LA PAZ AND THE DEATH ROAD

Looking around in La Paz

We originally planned to spend about a week in Bolivia to visit the Uyuni salt desert and its surrounding area that stretches till the Chilean border and consists of many lagunes and volcanos, but we ended up staying much longer due to the amount of different activities that you can do here at budget-friendly prices! After our visit to the Lake Titicaca we went to La Paz, which was our base to organize our trips to Uyuni as planned, then after returning to La Paz we continued to the Bolivian Amazon jungle in Rurrenabaque for a few days. Between the activities we tried to best use our time in La Paz to see some of the city.

La Paz is the highest capital city in the world, at an elevation of 3650m above sea-level and is surrounded by the high mountains of the Andean Plateau. It is only the administrative capital of Bolivia, the actual capital is Sucre a bit further South. It has outgrown its original location in the valley, and now sprawls over the neighbouring mountainsides too. Due to the mountainous terrain it isn’t particularly feasible to build an underground system, hence as an unusual feature of public transportation the tube is replaced by a high-frequency cable car system along 3 lines! It must certainly be quicker than using the roads, which are always awfully congested, despite the collectivo minivans plying the roads with the drivers’ assistants shouting their destination to the people standing on the side of the road. Even though they don’t warrant a separate section, it is probably worth awarding prizes to some of the more memorable experiences we had over these days:

Most disruptive event:

Bolivia will have a referendum on Sunday, 21 February on whether to abolish term limits for the president’s office, so Evo Morales, the current president could run and be re-elected again when his current 2nd term expires in 2019. Steering wide of the political pros and cons (we’ve heard an incredibly wide range of views on his presidency!), the signs of a heated campaign are everywhere: every wall in every city is either graffitied / painted with “Si” or “No” (Renata wonders what will happen with all the walls after the referendum…), we’ve seen at least three mass demonstrations rallying support for the cause (we escaped into an alpaca sweater store and ended up buying a sweater each – at half the price they were for sale in Cuzco) and “No” supporters in yellow jackets were also going stall-to-stall in the La Paz market trying to convince the vendors. Everything seemed very peaceful so far, we just hope it stays that way; however just yesterday we heard that an unrelated protest (that the municipality should finally finish the schools they started building years ago) in the suburb of El Alto turned violent and ended with the torching of the mayor’s house and the death of six people, including the mayor.

To top it all off, all forms of transportation (other than walking presumably and flying) are banned for the day of the referendum. The supposed reasons for this are varied, the more credible ones involve the prevention of voter fraud (the same person voting in multiple areas) and the prevention of violence. We found out the day before we were meant to travel to the jungle, that the police had even banned our boat pick-up between our jungle lodge and the village of Rurrenabaque (where our flight leaves us). Luckily we were able to rearrange everything (despite being in the middle of the desert, in Uyuni) to postpone the jungle tour by a day and to squeeze in cycling on the Death Road in between!

Weirdest experience:

Undoubtedly the witch’s market, where all kinds of traditional remedies are sold (along with the usual tourist knick-knacks) in stores with a mummified baby llama hanging in front of them, the symbol of their profession.

Most educative experience:

The Coca Museum, the aim of which is to reduce substance abuse by educating people about the effects and history of the coca leaf and cocaine. Some interesting facts:

The coca leaf is one of the earliest domesticated plants in South America, and has been used in indigenous cultures for everyday rituals for centuries.
After the Spanish Conquest, religious authorities wanted to ban the coca leaf, but the king (seeing an economic opportunity) decided to tax it instead. This was especially crucial as the nutrients and stimulants released by chewing coca leaves allowed further exploitation of the native population. In the silver mines of Potosi (whose population equaled Paris at the time), workers were thus able to work 16-hour shifts without taking breaks but chewing coca all day long.
Cocaine was first synthetically produced as an anesthetic by Western pharmaceutical companies in the 19th century (South American cultures had been using coca leaves for operations for millennia), but its consumption quickly became a popular recreational activity in the West.
The most popular product was a French wine which was mixed with cocaine; Coca Cola was invented by an American entrepreneur who tried to imitate its success with cocaine in a non-alcoholic beverage as alcohol was banned at that time in the US. Coca Cola today of course doesn’t contain cocaine, but it apparently still does contain coca leaves for the flavour.
Production of cocaine for medicinal uses is tightly regulated, and the quotas are distributed amongst Western countries, with the original coca producers of Peru and Bolivia not being allowed any production.

Two things were very clear from the displays:

Firstly, that there is a lot of ill-feeling in Bolivia towards the Western world, who has taken a practice they had been following for generations, corrupted it for their own profit, and then expects Bolivians to stop growing coca after the West decides to outlaw it having realised its negative effects – there is even a legend saying coca abuse is the curse on the Conquistadors that we have inherited. However, it is said that not all of the coca leaf harvest is consumed locally, and a significant portion eventually disappears out of the country, probably finding its way to Western consumers, with the tacit knowledge of the local farmers.
Secondly, that the museum believes the education about drug abuse (as opposed to criminalization) is the only effective way to stop its spread. Food for thought, even if it is all taken with a pinch of salt…

The most exciting experience: The Death Road (in more detail below)

Daring to do the Death Road

As some of my readers will know, last year I did a very enjoyable high-altitude descent filled with adrenalin, so when I heard there was an opportunity to do something similar, albeit with a different vehicle (not airplanes but bikes this time), I knew I couldn’t miss cycling the Death Road – and Renata was persuaded by the promise of beautiful scenery along the way.

The Death Road (also known by its less sexy name, the North Yungas Road), descends over 63km downhill from an elevation of 4700m to 1200m. It was so named because of the unfortunately large number of people who perished during its construction. The road became famous overnight when a survey in the 1990’s determined this was the most dangerous road in the world, with approximately 350 deaths per year. The primary reason for this is that it is a winding road, mostly on a single dirt track, that had 400 heavy vehicles passing through it daily, none of which underwent any type of mandatory maintenance check and that were driven with complete and absolute disregard to any speed limit or road signs (very similarly to how driving is these days too). The government, spurred on by the findings of this survey, inaugurated in 2007 the New North Yungas Road, which is a (mostly) paved and less steep 2-lane road to bypass this stretch. The key benefit for tourists is that this leaves very little traffic on the Old Road when they take a tour to cycle down this 63km stretch and enjoy the adrenalin rush, not to mention the scenery over the mountains and dozens of waterfalls!

When we were looking into the Death Road cycle tour, we inevitably read about the tourist deaths that had occurred over the years. However, our guide told us – and we retrospectively agree – that if you have proper gear, you aren’t doing anything silly and follow normal instructions, there is no reason for any accident to happen. This is why I would absolutely say: If you are in Bolivia, don’t miss the Death Road, but be sensible at all times and choose a reputable company whose gear you can trust (we went with Gravity Tours, the biggest company, who originally invented this tour), even if it is more expensive. We happened to go during the rainy season, and that didn’t make the road any more dangerous for us either – although we did have to postpone it once because the road was blocked by coca growers protesting the price of coca set by the government.

The tour starts off with a 45-minute minivan journey from La Paz up to the summit, where we were fitted out with gear and were given a safety briefing, and made a “llama promise” not to do anything stupid during the descent. Finally, we gave a blessing to Pachamama (Mother Earth) by pouring some local spirit on the ground, some on the bicycle and finally taking a sip of it ourselves. We always had two guides cycling with us, one in front of the group and one behind who also took pictures of our escapades. Additionally, the minivan we came with followed the group to be able to help in case of an accident, and so we could take off layers of clothes as we descended and it become warmer. When we started out there was heavy fog and we nearly froze on our bikes despite the 2 pullovers, the cycling jacket and the rain jacket we got, but by the time we got to the bottom we were in t-shirts. The group stopped about a dozen times during the trip to give people a chance to rest, catch-up, enjoy the scenery and grab a snack, so it was a relatively easy ride.

The first 23km was a warm-up as we were still on normal asphalt, and we acclimatised to our bikes. Afterwards, we started on the actual Death Road, which is only dirt and rocks, but this is where the fog starts to clear up and we actually saw the amazing landscape. It was a surreal feeling of covering distance without actually pedaling, and whooshing by beautiful mountainsides and gorgeous waterfalls one after another! Of course no pedaling doesn’t mean no physical exertion at all, and our hands started aching quite quickly from constantly gripping the brakes, and so did our knees from lifting our bottom off the seat as we rattled down the road… We had to cross waterfalls and streams many times with refreshing cool water. Our only fall was when I didn’t have enough momentum going into a stream, stalled mid-way in and toppled over J, but apart from this we all got down safe. Afterwards they took us for lunch to an NGO animal sanctuary where they take care of wild animals that are rescued from poachers. We didn’t see their star attraction, the Amazonian bear (he must be a relative of Paddington Bear!), but we did see a capybara (the world’s largest rodent, essentially a 60kg guinea pig) – so the bar is set for our Amazon jungle tour! This was also where we met the first Hungarian during our trip (the bear was her tenant for some time after it was rescued and before it was put in the sanctuary), who emigrated in 1988 to marry a Bolivian – this was clearly the most unexpected experience of the tour.

After returning to La Paz late at night, with sore fingers and rear ends, we were ready to embark the following day on the next stage of our Bolivian adventures and jet off to Rurrenabaque in the Amazon jungle!

Interesting Impressions of Bolivia

Over the course of our adventures in Bolivia, we've noticed a couple of interesting thoughts that warranted a mention but probably not a separate blog post:

After more than a week in, our first impression of Bolivia is that, compared to Peru, Bolivia hasn`t realized the opportunity that tourists can bring into the country yet. It`s a bit less prepared for visitors (including infrastructure and probably hospitality too), even if the incoming flow of foreigners is getting larger and larger every year due to the variety of activities and natural beauty the country has to offer.
On this point the natural diversity of the country is immerse. It ranges from high mountains like the Andes to deserts and stunning lakes.
We find Bolivia significantly cheaper than Peru. However, you have to be careful, as cheapness is often reflected in the quality of what you get. This was particularly true at a 2-course set menu dinner priced at £2, where the meat was so bad, that not even the restaurant’s dog wanted it! But we had some good culinary experiences in La Paz, including some street food, so it all depends on your luck, and not only on the price category.
Organised trips and tourist attractions also seem to be a lot cheaper than in the Cuzco region in Peru.
The internet connection is very poor, probably even a bit worse than in Peru, but definitely much poorer than in mainland Ecuador. A funny episode was when we explicitly booked a hostel that had good WiFi (in retrospect, we now know that this doesn’t really exist in Bolivia), because after going net-less for a few days, we would have needed to plan the next leg of our journey and post the newest episode of our blog. Everything worked fine at first, but then the internet cut out around 22:00. When I asked what happened in the morning, and why it still wasn’t fixed, I was told the internet company was changing the cables to improve service in the neighborhood, maybe it will return in the afternoon. Fair enough, but that didn’t help me, I would have needed the internet last night / this morning as we needed to continue our journey. “No problem, señor” the receptionist told me; I stood there for a couple of seconds expecting the sentence to continue, but as far as she was concerned, the help desk ticket was closed! So, dear readers, if you don’t agree with the receptionist’s assessment that not getting your weekly LongWay2Oz posts is “No problem”, too bad.
The cuisine seems to be similar to other South American countries where meals are mainly dominated by potato, often adding quinoa or rice, and there`s not too much creativity with meat, it`s mainly fried chicken/fish/beef. We tried some interesting sauces on meat in the jungle which was new and very refreshing. We really like some of the local empañadas, which are pastries filled with cheese or meat. At the local market in La Paz they sell them warm with Mexican-style filing and they also have the version of the same filling inside a mashed potato ball, yummy!

Lesson Learnt The availability of internet in a hostel is primarily determined by which country you are in, and then by how remote the region is – if the internet in the country is patchy, you would be lucky to get adequate internet even in a more expensive place, so it’s probably not even worth trying - hence all the delays of posting to the blog.