The world´s most dangerous road by mountain bike.

It wasn´t that bad really. I reckon the road from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng in Laos is porbably worse. We left La Paz at about 7:30 am, with Richard suitably hung over after one too many Bocks, a 7% beer. I have never seen Richard not finish a beer, but the night before, he did just that, left a half behind. I had a feeling he wouldn´t be in prime condition for the 66km of mountain biking ahead.

So we get to the starting point, beside a freezing, I MEAN freezing, lake, at La Cumbre 4,700m. Got allocated bikes, and kitted up with helmet, goggles, wet weather jacket and pants, buff (scarf thing) and gloves. Took the bikes for a little spin to see how they felt. They were pretty good.

We cruised down 22km of bitumen first, past snowy mountains, in light misty rain. Our hands were absolutely ICY- so cold!! Had a couple of stops at what are usually scenic points on the road, but today were just banks of cloud. I was a bit hesitant to go too fast as the road was wet, but the group on the whole wasn´t going that quick, we probably only got up to about 60kmh. It was pretty cool.

In this section we went through a drug check point, they are basically looking for the chemicals that are needed to refine coca into cocaine, out in the northern bolivian coca growing regions. Then it is on down to the next checkpoint, where we had to pay the 24 Bs fee to use the road. This fee goes to maintaining it now that it is (supposedly) closed to traffic, as the new road is open.

Then we get into the start of the proper ´world´s most dangerous road. ´ the first section is narrow, rocky, degraded, with waterfalls and overhanging cliffs on the right, and 400m sheer drops on the left hand side. I think it was a good thing there was so much cloud and fog, we couldn´t see the drops at all. I was nervous enough as it was!! Getting used to the bike, and getting abit more confident through this section. The bikes were great, huge big coil rear suspension you hardly felt a bump. Well, not bad anyway.

So we continued on through the rain and the mud for a total of 44kms, the mud was flicking up off the wheels and straight into our faces. You couldn´t wear the goggles because they just fogged up, and if you went without you were just constantly blinking mud and grit out of your eyes, and having to stop all the time when you couldn´t see. I used a combination of both methods!

Occasionally we had some views of the valleys which were lovely, but we were too cold and wet to be standing around looking at the half obscured scenery.

Overall I really enjoyed the riding, alot more than I thought I would, even despite the rain and the mud, and soaking wet feet.

We hurried on down to the finishing point, at a restaurant and accom place called la senda verde. There we had a ´hot´ shower (it was just off freezing) and lunch. They house rescued wildlife there, they had at least three macaws, one without many feathers, a boa constrictor, and a bunch of monkeys, including the one month old howler monkey that is in the photo. He was tiny. There was also loads of ducks, geese, guinea fowl and kittens around.

About 4 weeks ago an israeli tourist died on the ride, he went over a section of cliff that was a 170m drop. There are loads of stories about what happened, everything from he was racing his friend and they were being silly buggers bumping each other, to he was smoking pot, to his brakes completely failing. It could be any of these or something completely different. But basically you would have to be an idiot to ride off the edge, or have your equipment fail. Hence our decision to go with the company with the best reputation. They have been riding the road for 9 years, and have not had a single tourist die, in that time, though, there have been 10 deaths. There has also been a hell of a lot more deaths from bus crashes and all that.

At one point along the road there is a ´democracy monument´. The story issomething like this: Bolivia decides to have democratic elcetions, the ruling military party fancying that they will win hands down anyway. Election time nears, and they realise they are probably going to get beaten, so they round up the five most popluar candidates, take them out to this spot on the road, and push them off, 400m to their deaths. Nice.

Now we have our shoes hanging out of the window at our guest house, hoping that they will dry in time for our jungle trip on Sunday. Considering that it generally takes three days to get clothes dry, and that we just heard some thunder and saw lightning, I think we are asking a bit much.

They took lots of photos of the ride, and we bought the CD, but overall they are not very good, mostly cloudy, and fogged up because of the moisture in the camera. It was a very soggy day.

This last photo is of dried Llama foetuses on the street in La Paz. there were also dried baby llamas, and armadillos, snakes, bats, frogs, allsorts. Not quite sure what one does, exactly, with a dried llama foetus.