Two fer One

After our last exciting episode (the one where I shat into a plastic bag), Cara and I ended up in La Paz, Bolivia.

For our next exciting adventure, we decided to embark on a mountain biking trip down the WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS ROAD — dum da daaaah!

At least, that’s what the gringos call it. The locals, on the other hand, call the road from La Paz to Coroico something else — “el camino del muerte”.

So for US $50, we paid for the privilege of riding up to the top of a peak named La Cumbre (in a minibus with 14 other clients) and coasting down on mountain bikes for a 3600m (11,800 ft) vertical descent.

Executive summary: it kicked ass.

Slightly expanded version: yes — riding down the WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS ROAD (dum da daaah!) was somewhat scary.

Often, the road is only wide enough for a single 18-wheeler truck to drive on, and so uphill traffic gets the right of way.
Downhill traffic must wait at little pullouts for uphill traffic to pass. If the two shall meet, then the downward bound traffic must back up to a pull out.

Also, downhill traffic must drive on the left. This is to afford the driver the best possible view of his outside wheels (so he doesn’t fall off the side of the mountain (guardrails? ha! hahahahahaha! stupid gringo! ha!)).

Quick stat #1: an average of 26 vehicles disappear on this road every year (one every two weeks).

Quick stat #2: The worst accident occurred when a driver drove his truck over the edge, killing himself and more than 100 passengers in 1983.

Quick stat #3: Last year, an Israeli girl died while on the very same bike tour (albeit with a different company) when she lost control of her bike and just flew off the edge. The fallout from that accident — the company stopped guiding for three days. (Our group enjoyed a nice snack of chocolate and bananas near her memorial.)

Bonus tidbit: Just last week, a truck fell off the edge, but the driver was able to jump out just in time.

The road is extremely heavily travelled, and our group of 16 gringos careening down it on mountain bikes in controlled chaos had to constantly avoid getting squashed like bugs by a fully loaded 18-wheeler (with the right of way) barrelling up in the opposite direction.

Free advice: if you ever decide to have the same adventure, make sure that you get a bike with a w-i-d-e seat. Four days later, my ass is still sore from the pounding it took (no — you may NOT quote me out of context).

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Adventure #2

The next day, back in La Paz, and looking for something to do, I decided to hike to La Muela del Diablo (the Devil’s Molar) and see what I could see.

After bouncing around in a minibus for half an hour (to the dismay of my ass), I was dropped off near the trail to la Muela.

Trying to find the exact direction I was supposed to head, I spoke to an old woman with no teeth, selling fruit juice. Due to my deficiencies in Spanish, and her deficiencies in dental hygiene, I couldn’t quite figure out what she was saying. But she kept repeating a few words over and over to me — “cuidado”, “peligroso”, and “muerte”. I thanked her for the advice and continued on my way.

Five minutes later, I was stopped by an extremely old man who also lacked teeth, and wanted to talk to me about la Muela. It turns out he was an old miner, and he was caught in a rockfall and showed me the stitches on his upper thigh (ugh) to prove it. Over 90 of his friends died that day. He wanted to give me advice, but I couldn’t understand a damn word he was saying, so 20 minutes later, I just thanked him and started walking away.

Further up the trail, I met another woman, who upon seeing a gringo headed towards la Muela, kept on saying “cuidado”, “peligroso”, and “muerte” to me. She also made the international hand signal of running her index finger across her throat. I thanked her as well, and continued on my way.

Finally, after a solid 45 minutes of upward hiking, la Muela came into sight. The thing looked pretty cool, and I slowly made my way towards the base.

There was a hiking trail up to the top, but since I fancied myself a rock climber, I picked out a line that I thought would
be a more adventuresome route to the top.

Getting to where I wanted to start was difficult because of a huge mound of fallen rocks and pebbles was in my way. As I climbed the mound of scree, every step caused the face of the mound to shift and slide downwards, so I could only make about three inches of upward progress for every step.

Luckily for me, Bolivians are terribly unconscious about environmental issues, and throw their litter wherever they
please. I found a nice section of rebar that I could use as a makeshift walking stick, and with that, made my way up to where I thought I was going to start climbing.

La Muela del Diablo looks like a real rock formation from far away, but upon closer inspection, reveals itself to be a bunch of smaller rocks stuck together with mud, dirt, and twigs. In other places, where there is no mud, but just a face of rock that appears to be climbable, the rock just snaps off randomly in one’s hand.

So there I was, 20m off the ground, unroped and by myself, wondering if the next handhold I grabbed was going to just break and send me hurtling through space. I had already climbed over an overhanging section that I didn’t think I could climb back down, and I was feeling very small and very stupid, not to mention scared to wit’s end.

After a bit of deliberation, I decided that I could climb down afterall, and with sphincter clenched tight, I slowly made my way back down to the bottom.

Glad to be alive, I hightailed it back to La Paz and spent the rest of the day doing safe touristy things like visiting the
local self-supporting prison.