the camera man

When we got to the bottom, we were around 4000 ft. Rainforest, wet and warm. Danae said "I'm definitely doing that again." I'm not sure how I feel about doing it again. It was amazing, don't get me wrong. But we couldn't even enjoy the view because we were trying so hard to not kill ourselves. I think I'd like to run it, actually. Some people do. Anyways, if you have steady nerves and like a good view, you should do this, it is totally worth it. It isn't strenuous on the legs, in fact there is hardly any pedaling necessary. It is amazing.

We went for a 3 o'clock lunch at a Animal Refuge nearby. Danae and I had booked a night there, so when the group left to go back to La Paz (via the newer road), we stayed there. Mostly birds, monkeys, crocodiles, turtles.. no jaguars or anything. The law says they have to take in any animal that is brought it, but the government provides no funding for this whatsoever. Most people working here are volunteers from around the world (Australians, British, American, German). The birds have a bird cage, the crocodiles have a cage, and a few bad monkeys, but other than that animals are out in the open. It's the humans that get the cage. The restaurant, washrooms, showers are all in a cage, as well as a long path from is encaged. Our lodging for the night, a treehouse, was out in the animal area, so we had to be careful because those monkey love to go into pockets, open zippers, take cameras etc. A very interesting night!