Woke up around 530
this morning and got ready. Mark was kind enough to set his iPod
alarm b/c my phone was on its last leg and had died, as I thought it
might, by the time it should have gone off. Been having charging
issues with the charger I bought here. I grabbed all my stuff and
checked if breakfast was going yet. Nope. Went to the lobby, still
had 30 minutes before my cab came, so I got online to check if I
could get any money out of my remaining cards. One is maxed, one
won't allow any cash advances for some reason, couldn't tell why, and
the other I didn't know the PIN. So I get online and chatted with a
representative about obtaining or changing my PIN. They said it was
impossible to do and they'd have to mail it to me. A lot of good that
would do me in Bolivia. I said thanks a lot and that I'd be canceling
my card as soon as I got back home.
The cab arrived
and took me to the meeting place for Gravity, the tour company, it
was a place called Cafe Alexander. I had the hotel arrange for a cab
b/c I have no idea where I am in La Paz and it seemed far from the
map I had. It was about 10 blocks away and the driver wanted Bs 10. I
was not happy, argued with him for a bit, tossed the money on the
seat and slammed the door. Totally ripped off. Not a great start to
the day. I saw an ATM and tried my cards. The one that was nearly
maxed let me get Bs 50, so that would last me at least for the day. I
ordered huevos rancheros and apple juice and the others started
filtering in as well. Some of them sounded English and they kept
repeating themselves and speaking louder to the waitress. Always
annoys me. As if speaking louder will make her understand a foreign
language. All the others seemed fine and the guides arrived to take
roll call. We finished our breakfasts and walked up the street to
vans with bikes loaded on top. We took an hour or so ride to the
mountains and got introduced to each other and to the guide, Lynn.
She was about 40-45 ish and from South Africa and was very proper. We
parked the van by a lake and went over fittings of helmets, gloves,
jacket, pants and, of course, bikes. We had $2500 bikes with full
suspensions. We headed off, it was very cold, I wore a thermal,
tshirt, fleece, wind jacket, safety vest, thermal pants, 2 pairs of
socks and regular pants. I had a stocking cap under my helmet, and my
new neck/face cover that the tour gave us all. We headed out, the
first 14km was paved road with just a bit of gravel and traffic. The
views were amazing. We started at 3800m and bombed down the mountain,
with turns and switchbacks. We made a few stops, paid a toll, and
then arrived at the “Death Road”. The most dangerous road in the
world because of the amount of deaths. It used to be basically a one
lane road, mostly dirt/mud, with a 600 ft dropoff on one side and a
vertical mountain face on the other. They have recently built another
road, but some traffic still uses it. We saw a few vans, mostly for
bike tours, ATVs, and some construction equipment. The road was dirt,
gravel and rocks, and was a bit slippery. The road was 90% downhill,
and it was so cool. I had to bail off my bike twice. Once when I
tried to go over a dirt mound in the middle of the road and had my
back brake engaged a little. The bike slid 90 degrees the wrong way
and I had to jump off, ran a few steps and regained balance. The 2nd
time I was trying to shoot a video from my camera, and I hit my front
brake only too hard b/c I had the camera in my rear brake hand. Oops.
I had to jump over the handlebars to avoid a faceplant.
Such a cool ride
though, so fast, you have the brakes on a lot of the time. Made some
new friends and saw beautiful scenery, awesome vistas, waterfalls
right on the road, little river crossings you had to bike across,
abandoned towns, baby pigs, chickens and more. At times I was bombing
down huge stretches and turns and other times I was clutching the
brakes, either way, totally worth it.
We ended at a
wildlife refuge where we got lunch and I got to pick up another
monkey. They had turtles, macaws, parrots, monkeys and more. One
monkey made a super creepy, low sound the whole time. After lunch, we
got back in the van and drove back up the bumpy and shaky death road.
That ride was more scary than the bike for sure. We seemed super
close to the edge the whole time and then the sun started to go down
as well. Beautiful. The ride was long, but the Bolivian driver was
playing awesome music the whole day. Queens of the Stone Age, Green
Day, Muse, Cake, Eminem, etc. So the ride wasn't all bad. We stopped
back at the office and got a cd of pictures from the day and a
t-shirt. Then, a couple and I took a cab back to our hotels. I met
Mark in the room, we told each other about our days, went and had a
beer at Oliver's and I called it early. Writing now, plans are to
shower and pack...and that's pretty much it, South America!
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