La Paz - Nuestra Señora de La Paz

La Paz (Bolivia)

08 May - 11 May 2015

Welcome to the jungle. This urban sprawl has liquid mania coursing through its veins with every coloured mini-van, every honking horn and every screaming ticket tout whose destination sounds about as recognisable as the lyrics of a Lil Wayne ‘song’, or should that be a cerebral vasospasm? It’s an exciting place that can take some time to get use to. It cajoles you, almost taunts you into scaling its steep roads, only to smack you down to size with its own innate knowledge that ‘the air up here is thin man’. The home town experts have adapted but for those of us that have simply popped into La Paz, the trick at operating at 3500mtrs + is what the change in atmospheric pressure does to the body. Less pressure equals less oxygen which means that the heart and lungs up their capacity to do the very same thing that they would need to do at sea level. It’s exactly the reason why Bolivia fought so hard to have all their home games played at the Estadio Hernando Siles. The likes of Messi & Neymer are often brought to their knees in games where any sort of physical exertion can cause dizziness, headaches, loss of breath and loss of the very skills that they own.

Diesel, soot, detritus. Masked gunmen cleaning shoes on the street corner. Zebras guiding you across Av.6 de Agosta. Bank guards with machine guns. Shadows. Light. Heat. Cold. Conflict and resolution, that’s kind of what La Paz seems to be. This is also where the urban skyway comes into play. In order to beat the congestion and find the most practical way to get the city moving the Mi Teleferico was built. This is an aerial cable car urban transit system and it zips people above the jumble of houses and terrain, to points that sit above the bowl. Back in 2015 we saw a few lines operating but from what I understand the plan is to have a network with an intended reach of somewhere close to 35kms.

The amazing La Paz - Bolivia

Making our way up to El Alto via the teleferico on one of our days we gazed in awe at the vast jumble that spread out before us. It’s not practical but it’s certainly impressive, and from a few metres above, and more specifically, from the view points at the end of the line, you get to see what this city needs to contend with on a daily basis.

One of our highlights in La Paz on this occasion was the afternoon we spent jumping out of an open window some 16 floors above the city centre. This was another of those mental v.physical challenges that I inevitably place myself in when opportunities of this nature arise. A psychic civil war, a fight against the accepted laws of my mind, Urban Rush in La Paz is the ticket you buy to trigger that internal conflict of fight or flight. You need a couple of chugs of ‘harden the f**k’ up to be able to conquer this one but abseiling or rappelling down a building in this city just felt like the thing we needed to do.

As commonly is the case between Inga and myself, the process by which we settle on an activity like this is as follows;

Henry: “Oh wow, URBAN RUSH. You can jump out of a building over the city”

Inga: “That looks cool, lets do it if it doesn’t cost too much”

The idea to invest in our stupidity then sinks into that section of unspoken conscience. We have the awareness of the activity, our plan and the spoken desire to execute. I say spoken desire, as for me the bravado of mentioning what we can do is surpassed by the internal fear of what may happen if we do what we said we would. My role now, as seems to be the case, is to let the idea slide out of sight and then somehow manufacture an excuse as to why we couldn’t continue with our plan but at the point where the requisite time we would need to do so had passed. This however was not one of those occasions. This time…this time Inga called me out on an afternoon when we were looking for something to do.

Inga: “So, are we going to do Urban Rush?”

Henry: “Hmmm, maybe, I don’t know”

Inga: “What price would be too much? What would be your top price?”

Now this last question give me an opportunity. It allows me to ‘seem as though’ I’m interested but also give me the escape clause all in the one response. What I need to do here is work out a price that sounds reasonable and rational, one not too low so as to show that I want to back out, but also, one not so high that commits me to the task either way. I run the numbers in my head like a Phd student on the verge of a mighty breakthrough in string theory and come up with the number…

Henry: “250 bolivianos”

Now, I know this is expensive, for Bolivians. Actually, it’s extreme for Bolivians. For Australians though, $50AUD is a fair deal and not at all an issue. My hand is now played. I’ve banked the cost being over 250 bolivianos and knowing Inga, if that price is higher, at say 350 or so, then we will cancel the option. I know that for a fact. For right now we commence the walk and head to Urban Rush headquarters.

We arrive at the reception area of URBAN RUSH.

Inga: “Hi there, we are interested in knowing how much the abseiling costs?”

Reception person: “250 Bolivianos”

F**K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I’d just signed by own death warrant.

Inga hanging out in La Paz - Bolivia

That's called an 'ultimate leap of faith'  - Inga - La Paz - Bolivia

Twenty minutes later we were high above the city, dressed in fluorescent orange jumpsuits staring at a gaping hole in the wall of this perfectly solid structure.

Now I have abseiling experience. Back at camp in Year 7 I abseiled down a rock ledge that might have been 6 mtrs high, so no problem right!? Just multiply that by 8 or 9 and reversing your rear out of a building with some supportive staff and partner watching should be an absolute piece of cake.

I put on my ‘big boy pants’, regressed back to year 7 and backed out high above the cacophony and madness of what was going on below me. It was a little surreal. An endorphin filled sail through the Bolivian stratosphere. Mini-jumping down the dirty green façade of the Hotel Presidente, apparently ‘La Paz’s finest’, quoting the Urban Rush Bolivia site.

La Paz - Bolivia

Urban Rush - coming at you - La Paz - Bolivia

Then it was Inga’s turn and she stepped up without hesitation. Feet on the edge, back to the city, 50mtrs above the ground, 10 mins training in her back pocket. I’m not sure what it is with these Latvian women. Absolutely fearless. I was very impressed as she sailed down the wall as the gaudy Urban Rush sign framed her orange outline.

ALL FINISHED RIGHT >>>> EVERYTHING PROVEN >>> OR SO THEY’D HAVE YOU BELIEVE.

NOW, TIME TO GO DOWN FACE FIRST!?!? ABSOLUTELY, THAT’S THE RULE!

La Paz - Bolivia

Inga - 'fly time'

Undertaking your induction into the world of face first rappelling via an indoor 2 metre practice wall doesn’t quite have the same impact as stepping up to an open window and knowing that you’ll be taking a casual stroll down a wall whilst the rest of La Paz watches. For perspective I’ve add a YouTube video of exactly what this looks like;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNT_IW5tcOQ

After the vertigo and the inability to let go of THE BUILDING, you make peace with the fact that a few ropes ‘have you covered’ and thus your walk commences. It progresses all as outlined in the ‘training manual’ mind you, to the letter, until you get about 6-7 floors from the finish line – that’s when they say, ‘Just let go and jump’. Obviously holding on to anything is unnecessary right? Jumping from 6 floors is perfectly sane, especially when wearing a Batman costume!

Still, for anyone reading this and thinking about giving it a go I would say ‘absolutely’ do it’.

If you do, here are the details:

URBAN RUSH

https://www.urbanrushbolivia.com/en/

Calle Linares #940

First floor, Office 5

Two drop special is 200Bs these days / First drop 150Bs

Just remember, signing of the ‘death waiver’ is obliligatory!

La Paz, Bolivia, Urban Rush, South America

La Paz - it's just so dense

La Paz (Bolivia)

06 May 2015 - 08 May 2015

Its been a few years since I've made a visit to these travels. I've moved so much in those years and my need to make a return to once again swimming in my vast sea of memories is being outrun by the hours I have available to me and the size of the task. My challenge now is to delve into the memory banks and studiously, meticulously, craft lines through what I can recall and tenuously trace that line from the now to the remembered without colouring too much of my memories with hindsight.

So I step back onto the salt flats in the Bolivian outpost of Uyuni. Described often as a bleak, unremarkable stop of necessity, it's commonly the point where journeys across the Salar end and where gringo's on the trail make up their minds as to where their finances may take them next. Five years earlier this would have been the next stop on my very first adventure to the South American continent but bad luck and a lack of commitment saw me return home with a pocket full of dreams and a head full of unfinished business...perhaps that should be written the other way around.

Salar de Uyuni - Uyuni - Bolivia

The train cemetery - Uyuini - Bolivia

For all the misdirected angst that Uyuni has absorbed, I'm here to tell you, it's not the Trumpian red state Republican disaster that you'd expect to ghoulishly arise from the the arse end of the Salar . Sure, tumbleweeds, dust filled tempests and lettuce infused sangria, crafted nonsensically by the locals, don't bode for a burgeoning metropolis of curiosity and thriving tourism, but still, as a stop of necessity it not entirely the disaster outlined in travel guides. With that said, its not more than a 20-25 min 'interest maintainer' either, so waiting 9hrs for a bus and chugging back Pedro's Bolivian adaptation of the Castellano love potion was more than just a lesson in tenacity and intestinal fortitude.

As night shades were drawn on Uyuni and we completed our 16th circuit of Uyuni uptown and downtown,  Inga and finally outplayed father time and lined up for the midnight shuttle to the capital La Paz. Five years earlier I had entered La Paz via a different route from Santa Cruz, having busted out of the madhouse that was Comunidad Inta Wara Yassi. On that occasion we were  held up inthe early hours of the morning by what looked to be a Wiphala protest of critical mass. On this occasion, as the early morning rays of light snuck into the aluminum cabin of this Bolivian transit vessel we found ourselves abstractedly drifting across landscapes of  endless corn fields and potato farms, punctuated by the curious glances of bowler hatted men who must have been wondering if their cocoa leaves had been harvested in Colombia. We founds ourselves that morning literally traversing the fields of privately held farming land in the hope of finding a covert way into the capital of La Paz. Apparently, on this day, we had once again unwittingly fallen victim to yet another elaborate protest. On this occasion it was one being lead by disgruntled taxi drivers who had decided to block the main arterial lines into the capital. I'll never forget one encounter that morning, as this enormous commercial vehicle cut through private farming land, stopping by a farmer out to start his day and the bus driver pulled over and asked quite literally "do you know another way to La Paz from here" - he did not, but neither did he look amazed or even slightly amused by the situation, just like he had encountered this scenario hundreds of times previously.

La Paz - Bolivia

La Paz is an incredible city. Located in a large natural bowl-like depression, it is surrounded by the high mountains of the antiplano, holding the distinct honour of being the highest capital city in the world at an elevation of 3650 mtrs. This in itself makes walking feel like you've just inherited a continuous asthma attack, which I can confirm is exactly what the feel is. You deliberately grab for that additional half breath of oxygen anywhere you walk with the steep streets pushing your heart into the 200 bpm zone. Still, as your head swims and you take in the surrounds, house of adobe cascade down the hillsides into the city centre. It's dense but not in a claustrophobic way but in a manner that simply inspires awe. A true 'South American'  city in the sense that the population is overtly indigenous, not some Spanish hybrid. It's lively, pulsating, chaotic, exhilarating and foreign, to me. I say 'foreign' in the sense that it's difficult to hang your hat somewhere and find something that relates, it's all so different.

La Paz - Boliva

La Paz - Bolivia

We selected the Rendevous Hostel for our few nights and were not at all disappointed by the choice. A warm, welcoming, quite cosy hotel/hostel in the good part of town. It was run by a Canadian who had transplanted himself to Bolivia after falling for the local produce and planting crops (so to speak), and may I had, also produced the greatest Manhattans that I've had in my life!

In addition to all of this, La Paz was the city where my my first adventure had halted. In the gringo invested backpacker hovel known as the Wild Rover my wallet had somehow sailed out of sight, never to be seen. I had myself a moment of small satisfaction when I stopped by the hostel, placed by hand on the front door and said 'I'm back, and now I'm leaving to finish what I'm left'. I promised myself to do that very thing 5 years ago when I made the choice to go home - to come back to this point, pick it all up and go again. Here I was. 

What to do in this city?

Surprisingly La Paz is filled with options for the curious, for the well heeled and for the stupid. It's an unexpectedly great city to explore and does provide opportunities for the adventurous. Just outside the city are  the mountains that provide it with protection, and past that, and attraction well known around the world as the "Death Ride" along the Camino de la muerte. 

The 'Death Road' - La Paz - Bolivia

The 'Death Road' - La Paz - Bolivia

I had done this ride previously in 2010 and was indoctrinated to the gang of the 'worried' with stories of cyclists gliding over un-barricaded bends and flights into the abyss via 200mtr sheer drops to the valley floor. Stories both manufactured and embellished to create the myth, and to create profit on the shoulders of legend. This time around I was more 'schooled' in the art of the camino but had promised Inga that we would take on this thrill ride as our first order of death defying business in a city where the art of civil liability, over protection and idiotic sensitivity has not as yet made its way.

The 'Death Road' - La Paz - Bolivia

The 'Death Road' - La Paz - Bolivia

The 'Death Road' - La Paz - Bolivia

Without so much detail as in previous writings I can add that the anxiety that builds up just prior to the start of the ride was familiar and I could see the thinly veiled nervous excitement coming out with each question directed as me as a now two time participant, "is it scary?", "is it safe?", "how do the bikes handle the terrain?" - and with each nonchalant response of "you'll be ok, I'm living proof", came the equally uncertain answer of "A-ha, ok".

Starting on quite stark, barren landscape at 4900mts, we were greeted with a dusting of snow as we cruised downwards in snake like formation, winding in and out of traffic with the full understanding that the real star was still some 20kms away.

The rally point, the station for final checks prior to the 30+ km ride is a subtle prayer stable. A place we reassurance is sought and blatant lies are accepted. The fact of the matter is that before you head off the uninitiated simply don't know what they don't know. The fear of failure could be broken limbs at best, death at the worst. The understanding being there have been those that have gone before and those that have told stories of their success. Inspiration for sure. A warranty and a promise to defeat the pessimistic among us.

In reality, the most daunting section is the first 200mtrs. The width of the road is a little more than a few meters and the drops are extreme. You realise quickly however that the real fear would lay in the hearts of the poor souls journeying up or down the road via bus where the ability of the driver and their general level of alertness is where the ownership of your future resides.

The ride itself is easy, not particularly challenging, but then you don't really need it to be. Dropping from 4900mtrs to 1300mtrs over 2hrs, from the barren lands of the mountains into rainforest, it's an experience that's worth taken on the mental challenge for, as that's all it is. The ability to allow the body to do something very basic whilst quelling those notes of self doubt and fear.

Worth doing? For sure. 

Scary? Not the second time around but hey, I was living proof for the rest of them that this good be conquered without becoming victim #33.

  

Sydney - Your Saturday best - 7 years of sin and sensation (part 2)

Sydney (Australia)
26 April 2013

In the last few weeks I've taken to scheming once again, scheming and hatching plans. And why is that you ask? Because I'm restless, because 'wanderlust' for me is more than a word and is about as integral to my daily living requirements as caffeine, fibre and vitamin D. Sometimes I don't even understand how some of these plans present themselves in my mostly occupied mind, take the 'Osaka whimsy' for example. I was sitting at home reading the paper one Sunday morning, beams of sunlight from a beautiful April morning cutting strips across the pages of print in my hands and then BAM-O! In a flash of either genius, insanity or perhaps both I just thought 'Osaka!..yeah, I think there's good food there, maybe I should go!' ...and that was it! Sometimes the want of my own discovery is as simple as a flash of inspiration and a heavy dose of perserverence in order to be able to get me there. So Osaka? A place that is probably everything that I never knew that I wanted! And also a story that is waiting to be written another day because it's on standby, moments waiting to be lived out a few months away from where we are now, and this entry on the contrary is part of a series dedicated to the last 7 years.

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Today I'm starting off my trip down travel lane with  a nod of the the head to those lengthy journeys where it was 'better to travel hopefully than to arrive'. An idiom that I've kindly borrowed which suggests that sometimes the process of travel should be enjoyed in equal equivalence to, or perhaps even with more anticipation than that which exists for the arrival at your chosen destination.

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The top 5 '...ummm, how did you get there?'

This top 5 is dedicated to those journeys where brain cells were forever lost, sanity was checked at the counter never to be seen again and patience was erased from the turbid sea of resilience by the subtle brush strokes of time.

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1. La Paz (Bolivia) to Buenos Aires (Argentina) - 2010 - Overland bus (60hrs) - You read that duration correctly by the way! It was 2.5 days locked into the one seat on the same bus. Intermittent stops made only for 20min refreshment breaks and an achingly long lunch stop somewhere in Northern Argentina in the final 12hr stretch. But how you ask? But why even? All pertinent questions, so let me answer them below.

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Back in 2010 I'd taken an extended break from everything and was living out an age old dream of mine which was to travel South America with no planned agenda, just to take it as it presented itself, but then came the WildRover Hostel 'incident' which can be read here - You've got what you're worth and also here - Shaken not stirred - La Paz to Buenos Aires, it was a 'happening' where my wallet was ever so elegantly lifted from my bag whilst I was out of the room and without going into those specifics let me fill you in on what happened next.
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I had decided to take the cheapest  travel option back to Buenos Aires as I the wallet lifting escapade meant that I was preparing to head back home. The cheapest option out of La Paz to BA was a $100USD bus ride through the wilds of the altiplano, into Northern Argentina and then south east to Buenos Aires on the Rio de la Plata.

Somewhere between La Paz and the border - high on the altiplano - Bolivia
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Now bus rides don't harm me, I can switch off my internal systems and dose away those bland and boring hours on the road quite easily. In instances where mere mortals tend to 'lose the plot' I'm happily off in my slumber world, oblivious to anything but the creation of images and dreams that meld with the relentless hum of tyres on bitumen and the relentless rocking of the transporation chariot. On this trip however I broke down, I became 'one of those' people that get overwhelmed by cabin fever and there was nothing that I could do to reign in the internal carnage.
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What broke me however was not the 3hrs in took to cross the border at Villazon, the same one that I had walked across a month earlier in under 10mins, nor was it the 14yr old kid that kept leaning on my shoulder right through the second night trying to find a comfortable position for his head, nor was it the constant police stops in Argentina and requests for me to produce my passport every few hours, BUT, what flipped me out was the fact that our scheduled time of arrival was meant to be 10hrs earlier than when we actually arrived AND the fact that it felt as if the speed that we were doing from the border all the way down to Buenos Aires was never more than 40kph! I absolutely lost my shit!!! I started hitting windows, hitting seats, swearing out loud every now and then, there was just nothing to control that internal fury of being locked up in this tin can without knowing when the end would appear.

Rainy day in Buenos Aires - Argentina

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2. Gibbon Experience - Bokeo Province - near Huay Xai (Laos) - 2009 - Huay Xai is a two street town that lies on the Lao bank of the Mekong  which itself acts as the Lao/Thai border in the north-west part of the country. Getting there by road or water is a long proposition, so we elected to fly in from Vientiane, a 2.5hr flight with 'Air Maybe' from the capital - Air Maybe - The Gibbon Experience. From Huay Xai it was then a 2-3hr right on the back of a truck to a small village outpost that was overun with chickens, stray cows and all other things related to this particular version of the 'Lao farming Disneyland', and then to get to the 'huts in the sky' it was a 6hr walk across the smoke and haze riddled jungles of the remote Bokeo province.

'Air Maybe' - safely on the ground Huay Xai - Lao PDR

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This place is fairly remote. I mean if you sustained a serious injury whilst out in the jungle then you would be in a fair amount of trouble. Getting back to the small town of Huay Xai was difficult enough but needing to be evacuated anywhere else? Well, thankfully it didn't occur, we all survived our food poisoning with Lao parasites that we'll carry for life and we'll remember a journey into the back of nowhere.

The two street town of Huay Xai - Lao PDR

Our ride - bounced from pillar to post - Bokeo Province - Lao PDR
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3. Sydney (Australia) to  Rio de Janeiro (Brasil) - 2011 - (48hrs) - I know that there's a direct way to get to South America from Sydney, I know that flying across the Pacific from Sydney is the DIRECT route and is probably something like 20hrs faster than the route we actually took, but, by the time JJ, Jet and myself had all gotten on the same page to attacking Rio for NYE the prices of direct flights were hovering in the $5K range and flights from Sydney to Dubai to Sao Paulo were in the $2700 vicinity. Do the maths on that! That's $115 per hour saved, or $115 per hour for the pain transference of not paying the additional $2300. Honestly I was ok with not having to pay the additional sum. So we busted out of Sydney on Christmas Eve, had Christmas drinks in Dubai 14hrs later, had an odd Christmas Dinner in Sao Paulo 14hrs after that and then  jumped a 4hr bus ride from Sao Paulo to Rio the following day. It was 'the long way' and then some but it did the job when it came to value - Hitting up Sampa

Dubai to Sao Paulo - only 14hrs to go! Dubai International Airport - United Arab Emirates

'Merry Freakin' Christmas Jet!!' - Frichot crashed out in the lobby of our hotel after suffering 28hrs of air travel trauma - we still had the Sao Paulo to Rio bus ride the next day! - Sao Paulo - Brasil
 

4. Stockholm (Sweden)  to Belgrade (Serbia) - 2010 - (28hrs) -  This ride was one of the most epic pieces of driving 'endurance' that I have ever been part of and had the good fortune to witness first hand. I'm not entirely sure whether it was the intention from the start or whether the competitive spirit of my cousin (Big V) just overtook all his good sense about what a 'comfortable' amount of time driving through Europe would account to but we commenced our journey from Stockholm after an afternoon/night out drinking with a friend  of the family- Gumball Rally (Part 2) - We woke up the next morning at somewhere touching 4am with dry mouths and the stench of whiskey still oozing from our pores but still harnessed the will and requisite insanity to point our vehicle south with the full intention of cutting the great continent of Europe in two.

We exited Stockholm at 5am on day one. In those next 28hrs we cut through the countries of Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and then finally Serbia. At a little after 9am the next day, with my cousin only having taken a 90min power nap on the backstreets of Slovakia we cruised into Belgrade triumphant, with trumpets blowing, marching bands out on parade and our car parked proudly at its destination in Topcider.

Sunset on the road - 'somewhere in Denmark'

Great Belt bridge near Odense - Denmark

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5. San Carlos de Bariloche (Argentina) to Sucre (Bolivia) - (30hrs) - For some reason this ride even now feels like a haze of early morning stops, blurry faces and the metaphorical transience of movement. I recall making port in places such as JuJuy, Villazon (and a ram shackled hostel that had a view into a mechanics workshop) and then a 5am arrival in the quaint town of Sucre which had us arriving to our hostel several hours prior to the time that out hostel could actually accommodate us and thus we find ourselves sprawled out on the couches in the common room until suitable beds were found.

Morning stop near JuJuy Argentina - It's 4am, you just 'gotta drink' after 16hrs in the saddle

The Bolivian border town of Villazon

The top 5 - 'Best sunsets'

I love an aesthetically pleasing view and additionally I adore the glorious wash of colours that comes with a sunset that decides to paint itself over the canvas that is the view that I'm appreciating. The shots below are the best sunsets I've witnessed during my travels thus far. Hopefully the shots do these places a little bit of justice.
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1. Porto Bay Hotel - Copacabana - Rio de Janeiro (Brasil) - 2012

Porto Bay hotel - Copacabana - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil

Porto Bay hotel - Copacabana - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil
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2. View from Tanjia restaurant - (Marrakech) - Morocco - 2010



Marrakech - Morocco

Marrakech - Morocco

3. The dunes of Dubai - (United Arab Emirates) - 2012

Dubai - United Arab Emirates

Dubai - United Arab Emirates

4.On the beach in Mazatlan - (Mexico) - 2011

Mazatlan - Mexico

Mazatlan - Mexico
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5. View from the Eiffel tower - Paris - (France) - 2010

Paris - France

Paris - France

Top 5 - 'You're a little bit of an idiot aren't you?'

These stories are dedicated to some of those moments where hindsight would have been the advantageous card to have been pulled from the deck prior to the moment of impact, but they are also moments where the value of the story in the present far outweighs any of the consequences suffered at the time.

1. Dicing with Yuma - 'That's the jaw of a puma around my knee right now isn't it!?' - Parque Ambue Ari - (Bolivia) - 2010 - This one takes out the title purely for the fact that there were moments of blinding flashes in my head when I thought that my being was going to be terminated on the jungle floors of the Bolivian Amazon! I always laugh when I read this entry - 3:10 Express from Yuma - because I remember the speed at which my brain was processing information regarding 'the situation' and the conversation that it was engaged in with itself in those few moments when puma jaw enveloped human leg. Reflecting on it now its quite hilarious but I recall that at the time I was doing an express sanity check that followed some logical pattern akin to the below conversation, i.e.,

Brain: Question to Henry - 'This is real, is it not?'

Henry: Answer to Brain - 'F**k, the flipped out b*tch has her mouth around my knee and is ripping into my leg with her claws! I think it's freakin' real!!!'

Brain: Follow up question - 'Huh...interesting'. Additional question. You do realise that wild animals like this can kill people, right?'

Henry: Answer to Brain - 'Yeah bro, I'm onto that caper as of right now!'

Brain: Response to Henry - 'OK, best of luck with that, I'm checking out now!'

Henry: Response to Brain - 'Ah brain, hello!? Hello!!!??!?'

When my brain checked out during that experience then I realised that there was the potential for there to be much carnage. I can only thank Ms Puma that on this day her 'moody b*tch dial' was on low otherwise you may not be reading any of this!

Big jaw, sharp teeth...around my LEG!!!!! Parque Ambue Ari - Bolivia

That's right, you eat that chicken and leave me the hell alone!

2. Smuggling goods out of a jail - San Pedro prison - La Paz - (Bolivia) - 2010 - You'll start to see a pattern with my stay in Bolivia, am just calling that out up front. Initially made globally famous by a little write up in the Lonely Planet guide for Bolivia some years back and by the name of the book from which the title of my blog entry was borrowed - Marching Powder - San Pedro prison is somewhat of an oddity. Prisoners of San Pedro pay for the privilege of staying within their walls and paying rentals on their pieces of real estate depending upon where in the prison they are located. The place operates like a small closed economy, shops, restaurants, gyms, hair dresses etc, all being operated by prisoners for prisons, within the prison. It's an interesting set up, which additionally allows for visits by tourists such as myself to help sustain and grow their little enterprises. Their main form of income by the way is not from the payment that 'we tourists' make as our 'safety assurance' on entry but rather the sell ingof cocaine base which is made in the prison.

So, the additional part of the story now logically follows. You reach the end of your tour and you're taken to a small-ish room away from all other inmates. The guide  then poses the following question, 'Would you like anything else'? It doesn't take a Nobel prize laureate to work out what this tienda  is wanting to offload. My cohorts and I quickly look at each other and just nod, 'sure' we say collectively. OK, so how many times in your life will you rack up lines inside the joint? For me I sincerely hope it's just the one time! There is more to the story however...

...Preparing to make our departure the question is then posed on whether we would enjoy taking any goods out of the prison, you know, for our own entertainment purposes. Several members of my group do so. My mind still active at this point declines the invitation but realises that it's now part of a group of people that are smuggling drugs out of a jail!.....'Ahhh F*cksicle!'...Now I don't know how many tourists get busted doing this, obviously this method is well accepted at the prison and tolerated within reason, but what happens if the guards decide to do a search? What's the bribe to be paid? What's the penalty? Can you actually get busted for taking drugs out of San Pedro? Who's backdoor bitch will I become if I stay inside? These were all questions that thankfully did not require any answering other than evening scrutiny and discussion of the event upon our successful exit.

3. Mountain biking the 'Death Road'- La Paz - (Bolivia) - 2010 -  Do you have that annoying and nagging sensation that perhaps the altitude in La Paz played a little with my ability to make rational life choices? Another unique Bolivian experience involved mountain biking down the notorious 'Death Road'. It should be known that this is the 'little boulevard' where at one point during the 80's they were clocking something close to 600 deaths per year and averaging 2 bus loses a month into the Coroico valley. These days traffic is mostly from those oddballs such as myself that feel the need to freewheel the 32kms of the Death Road and live to tell the tale,although, with that said, there was as of November 2010 (33) biking fatalities on the road. I've also included a link to the blog entry here if you want to have a read - El camino de la muerte

My little dice with the Death Road came from the relative weight of speed that I assigned to the portion of the road that I was on and the fact that rain in the previous days had turned section of the camino into mud pits. I realised how treacherous the road was 'if you weren't paying attention' when I crossed up my mountain bike prior to a turn in the road and stared into a 50mtr drop that would have had me headbutting forest floor at 100kph! Not so bad considering drop in some places are known to be 600mtrs!

The cruise before the storm - outside of La Paz - Bolivia

'The Balcony' on the Death Road - Yungas Rd - Bolivia

4. Here, have a phone, and let me pay you to take it from me! - Marrakech - (Morocco) - 2008 - Oh brother, if  this wasn't the screenplay to a C-grade horror movie then it should have been. Actually it was the exact script lifted from 'what not to do' when encountered in the exact same situation.

So I'd just taken a 6hr  ride down from Fes to Marrakech on a relatively comfortable train. The only problem being that it was 50 degrees outside and the air conditioning on the train was losing its will to live, so it was warm and the stench of Moroccan man sweat was starting to pervade all cornices of the carriage. Encountering direct sunlight and the furnace of Marrakech was a completely different proposition after the travails of the train adventure. Thankfully Marrakech presented a dry heat but it was pushing the 50 mark on the day that I arrived. I jumped a taxi from the station and took a ride to where my riad was located. Somewhere 'near' my riad the driver stopped, grunted and pointed me to 'somewhere' down the street. The entries that relate to this exercise in stupidity can be accessed here Marrakech and here Marrakech C.S.I. The short of it is that I asked a 'random' passer by for assistance to my accommodation, this opportunist then assisted himself to my mobile phone, 100 dirhams and walked away from me without me so much as blinking. I still recall this guy walking to the end of the alley where he'd directed me, turning left and then me thinking at that moment 'Ahh f*ck! He's got my mobile hasn't he? He's not coming back either, is he? And I still don't know where my accommodation is!? I'm just a rip roaring mong right about now!'

Back alleys of Marrakech - Morocco

5. Entering Mexico without acquiring a visa - Tijuana - (Mexico) - 2011 - Now this isn't exactly as dumb as it sounds. The Mexico/US border is fairly liquid in terms of allow foreigners to pass through without a visa, well, from the Mexican perspective anyway. The deal is that if you want to stay in TJ then ok, there's no visa required but for escapades further into Mexico you'll need one. At the time Jet and I entered Mexico we thought we would only be staying in TJ and then making our way back into the US and then across it, funds put pay to that. Thr residual affect of not acquiring the needed visa at the border gave rise to a spectacular sequence of event at the airport in Mexico City which had us waving goodbye to our flight to Los Angeles as we picked up our offloaded luggage from the flight on the tarmac. Again, it's one of those days/nights when on reflection you just have to laugh but at the time, man did it suck balls!!! This entry for it is amusing I think, check it out - The Project



No skateboarding across the border! Remember that! - Tijuana - Mexico

That's the border exit! Turn right and walk 5mtrs and you have yourself good 'ole Mexican tacos! Of course that's exactly what you're looking for after you've crossed - Tijuana - Mexico