La Paz, round two

We weren't too thrilled at the idea of being back in La Paz but were excited to do the Death Road finally, as well as catch up with Fred, Khalid and Kelvin who were in town too.

We had booked the Death Road through Vertigo as Brooke had recommended them and they were a bit cheaper than some of the larger operations. Our group consisted of one Aregentinian, one Belgian, two English and of course two Kiwis. Plus our two guides who were both Bolivian. We ended up being the last to kit up as we saw all the other groups set off before us. This proved to be a really good thing as we had the whole road to ourselves (which means less potential crashes). After being decked out in knee pads, elbow pads, jacket, pants and a full face helmet we were off. I think the last time I wore knee and elbow pads was when I was about 8, rollerblading around Waioneke school!

The first section of the ride is on the main road so is tar seal. It's so incredible to fly down this deserted road at about 70km/h. As if the speed isn't enough, the scenery is jaw droppingly beautiful with sheer cliffs rising up around you and a big gully next to you. We chewed through the 28km of tar seal in no time and then it was time for the real thing! The Death road, dun, dun, dunnnnnn.

Weirdly, despite the fact that they drive on the right hand side of the road here, it's the one place in Bolivia that you are to ride on the left. This is because the drivers can stick their heads out the window and see how close to the edge of the road their tyres are. An alternative road has been built in recent years so there isn't a whole lot of traffic on it anymore except a few coca farmers that prefer to use the road due to it being 30 mins faster, and 300x times more dangerous!! This development meant that rather than me being able to ride as far away from the edge as possible was out of the question. Doh! 

Immediately the boys were hooning off but I took it pretty easy as I really didn't want to be a statistic. Gravel can be pretty unforgiving so I figured I would stay well within my comfort zone and ability. I did however find myself blocking out the fact that there were sheer cliffs with certain death only a mere meter away from where I was riding. Instead I tried to distract myself with how stunning the scenery around us was. It was so nice to be back in some lush bush and we could feel it getting warmer with every minute that passed as we descended further into the valley.

After about 1.5 hours of riding the Death Road, we stopped for them to show us the coca farms. Interestingly, our guide Chello told us that they are only allowed small plots of coca and that 60% of the coca grown is used for cocaine production, with the rest being used for coca leaf chewing and coca tea. We were amazed with how small the farms were as our guide said the one in the photo below was a large sized one.

Unfortunately after our whole group having been going great guns without any near misses, that changed with only about 10 mins left of the ride. I was riding in the middle (boys in front, girls behind me) and then the Belgian girl Anna passed me and I thought to myself, hmm she's game to be going faster than me as I was pretty sure she wasn't a frequent rider. Literally about 5 seconds later I watched as she lost control of the bike and then must have put the front brakes on as manged to cartwheel over the front of her handlebars, with her bike following close behind. Thankfully she was ok and hadn't gone off a cliff or anything, just very grazed, a sore neck and no doubt a bruised ego. 

Aside from this unfortunate end to our ride, we were all buzzing from the incredible 70km of downhill we had all just done. Jimmy and I were definitely pleased that we we had made the trip back to La Paz in order to not miss it as where else in the world could you do such a ride?

The trip then finished off with a buffet lunch at a hostel a bit further down the road and also a swim in their pool. It was such a treat to actually feel warm enough to want to go swimming!

After the draining 3 hour drive back to La Paz, we could have quite happily gone straight to bed. The fact that our tummies weren't happy with something we had eaten didn't help things either. Instead we mustered up the last of our energy and went and got some yummy pizza from Mozarella which was across the street from our hostel, then headed up to Adventure Brew for a reunion with the boys. Four hours later, and a fair few beers later, we rolled into bed to catch some much deserved winks.