My mate Annie from the Salkantay trek has also planned to
head to Bolivia so we catch a bus from Cusco to La Paz. Much of the road
snakes around Lake Titicaca on the border of Peru and Bolivia. It’s the largest
lake in South America and at 3,812m above sea level is apparently the highest
navigable lake in the world.
The highlight of this trip for me is the barge that
takes the bus across a narrow section of the lake - this thing is seriously
third world - the bus can barely fit on it, it looks as though someone’s gone
to the local rubbish dump, grabbed some shit that looks like it’s gonna float,
bashed it into the shape of some kind of rustic raft and hoped for the best.
We’re feeling pretty relieved we don’t have to stay on the bus when it’s
ferried over, instead we jump on smaller boats that take us to the other side
while we anxiously wait to see if our bus is going to make it. On the way, we stop by a place called Copacabana, a cool little town on the lakefront. It seems like it'd be nice to hang here for a day but we decide to punch on
to La Paz.
Snaking down through the steep streets toward the heart of
La Paz, I’m greeted by a sea of red brick buildings, I’m
digging the women in traditional clothing, not wearing it to impress tourists -
it’s just how they roll. Somewhat out of place are the people dressed in zebra
costumes helping people cross the road safely- possibly the only safe thing I
will see in this country!
La Paz ranges from 3200 to 4000m above sea level, you really
notice the thin air walking up the steep streets. Checking into the hostel, I
hit the hay early after a long and exhausting journey. I’mn also well aware of
the fact that Bolivia is notorious for scams and people trying to stitch up
tourists in general, from the fake policemen who ‘search your bags for drugs’
(only for you to open your bag later and find all your valuables gone), to the
act of throwing something disgusting at you (often human faeces) and some ‘kind
stranger’ offering to help you clean it up while their mate makes off with your
bag! Just like anywhere in South America, it pays to keep your wits about you.
First up on the hit list is the Descendo Del Condor, a Red
Bull sponsored downhill mountain bike event. This is an amazing course; some of
the world’s best downhill riders lose around 1000m of altitude through an urban
course consisting of stairs, goat-tracks and manmade jumps, over an intense 2-3
minutes. As I’m a white guy with a good camera, I use some of my rookie Spanish
to try and convince the local security that I’m a professional photographer. Somehow
I pull it off and I get to access the VIP area – free food, Red Bull and
hanging with (staring at) the South American Red Bull girls. Terrible outcome.
Annie and I with the Red Bull girls
The finalists
Death Road. The most dangerous road in the world. On a
mountain bike. Shit yes.
There are a number of operators for this tour – all based in
La Paz. I go with a company called Vertigo – they have good safe bikes, are
professional and are pretty cheap. They pick us up in the morning and drive us
to the top of a mountain a short drive out of the city. The day starts on the
sealed road – I surprise myself as I thought I was going to be taking it easy..
next thing I’m trying to keep up with the guides as we’re pushing 70+kph down
these amazing winding roads.
We take regular stops so the stragglers can catch
up. After an hour or so of downhill, we hit the gravel section. This used to be
the main route for all of the cars and buses, now there’s an alternative (and
much safer route). Apparently 200-300 people were killed annually along this
narrow road (normally buses or cars plunging off the vertical faces- look closely and I can still see the odd bit of wreckage below). Nowadays the odd car still uses the road, so we have to keep our
wits about us. A few cyclists have died, but normally it’s just Darwin’s theory
in action – like don’t try and take selfies as you ride on a gravel road along
the top of an unprotected 300m vertical cliff!!
Confidence levels are rising throughout the day and we’re
all pushing each other. At one waypoint I realise I’ve lost my phone – there’s
a small rip in my jacket pocket and the phone has managed to somehow bounce
around and slip out of this. I begrudgingly pedal back uphill, that sinking
feeling in my stomach. Our support vehicle driver asks me what I’m up to – I
tell him I’ve lost my phone and he races back uphill ahead of me. I immediately
regret telling him – that phone is probably worth six months wages to him. My
search comes up fruitless, and when I catch up with him he tells me the same.
There’s that seed of distrust in my mind that maybe he did find it, but ah well
what are ya gonna do?!
The good thing now is that the rest of the riders are well
ahead of me – the phone can be replaced after all and the good thing is I now get
to open right up and have an amazing long run to catch up to the pack.
As we lose altitude, the climate changes from dry, windy and
bloody freezing to hot and humid in the valley floor. After a long day it’s the
perfect spot to unwind and have a few beers. What an amazing day. One of the
highlights of my trip to date - I can’t recommend this enough to anyone going
to Bolivia.
Next up is a visit to the Amazon, to a town called Rurrenabaque.
Unfortunately the planes there aren’t running due to thunderstorm activity so the only option is by road. I
randomly bump into a Emilie and Therese (who I was hanging with in Argentina!) they are also dead keen on heading there with a few others, so
we decide to get a 4WD truck with a driver to get us there.
This 12 hour journey is the true death road. Our driver is either a madman, or brilliant, or
both. This is possibly the most scared I’ve been in my life. It’s basically a
one to one and a half lane wide road running along a valley. You drive on the
opposite side of the road here so the driver can be on the outside of the road see
exactly where his tyres are relative to the cliffs!! With huge drop offs below,
the drivers have to be on their A game. When two vehicles come toward each
other, often there’s an awkward standoff before one slowly creeps along the
outside edge, tyres crawling aloing the edge. We witness a fair bit of carnage
during this drive – a few crashed cars (including one crushed 4WD just like
ours that had slipped off the road down to the riverbed below), not to mention
the near-misses we had when an oncoming car would materialise out of the dusty
air and we’d have to take last second evasive action. Just mental.
Vanessa, Ida, Janis, Emilie and Therese
Typical road carnage
Mini venison
We finally arrive in Rurrenabaque and catch another ride out
to the Pampas – these rivers form part of the Amazon system. It's freakin hot here too. We jump into some
boats and start crusing up the river.
One of the first animals we spot is the omnipresent capybara – for some
reason these remind me of Brian from Family Guy. See the resemblence?!
There are some pretty cool birds, monkeys and a heap of
caiman and alligators. We get to a wider
area of the river where the pink dolphins hang out. Our guide asks if we want
to jump in to swim with them.. I think he’s joking at first, especially as
there are a heap of alligators on the bank. Turns out he’s not. I ask him
whether it’s safe, he assures me it is. Pretty much any activity known to man
seems safe compared to the drive here and as it’s probably the only chance in
my life I’ll get to swim with a goddam pink dolphin I take the plunge into the
muddy brown water. The dolphins get really close to me, but it’s so murky you
can only see them when they break the surface. I figure I’ve pushed my luck far
enough when my hand hits something very hard as I’m swimming though the water, quite
possibly an alligator. Yeah, I might jump back into the boat now eh.
Pink dolphin. They're actually pink!
Dinner!!
The couple of days that follow are a mix of catching
piranhas, snakes and seeing all sorts of crazy wildlife. It’s pretty awesome
but at the same time it’s not quite as wild as I imagined it would be – the bush area is
really just a strip of bush 50m or so either side of the river. When we go up
onto the banks there’s just mainly open farmland. There are also quite a few hostels
dotted along the river and it really feels a bit too commercialised for my
liking. I find out later that there’s a tour where you build your own raft and
then head down the river in it for a few days – this would be far more my style
and if I was doing it again I’d opt for that.
Rappelling 50m face first down big building in the heart of
La Paz sounds like my cup of tea. An Alaskan dude named Jason is also a bit of
a lunatic (his job back home is catching king crabs ala Deadliest Catch styles!)
so he joins me, along with Janis. The company that runs it is called Urban Rush – it’s very professional
and the setup seems very safe. Nevertheless, I’m standing on the edge and my
brain is screaming at me to not lower myself over the edge. I’m absolutely shitting
myself and adrenaline levels are through the roof. I maintain my composure. Just!
This is seriously one of the most
awesome things I’ve ever done and I’m pumped afterwards. This is a must-do if
you’re in La Paz!
Jason also wants to head to Potosi to check out the mine then
on to Uyuni salt flats so he’s my travel buddie for the next few days. We catch a flight to a town called Sucre – the trademark of this pretty little
town are its whitewashed buildings. There are few tourists and photo opportunities
galore, especially at the local markets.
The town of Potosi lies at the base of Cerro Rico, the
mountain that is mined for silver and employs around 15,000 of its locals and
is the heart of the town’s economy. This mountain has so much history. It’s been
mined for around 500 years, with estimates that EIGHT MILLION people have died
in the mine over the centuries. The average life expectancy in Bolivia is 67
years, but the poor bastards that toil in this mine only get an average of 40
years (most go down to silicosis).
I’ve heard that this tour is pretty awesome and I’m not
disappointed. Our guide, Pedro, from Big Deal Tours, is an ex-miner and a
bloody hard case to boot. He takes us to a little tienda where we can buy a few
gifts to give to the miners. I stock up with a few bags of Coca leaves (the miners
chew on them all day to keep their energy levels up), a few bottles of Ceibo (the
local brew with a casual 96% alcohol content) and a few sticks of dynamite. What
a combo, and all for the bargain cost of around $10!
We gear up with helmets, lights, boots and overalls and
check out the processing plant – safety standards are pretty much non-existent.
Unguarded machinery and chemicals lie everywhere; it’s quite an intricate setup
- the end product is a mixture of unrefined silver, lead and tin which is
bagged up and exported for further processing.
The mountain resembles a rabbit warren, with dozens of mineshafts
dotted all over the barren slopes. As we mill around the opening of one of the
shafts, our guide nonchalantly asks us to step to the side. A rumbling sound grows
louder and louder before a small carriage loaded with ore and miners hanging on
for a free ride comes flying out of the opening, just scraping past us.
We head into the mineshaft and it’s a maze in there – myriads of different tunnels with rickety ladders are shooting off in random directions. We meet one dude who has somehow managed to beat the odds - at 62 years old he's still working hard in the mine. These guys work phenomenally hard - they load up what are basically potato sacks with ore and carry it through the mine on their shoulders. No modern technology - just hard slog.
In the heart of the mountain is a big room with a statue of a
devil with a boner. Apparently the Spanish used to use it to intimidate the
workers in the mine. Not sure why he needed to be chubbed up to achieve this but
it’s amusing nonetheless. Apparently the devil donger room is also the most
appropriate place to prep your dynamite and drink your Ceibo – pretty sure I’m
drunk on the fumes before it even hits my mouth. We’re told that convicts were
often forced to work and live inside the mine permanently – they wouldn’t see
daylight for years and would often die while they were in here. We’ve only been in the mine for a couple of
hours and when I see daylight I do feel a certain sense of relief. Out in the open, Pedro lights the dynamite fuse and proceeds to pull off
hilarious poses before running down the hill and doing pushups over the burning
fuse. Classic stuff!
Next on the agenda is Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flats
in the world at 10,582 sq. It’s about three and a half hours by bus from Potosi
and we arrive in the early evening. I’ve taken a skipping rope and an elastic
workout band with me on the travels – it’s light weight and I can keep fit for
my return to the coast. Jason and I set up a little training circuit in the
hotel – dips on the stairs, pushups etc. I show Jason how to use the elastic
band to do bicep curls by pinning one end under his foot. Unfortunately the
handle slips off his foot at full stretch - it flies up and smacks him square
in the face, opening up a nice gash! He reckons he's going to make up a story about how it happened as the truth is just too lame.
Jason has to head home to Alaska so goes for a one day tour
while I opt for a three-day tour – basically you just jump in a 4WD with a
guide and he drives you around to see the coolest areas and stay at different
places on the way. Shops are few and far between, so all of the food is pre-packed
and organised for you during the day. There are a lot of companies trying to
cash in on this – do your research before you go as some have terrible food and
guides.
The days are filled with all sorts of amazing scenery,
including the ‘train cemetery’ where trains were dumped back in the 1940’s after
several decades of mining in the area came to an end. I get a chuckle when I bump into someone who said they'd been talking to an Alaskan guy who'd apparently been on the Potosi mine tour and cut his head from a falling rock! Didn't have the heart to tell them the real story haha. We see just about every
colour in the landscape you can imagine, vast plantations of Quinoa, vicuña
(relative of llamas) and even flamingos - at an elevation of 3600m above sea
level this was the last thing I expected to see!
I opt for the overnight bus from Uyuni to La Paz – I’ve
heard it’s the worst bus ride in South America as the road is so bumpy –
basically 8 of the 12 hours you’re getting the shit shaken out of you. I figure
I have a cunning plan and as we leave I pop two pills of Valium to knock myself
out – the plan is to put my ear plugs in and wake up in La Paz. Brilliant in
theory, however at around midnight the bus comes to a halt and the driver is
revving the crap out of the engine. I wake up and try and make some sense of
the situation in my Valium induced haze. My first thought is that our bus is
getting held up and we’re about to get robbed– shit, I haven’t even had a
chance to back up my photos!!! Turns out the gearbox has given up the ghost and
we now have to get off our luxury tourist bus and jump into a rickety,
overcrowded local bus. No easy task when loaded on Valium!
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