My first glimpse of La Paz was on the bus from Ororu, and it was breathtaking. For about 20 minutes we were driving through the same old dirty, dusty looking Bolivian town that I had already seen in Villazon, Tupiza, and Ororu. So I was a little worried that La Paz would be more of the same, just on a bigger scale. I was a little confused too, as I could not figure out how we were approaching a very big city. The mountains seemed to be closer in the direction we were going than any city would be. And there did not seem to be anything to the left or the right that I could see. Then all of a sudden I realized we were at the top of a very large, wide, almost gorge in the land, and the city of La Paz was built all into the sides and the bottom of the gorge. It's quite stunning. In the picture on the right you can see the skyscrapers are at the bottom of the gorge, and the rest of the city is scattered across the sides of the gorge behind them. There is buildings on all sides of the gorge, really cool. It's almost a one km difference between the top part of the city, which is level with the rest of the surrounding area, and the bottom of the gorge where center of the city lies. I guess this makes a big difference in temperature as well, so the lower you get in the valley, the cooler it is, and thus the richer areas are lower and lower in the gorge. So the more you go down, the nicer it gets. It's still Bolivia through, a very poor third world country, but I really enjoyed La Paz.

The first day I just walked around the city, got up high to get some great views of the city, and arranged the mountain bike trip for the next day. It amazing to see the little, and I mean very short, Bolivian women in their traditional dresses and bowler hats. They really do all look like the picture you see, even all in the streets of the capital of La Paz.

The picture to the left is an enlargement of the top left of the picture above. You can see all the buildings that are built into the walls of the gorge, all the way up to the "level" of the surrounding land. These are obviously poorer areas, as not many houses have paint! The roads coming in and especially out of Bolivia (uphill) were an adventure. In my minibus out of La Paz, we stalled in not one, but two area trying to just get up and out of the La Paz gorge.

So, the second day in La Paz was spent downhill mountain biking the world most dangerous road, or the Death Road as its locally known. I was actually pleasantly surprised that the entire road is exactly like you see in pictures. That is carved into the side of the mountain with hundred meter sheer cliffs above and below you. It's a gravel road, sometimes only three meters in width. Up until 2006 it was heavily used, traffic in both directions, by big truck, buses, etc. transporting between the agriculture rich Yucaca valley and La Paz. I find it crazy the road was used for this, I guess sometimes these big truck would have to reverse for kilometers before finding a place to pull over and let traffic pass each other, crazy! They did a study in the nineties and found that about 200 people per year died on the road, thus getting its name as the worlds most dangerous road. So, after that they started construction on a new road that starts and ends at the same places, but takes a completely different path. It's a modern paved, two lane road, and was finished in 2006. Now the Death Road is mostly used by mountain bikers, tourist buses, and some local traffic. It's also used when a landslide takes out a section of the new road, which apparently happens frequently. The picture to the right gives a good idea of what most of the road looks like.

So, we started the ride on a section of the regular road in order to get used to the downhill bikes. They are specifically made for downhill mountain biking, so they have amazing shocks and really powerful disc brakes. This section was just as fun as the death road, as it was paved, we were able to go really fast, and it was still down some petty cool winding picturesque roads. It was great to go cruising down and passing big cargo trucks, as they had to go slow down the steep hills. So, after about 23km downhill on the pavement, we loaded the bikes to skip a short uphill section, and offloaded again at the start of the death road.

The death road is the only road in Bolivia where the direction of traffic is reversed, so traffic is driven on the left instead of the right. I think the reason had to do with it being safer for vehicles to better see oncoming traffic, etc. So, going downhill the cliff edge is always on the left and the mountain side if always on the right. This means we had to ride next to the cliff edge and not the "safer" mountain side. Generally the road has two tire tracks, so in North America we would really think of it as a one way road. When there was on coming traffic, they would need to find a safe place for one of the vehicles to pull over and let the other one pass. So, for most of the death road we would be biking in the left tire track, the one next to the cliff, as this is where on coming and passing traffic would expect us to be, and the tire track has the least amount of large loose rocks, which are the most dangerous to us mountain bikers.

So the trip started fine. It was a little harder than I expected. It is very bumpy, so you hands actually get quite sore from gripping the handle bars and all the bumps. The palms of my hands are actually still a little bit sore three days afterwards. The scenery was on and off covered with clouds. We started far above the clouds on the pavement, and rode our way into them on the death road. It would have been a little better I think if it was less cloudy, as seeing the entire valley on rare occasions was stunning. Most of the time you could only see the limited amounts of scenery directly around us. Often though, as I was riding, I could quickly glance over the edge and see hundreds of feet sheer drop off the cliff edge to the left. This was sufficient to get the adrenaline pumping!

In a few places we rode under waterfalls, and stopped to take pictures at one. This company was little more expensive than others, but they had top quality bikes, safety equipment, and the bus always followed the last rider to make sure everyone was accounted for as biking speed varied widely between riders. Ropes were good in case someone goes over the edge, which apparently happens more frequently than I expected, like one a week. Most people get caught in a tree though and end up with just bruises and/or broken bones. I think they said only 16 mountain bikers have died on the death road.

They broke the ride into eight parts, which was nice to get a little break and regroup. So parts one through five went fine. Then on section six I stupidly ignored one of the instructions to always have two fingers on the breaks. I was gripping the handle bars with my whole hands because its so bumpy this allows greater control and is a little less painful on the palms of the hands. This is fine if you are on a section were you don't need your brakes, but unfortunately I misjudged, and a sharp left corner came up quickly and I was not able to brake enough in time. I actually made it through the corner, but then coming out of it I was going too fast and too much to the right that my bike left the road and went into the mountain on the right. Luckily it was a left corer and thus I went into the mountain on the right, and not the reverse and off the cliff to the left! Unfortunately though, as my bike went into mountain I went forward over it and landed with all my weight on my left hand. Also banged my right knee, which turned out to be fine no blood even.

The wrist however hurt, but not so much that I was going to walk or anything! So after a few minutes regrouping and everyone but the slowest girls passing me, I got back on and finished that section. The wrist was hurting quite a bit from all bumps at that point, but I thought we are almost done, so I wanted to finish and did section seven. Well after that maybe the testosterone and adrenaline had worn off, or else i hurt it or aggravated it a lot with the bumps, but when I learned there was still one more section to go there was no way I could finish. So, unfortunately I only completed 7/8 of the death road.

After a short ride in the bus, we headed to an animal preserve where they had tons of rescued monkeys, birds, and other animals. Had a great lunch/dinner and got to interact some with the monkeys before their feeding time. Then it was a 3 hour drive back to La Paz on, thank god, the new road.

PS. The wrist toke 3 months to heal... getting old!