Leaving the beautiful and peaceful surroundings of the Island of the Sun, I arrived back in Copacabana by boat and found myself a bus bound for La Paz. I got on and immediately noticed a difference from similar experiences in Peru. people were smiling and laughing, greeting their fellow passengers with a polite "Buenas tardes" and it was all rather communal and friendly. By contrast, in Peru I found people generally were a little grumpier, less likely to smile with each other or ask questions of the gringo.
Two elderly ladies giggled together in the front seats, munching on cookies, while I sat next to a dapper old chap, the one with the funky suede boots I may have mentioned in a previous post. He asked the time and I instinctively presented him my watch face, which is analogue. After a few seconds I realised he couldn't actually read a clock and wanted me to tell him the time verbally (which in spanish works slightly differently). He was a cool guy though and later when we got off the little ferry that takes you across and I commented on his boots he did a little tap dance, Fred Astaire style to show his appreciation!
La PazYou arrive in the sprawling centre of Bolivian industry and commerce, La Paz, via the predominantly Aymara suburb of El Alto. It lies on the rim of the valley in which the centre of the city lies and is where the hopeful and the hungry flock to first when arriving from outlying provinces. It buzzes with life and as the sun went down, casting an orange glow over the buildings, I got out and found my way to a cheap and cheerful hotel on Calle Yanacocha. Tiny little room for little more than three dollars a night.
Spent the first day in town checking out the Coca museum, a comprehensive little place dedicated to the history, preservation and use of that iconic Bolivian plant. What was most interesting for me was the lack of distinction drawn by governments the world over and the DEA over the potentially addictive and damaging drug made from it, and the traditional indigenous use of the plant itself which presents little-to-no risk and as I found out, many quite dramatic health benefits.
The touristy area around Sargarnaga was rammed with street stalls and artesania shops, tour agencies and suchlike. It was generally more expensive than I was expecting, with little room for a good haggle, no doubt the prices hiked and held firm by the fact that if you don't buy, some other tourist will. The place to go for a bargain and more choice turned out to the Mercado Negro, a sprawling connection of stall-lined streets and covered markets, all interconnected and overflowing with anything and everything you can imagine, most of it counterfeit. It was mental atmosphere and I loved it. It was also pretty safe, as I found La Paz in general to be, with a couple of cops wandering round most areas. You hear a lot about the scams and the tricks employed to rinse out foreign travellers here but I didn't run into any issues whatsoever and this includes wandering round some of the dodgier areas.
The best museum I went to was the Museo de Instrumentos Musicales which you can probably guess is a wide selection of weird and wonderful instruments from around the world. The fact that you can actually play a few of the exhibits was excellent and the collection of drums and traditional guitar-like thingys (their name escapes me right now) was also impressive, but this man, inventor of the five-necked thingy instantly became my hero:
Overall and despite the traffic and inevitable pollution, I quite liked the place. With its colourfully old-skool 1960s buses, mixture of tradition and forward-looking enterprise (the Cinemateca Boliviana was as flash as any art-house cinema I've been to in Europe) there was lots to see. Of course, it is big and dirty but it was a really interesting place, the traffic wardens even dress up in zebra costumes which is downright awesome:
Death RoadHow could I come to Bolivia and not take the ride down the infamous Death Road? Its lost something of the true danger in recent years as the general car traffic that caused so many of the deaths and contributed to its reputation now traverse the mountainside on a new asphalt road on the other side of the valley. This aside, its still a thrilling ride, hurtling downhill with the edge always in sight. Its not hard to see how a slightly over enthusiastic biker could underestimate their line or braking need and go skidding off the edge, as apparently happened to one unlucky Israeli girl not so long ago. Its big business around in Bolivia with many companies of varying reputations offering guided rides down the 70km road that starts in freezing snow-capped mountains and ends three-to-four hours later in humid, neo-tropical forest. I chose to go with FreeBikes after being reccomended by some Kiwis I'd met along the way. Good-ish bikes, sound guides and a no-nonsense price that included the obligatory free t-shirt. I was sold.
We had a good little group of six and after kitting up in sexy waterproofs trousers, high-vis jackets, helmets, gloves and so on, we were ready to go. The first thirty minutes of the descent is on a smooth tarmac road so you can go really fast, gawping at the darkly dramatic scenery on the way. Then, the terrain starts to change. The mist descended and the road turned into rough stoney track which was pretty bumpy. We all set off, and I had a great time weaving in and out, jumping off rocks and taking it all in. We stopped to allow everyone to catch up every fifteen minutes or so, to take pictures and to admire the views. They should really change the name to 'Photo Road', with the amount of photos the guide took of us bombing about.
After an excellent couple of hours of speedy downhill (and a couple of slight falls), we assembled near the top of the final stretch which actually is about ten times as hard, technically, than the rest. It consists of some tight and very rocky track which is strewn with large rocks and tight corners and for those unused to off-road biking could provide some problems if not taken very easily. One girl in our group had no ridden a bike for seven years before coming on the trip (hmmm..) and just after we reached the bottom and I commented that some people would find that run fairly dangerous in itself, we got news that the same girl had fallen badly and was missing a lump from her stomach and in pain. She was duly rescued and taken to the local doctors to get painkiller and have her little gash stitched up. Lovely!
You get a big buffet lunch and a dip in the swimming pool of a local hotel post-ride before the three-hour journey back to La Paz which we reached around 8pm. It was a fun day and for the price, great value. It has lost some of danger, yes, but its still a good little downhill ride. plus you get a CD of slightly embarassing pictures and videos of yourself that I may post up here if I find a good one.
Next: The wildlife-laden Pampas area, which lies a difficult 18-hour bus ride north of La Paz where the alligators and piranhas waited around every bend and we did our best to channel the spirit of Steve Irwin. Croikey!
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