La Paz to Buenos Aires - Shaken, not stirred

La Paz (Bolivia) to Buenos Aires (Argentina)
27 NOV - 29 NOV

"You are honest but have no scruples. Your instincts and intuitiion are more powerful than your intelligence, which is far above average. When you get afraid, you don't panic. Danger acts almost as a stimulus to you. You think more clearly and make better decisions when driven by the survival instinct"

What's written above is a description by G.M. Stuart of Belgrader Dusan-Dusko Popov (1912-1982), who was Ian Fleming's real life role model for his spy hero James Bond (Mr 007). So, what has this got to do with anything that I may have to offer? Well, I have kind of an amusing story to tell which isn't actually mine but is the 'real life' account of my travelling partner Dina Jezdic who found herself in an amusing predicament whilst attempting to make her exit from Bolivia. I'll write the account in same manner in which is was told to me at about 2am on the 30th of November when I arrived in Buenos Aires after bouncing across the dirt roads of South America for 60hrs. To get to the story however I need to provide just a little background as to my own path and the state I arrived in upon making my return to Buenos Aires.

Two days prior to leaving La Paz my intention had been to head north to Lake Titicaca and then onto Machu Picchu, that was until some kind opportunist lifted my wallet from the room in which I was staying. Several phones calls, a Western Union transfer and 48hrs removed from the incident, I was in the main bus terminal of La Paz with Dina and Nick both of whom were also looking for a way out of their own. Dina had actually planned to leave La Paz on this day and was heading to Santa Cruz in order to catch a flight to Buenos Aires, Nick on the other hand was taking the planned route that I had just given up. My intention was therefore to jump a bus ride south from La Paz and then catch Dina in Buenos Aires two days later. As fate would have it we were going to find ourselves arriving in BA on the same day and more than likely leaving for home on the same day also. So almost as quickly as I had entered the bus terminal I found myself a ride south within 15 mins that was heading out immediately. I said my goodbyes and I was gone.

Now from what I could figure out the planned duration of the ride was going to be between 48-50hrs. I know that it sounds evil but for some reason I have the capacity to both sleep excessively and read excessively on bus rides. I just zone out and really don't find them to be too much of a chore. This journey however was to be the exception. The ride surreptitiously unfurled into a painful, mind bending expedition of mental endurance that in its last hours had me rocking back and forth in my seat and pounding on the windows in the hope that my internal cauldron of molten frustration would somehow psychically spew over and transfer itself to the driver in order to aid him in getting his expedience on!

The backwoods of Bolivia - on the way to Vilazon

The first signs of what would become my future of anguish and frustration arrived when the bus from La Paz sidled into the border town of Vilazon an hour late. The 10am connection to Buenos Aires had already departed and the next ride out, I was confidently advised, was going to leave at 2pm. For some reason I trusted the assessment and hence in my gringo naivety found myself sitting in a small office until 5pm waiting for the '2pm' connection. When we did actually depart our first exploits was a short drive,  all of 500mtrs to the Bolivian/Argentine border, what I assumed to be a relatively simple formality as Dina and I had crossed into Bolivia at this very same point a month earlier in just a few mins. On this occassion, with half of the Bolivians on this bus for 'some reason' not carrying adequate ID, the crossing took 3hrs! It was PAINFUL! At sometime nearing 9pm we were herded back onto the bus and were allowed to proceed into Argentine territory. The ride however did not improve. With a sissy little toddler seated across the aisle that cried and screamed whenever someone sneezed, to the 40kph limit that the bus driver stuck to for hours upon hours, to the endless Argentine patrol checks, there was no fluidity of movement, it felt like an endless lesson in the art of patience. Both a lesson and a battle that I was certainly feeling myself beginning to lose. As the arrival time in Buenos Aires came and went without so much as a courtesy apology I knew that we were still  literally hours away from making our destination. As the afternoon sun dropped out of sight the night set in and the shitty kid across the aisle wailed incessantly, it felt like she had been put on this earth with the soul objective of breaking me. Somewhere close to 1:30am the bus rolled into a northern BA bus terminal, 12.5hrs later than I had expected to arrive. I immediately jumped a cab and made a b-line for the hostel in Boedo where D and I had commenced our adventure two months earlier. As I walked into the room I looked at D, threw down my bag and explained my soul destroying experience - the response that I received from her however just blew me out of the water. The story of which goes a little something like this....

This border crossing took 3hrs!!! Have a look - Argentina near side, Bolivia far side...and 3hrs for what!?

A few hours after I had left La Paz Dina had managed to find herself a connection to Santa Cruz upon where she would be catching a plane to Buenos Aires in two days time, at roughly the time that I should have been arriving in BA. The ride from La Paz to Santa Cruz is approximately 18hrs worth and for the first 14hrs had been relatively uneventful. At some point along the road however there had been a patrol stop/check and the bus was searched by armed police and sniffer dogs. As the police boarded one of the dogs stopped close to D and she gave him a little bit of a pat before moving on. I'm not sure if this was seen as suspicious or not, and not that it mattered in the end as further up the aisle an Australian traveller was now becoming the target of the dogs sensitive detection device. With a brief search of the Australian's belongings it seemed that something suspicious was found and he in turn alighted from the bus with a couple of spritely Bolivian police to keep him company. The way Dina explains it, once he was off the bus simply pulled away and the Australian was left on the lonely desolate roads of Bolivia with what seemed a certain amount of explaining to do. The directors of Banged Up Abroad will be making a visit soon I'm sure!

So really, what's in the bag Dina? What kind of spy gear do you have?

Now Santa Cruz is neither an aesthetically spectacular or stimulating city. Even though it's the most populous city in Bolivia the feeling that you generally get is that someone has painted over it with a large pallette of shadiness and sleaze. It sits on the edge of the Amazonian basin and seems to constantly be inundated with heavy, humid weather. As Dina passed her way through the bus terminal on arrival she headed out into the constant throng of people and traffic that occupy pride of place at the terminal entrance. Making her way to a line of taxi drivers she found to her dismay that time after time they were turning her down for a ride into the city. It was only the last driver on the rank that accepted her fare and obviously the accepting party had to be the one had a large dose of crazy emanating from his pores. As they sped out of the bus terminal D was thinking as to how strange it was that it was only this driver that had wanted to accept her fare, that was until the point in time that she also realised that this guy was now breaking land speed records through the streets of Santa Cruz and could quite easily have them killed with a false move on the road. Asking the driver to slow down on several occasions seemed to have no affect as the lunatic just kept on moving like a man posessed. The only point in time that he stopped was the point in time when he was forced to stop by the direct result of an accident that put his vehicle out of commission. The police of Santa Cruz were then called to the scene and Dina in turn was taken down to the local station in order to provide a statement, or so she thought.

In disguise, obviously!

Down at the police station however the questions that Dina found herself fielding were not those she expected to be answering as an innocent party that had just been involved in an accident. Three 'police officials' made there way into a holding room where D was seated and proceeded to question her as to where she was going and why 'she' had been wanting to get there in such a hurry. When she explained that the taxi driver had undertaken the 'dangerous driving' course off his own bat they dismissed the reasoning outright and prompted her again for a better explanation. They then moved to the 'coincidental' circumstances by which she had found herself on a bus with an Australian that had been caught out by a patrol for carrying drugs (aha, so that's what happened to the guy - surprise). She explained that she didn't know the person and that it was just purely a coincidental. It was a coincidence that the police were certain would point to much bigger things. This line of questioning continued until they asked her as to whether she had been travelling alone, which ofcourse she hadn't, and how again it seemed very convenient that her travelling partner (aka me) had taken a totally different route to Buenos Aires. This wasn't suspicious at all they said.

As the questioning continued the police decided to sift through her belongings and came across two passports. One being her predominant New Zealand passport and the other being her unused Serbian passport. Ofcourse this drew even more attention and raised eyebrows from the Miami Vice boys of Santa Cruz who felt certain that they'd just trapped someone of note in their poorly maintained fishing nets.The legitimacy of having dual citizenship  just didn't strike a chord with the CSI troupe who pushed the questioning behind her need for two passports until such time that they decided to press Dina on why she was actually in South America and what she had been doing prior to turning up in their country. Dina explained that she had been a Phd student studying in both Prague and then Berlin before deciding to make her way back to New Zealand after falling  for a Kiwi guy that she had met in Berlin several months earlier. Not unexpectedly the police said that her 'cover story' of being a student that travelled in Europe and to the US for conferences to be extremely convenient and somewhat of a 'far-fetched' story that was neatly packaged for her benefit.

Conducting covert operations in Colonia with her 'contact'

During the time that D's belongings were being investigated her phone was also seized. In another string of coincidences the police found that there had been only two people contacted on the SIM card she was using, a 'contact' from New Zealand and a dealer in Santa Cruz that had been picked up by the police in the last 3-4 days. The dealer in Santa Cruz had in fact been the 'guy on the street' that Dina, Nick and Jade had found 10 days earlier to supply our Parque group with some party time goods. The New Zealand 'contact' was in fact her boyfriend who was only able to call/text on a Bolivian acquired SIM. As she explained the situation to the police and advised that she had no idea of who the dealer was (and I'm sure that at point in time she didn't) they pressed her on the 'cryptic' text messages that had been sent to her so-called boyfriend and put forward the hypothesis that the intimate nature of these texts were actually a code that she had organised with her 'contact'. If things were looking bad at the start of this inquisition know they were edging over the bounds of reasonable doubt, well, the South American version in any case.

Expert navigational skills - the hallmark of a great spy!

It was at the point in time that the police stipulated that they would be conducting a strip-search.  Dina obviously flipped out at the thought of a six foot stupid Bolivian hick 'conducting' a search and called for an abogado (lawyer) to come in, which thankfully she was able to find. At this point it seems that they all went through the details of the story once again before the Bolivian police came out and put to her point blank what their 'skillful' detective work had managed to uncover in the last few hours. It appeared to them that all the coincidences boiled down to one of two certainties, that she was either a DEA agent or a spy! As Dina looked incredulously at all parties they put the hypothesis to her again and waited for her to make an admission, which ofcourse was not forthcoming. At this point the lawyer asked the 'investigators' as to whether she was actually being charged with anything, which ofcourse they were unable to do with just purely coincidental circumstances. The lawyer then put it to them that if that was the case then she was free to leave. As D left the premises the main 'investigator' made a comment to her in a manner that shecould only characterise as equivalent to being something out of a C-grade Hollywood movie, something akin to 'I'm sure we'll be meeting again very soon!'.

Irreverent or DEA agent? You be the judge!

That evening Dina spent a very sleep deprived night in a very dodgy Santa Cruz hostel, hoping and praying that her progress through customer and her flight out of the city in the early afternoon the next day would be uneventful. Thankfully, to a certain extent it was, although she was actually strip searched after clearing customs by a female officer, a hassle which apparently she didn't have too many any issues with but something I kind of flipped out over when she told me.

As she concluded her story we kind of sat in silence for a few moments. I shook my head and said something close to  'Well makes my bus ride sound like a kiddies party doesn't it? It's a hell of a story though, you'll be laughing about this in a few months time'. Dina kind of shook her head in the manner that one does when they've just been put through this kind of surreal situation.  We sat back for a while and continued to chat about what had happened  for sometime and as we did my own mind raised that little bit of doubt as to whether the Bolivian police hypothesis was actually correct. Dina couldn't be a spy, could she? Then again, I'm sure that many people dismissed Dusan-Dusko Popov as a spy also, to their own peril - those bloody Belgradese, with them you just never know now do you??!!!

La Paz - You're worth what you've got

La Paz (Bolivia)
20 NOV - 27 NOV

That line can be taken to mean quite a few things and hence if I attempt a Copperfield and use poetic license to convey some artistic slight of hand then it might just fit in with how my days in La Paz came to an abrupt end. It goes a little something like this...

La Paz had become the solvent upon which the bonds of the 'Parque Ambue Ari travelling crew' were quickly dissolving. After having survived the Road of Death the day before I had initially convinced myself that the following day would be the ideal time to head out of La Paz solo and make my way to the salt flats of the Salar de Uyuni. A 3500mtr drop in elevation, a 64km ride (albeit all downhill as Nick kindly noted) and a fairly active day out put paid to that idea. Simple fact of the matter was that I was getting irritated with the indecisive nature of everyone involved and hitting the road solo was really going to be the only suitable remedy me. Mentally therefore what I decided to do was that I would stay in La Paz for an additional 5-7 days and undertake the Spanish course that I had initially wanted to complete in Sucre. Post curso de español the plan was to head a short way out of La Paz to Lake Titicaca and then make my way to Cusco in order to get to what I imagined was going to be one of 'the' highlights of the trip, Machu Picchu.

It was at this point in time that I started to get particularly excited about heading north and making my way into Peru. I still hadn't made my mind up however as to whether I would continue on the northerly vector after Cusco and line myself up with Ecuador and Colombia or whether I would make it to the Amazonian port town of Iquitos in north-eastern Peru and rent myself a slow swaying hammock on an equally slow moving boat down river to the mouth of the Amazon in Belem. I had time however, it was still all in front of me.

Near the Witches Market - La Paz - Bolivia

An actual 'Zebra crossing' - La Paz had a few of these - obviously someone has a sense of humour

The days that I spent in La Paz were actually quite enjoyable and relaxing. During these particular days I found myself alone more often than not which I have to admit was something that I had been craving. Dina had made her way north to Lake Titicaca with Frida and Jenny for a few days, Gado was busy preparing himself for another Amazonian jungle ambush and Nick & Jade were planning there own way into Peru, well that was in the space between the constant fire fights they were having. This time to myself actually allowed me to develop a bit of a routine in La Paz whereby each day I'd make my way to the bar for breakfast at the Wild Rover, dose myself up with the requisite amount of caffeine and then lock myself into Spanish study for a few hours whilst intermittently checking in on the news of the world via the BBC at the other end of the bar. I'm not sure why it's the case with me but for some reason I always feel better or more satisfied with my being when I'm studying or taking on classes, I guess 17 years at university will do that to a man, it's called classical institutionalism. Heading out from the Wild Rover each morning I'd make the 20 min stroll across town under the typically thin, transparent and refined blue Andean sky to calle Sagamama. Quite often I'd get lost in my own thoughts, enjoy the surroundings of a still very unfamiliar town or self monitor in relation to how my altitude adaptation was going. After 2hours of Spanish I'd drop down into the Cuban restaurant next door, have myself lunch with a classic Cuban mojito and then browse the small shops in the area near the witches market before heading back to the Wild Rover for an afternoon in the sun and a book in hand, Rusty Youngs' Marching Powder more often than not being the book of choice on most occasions.

Nightfever at the Wild Rover

Jenny 'trying' to be awesome like me but not quite making it!

With my days in La Paz winding down and the time quickly approaching for me to head off I decided that I would more than likely wait for Dina to get back into town from Lake Titicaca so that we could at least have a few drinks together with the rest of the crew before bidding one another farewell and godspeed on our respective journeys. Somewhere about the 25th of November Dina had made her way back to base quite late. Jade, Nick and myself had been out at a half decent Mexican restaurant that evening and Gado had 'I assume' been getting his gear together for his Amazonian escapade. By the time D had made her way into our room at the Wild Rover we were mostly on our own journey into a high altitude dreamland but never the less did still have the presence of mind to confirm that we would all be up for one last throw of the dice the next evening, and with that sleep came swiftly.

Swiftly to sleep with the aid of the local brew

For some reason this night of sleep was quite fitfull and progressed in an odd fashion. I distinctly recall that at one point a drunk couple managed to fumble their way into our room and then stumble out but on questioning the crew in the morning nobody could quite put their finger on how long they stayed. Later in the morning Gado was up at somewhere close to 4am getting his gear ready for departure. For most of the next hour all I recall is the light of the room being switched on and off a ridiculous number of times as Gado made his way too and from the common bathroom (or so I assume). It was like a really bad highschool disco and in turn it seemed to trigger a dream-initiated lucid dream, one in which I actually dreamt that I had gotten out of my bunk bed and turned the light off and then realised in turn within my dream that I had in fact been dreaming, I mean seriously, I know in myself that I'd actually be too lazy to do that.

Somewhere close to 8am I woke with the assistance of a few rays of Andean sun hitting my face. Taking in my surroundings I noticed that the rest of the crew were also starting to stir at about the same time. As I looked aimlessly around the room my eyes stopped at some errant shampoo and conditioner that had somehow made its way from being zipped up in my bag to taking pride of place on top of one of the locked up cupboards. After a moments thought I assumed that Dina had obviously had a follicle emergency the evening before after having endured the torment of Lake Titicaca and in turn raided our Ambue Ari stash of biodegradable hair care products. Not that in itself that was something to be alarmed about but I did remember that in my moderately tipsy entry into the room the evening before I had placed my wallet on the exact same pocket from where she had pulled out the items. For reasons that I couldn't quite pinpoint at the time that simple act had made me feel a little uneasy but as you do with trivial events such as these you completely disregard them and move on.

We all met up in our own time at the Wild Rover bar for breakfast at close to 8:30am, mostly just an excursion for the sake up dosing up on caffeine than actually acquiring any sustenance. As had come the custom in the previous few days I was lost in bit of Spanish study for the morning and didn't really take notice of what was going on around me. I recalled something about perhaps catching up later in the afternoon but that was going to be dependant upon 'so and so' getting back from 'who knows where'. You see, I really wasn't paying attention this morning.

After breakfast we headed back to our room, my intention was to grab a few items and be out of there relatively quickly in order to make the walk to the other side of town. I opened the pocket of the bag where I had left my wallet the night before and rummaged around for a few seconds without my hand touching anything that I thought was a wallet. With that failed attempt I went back in and rummaged for a little longer, this time with both hands. After coming up short on both occasions I stopped and mentally retraced my steps from the night before, reassuring myself in the process that I had in actual fact left it in this specific location. As I went back into the bag pocket for a third attempt I both diligently and specifically started removing the large items in the pocket that I assumed the wallet could be very well hiding behind. It was at this point that I kind of half mumbled out aloud, 'Hmmm, can't seem to find my wallet'. I think it was Jade that said 'Don't worry, I'm sure it'll surface soon enough', and at that point in the search I was 100% confident that it would. As I continued however and my search area broadened from the pocket of my bag, to the entirety of my bag, to the floorspace around my bag, a tiny strand of doubt entered my mind and the whisper started to become more audible with each passing minute. As I methodically took every single item out of my bag and then repacked them on three separate occasions, it started to dawn on me that something else may have actually happened in this room whilst we were out. Over the next hour Nick, Jade, Dina and myself covered most of the space in the room until at one point we all stopped and someone put the pointed and unfortunately blunt question to me, 'What are you going to do?'. It was at that precise moment that I realised that I'd just stepped over the boundary for the end-point of my journey and as my heart sank the only realistic option for me was outlined in the response I provided, 'Well, I think I'm going to have to go home'. I don't think it was the response that anyone was really expecting to hear from me. I guess the frustration, anger and helplessness of the situation just manifested itself in the idea that a homeward journey right at this point would be the best thing for me. Dina suggested that I just take a few days out to relax, get over the anger and disappointment of the situation and make a decision that was rational and not rash. I knew that as perfectly reasonable as that sounded in myself I was convinced that the end had hit me squarely in the face and that in all likelihood within 4-5 days I would be back home in Sydney. Machu Picchu and Rio de Janiero were now unfortunately going to be left being. Places that were to be more than just the highlights of my trip but also realisations of lifelong dreams now departed from the forefront of my mind with the onset of severe disappointment.

The hassle of cancelling cards and checking with your credit providers that nothing untoward has happened from the point in time that you realised that your cards were stolen to the point in time that you make the call is one of the most tedious, irritating and disappointing things that you need to do in a situation such as this. Not to say that I wasn't offered options either. My family told me that they were quite willing to front me with the money that I needed to continue my journey and both JJ and Jet stated that they would also quite happily come to my rescue and assist with the continuation of my South American fix (thanks guys, your generosity and selflessness was more than greatly appreciated and will always be remembered!!). Unfortunately that's just not me. I'm not the type of person that at all feels comfortable with borrowing large sums of money and in addition the hassle of having to make it to a Western Union to pick up $ intermittently was just not going to be conducive the where and how I wanted to travel for the rest of my time in South America. Last drinks on this journey had unfortunately been called before what I thought was closing time and that's something I needed to accept. Over the next few days that I spent in La Paz organising my way back to Buenos Aires and in turn a way home I came to terms with the situation and eventually became a little philosophical about what happened. I was just going to have to head for home and allow myself the time to dream it all up again one day.

Siga de suenos - follow your dreams...So I guess if as the title of the post suggests, that 'you're worth what you've got' then I have to say that right now I'm worth a bucket load of dreams that are just waiting for the right time for Dr Destiny to knock on door and provide me with the opportunity to follow them once more, and I will, I know that I can count on myself to do that. As Che was once quoted in saying within the context of his restless life of exporting revolution, 'Many of us wish to die the death that we wish and to live the life that we dreamed', well, I have plenty of dreams and I'm happy to wait for the right time for me to be able to live them out :)

La Paz - El camino de la muerte - 'The Death Road'

La Paz (Bolivia)

20 NOV - 27 NOV

Ever since Alby Mangels commenced World Safari 2 and managed to stumble upon the  Yungas Road I have wanted to take this on. I'm not sure why silly things like this enter my head, nor can I tell you why they take up residence for years and years on end until I finally complete the task that I've set myself. I mean there's no UFC contract or million dollar prize waiting at the finish line, just the satisfaction of having not died. Still, there I was, as a 35 year old man signing up to mountain bike a road that has claimed literally thousands of lives within its deep cavernous pits!

For the unlearned or perhaps the more sane amongst us that really haven't previously given a toss about the existence of this road, some facts. This dirt track or 'road' as they call it in the Andes is a 64 kilometre stretch that leads from La Paz to the small tropical town of Coroico. The kick-off point for the start of the road is 50+kms north-east of La Paz at an altitude hitting 4650 mtrs at La Cumbre pass (fantastic views! Really, really tough breathing!). It's one of the few roads that actually connects the Bolivian Amazon to its capital city and the it drops approximately 3500mtrs in those 64kms before reaching the town of Coroico.

Oh yes, it's a two way street ...and a 600mtr drop in places!

The Yungas Road - Bolivia

The start of the Death Road

So, why is it the Death Road? The lame reasoning relates to its builders and creators, a group of Paraguayan prisoners that managed to carve out the more than precarious perch on precipitous drops back in the 1930's. Some of their lives were given to 'the making of' the road during that time so that obviously others could die following in their machete cutting wake also - if you think about it, it's quite an ingenious idea, the Paraguayans built a road so badly that many more Bolivians would lose their lives in the thought that they could survive a 'simple drive'. The better story however and the one for which the road has actually gained infamy is due to the number of vehicles, predominantly packed Bolivian buses, that somehow have made their way over the edge whilst journeying up and down the road. At one point it was estimated that somewhere near 300-400 people were dieing on the road a year with an average of one vehicle every two weeks making the swift journey down the hillside into lush tropical rainforest at something approaching close to terminal velocity (see 24 July 1983 for a 100 person+ death tally on the Yungus).

These days admittedly you don't get the same two way traffic on the Yungas as the new North Yungas road takes the bulk of the load. What you do get however are mountain bikers and what you hear in the hostel bars regarding deaths of mountain bikers (currently standing at 32) sounds something like urban myth although I was later to ascertain from our guides that the stories were in fact true. Bar story number one actually went something like this, it involved a guide who had stopped to take a picture for the group of gringos he had been chaperoning. He showed them the place where two bikers had flung themselves magnanimously from the edge for the overwhelming enjoyment of their own crew on that fatal day. As the guide backed up to the edge he either misjudged the terrain or his proximity to the edge and hey presto, he was going down superman style. Bar story number two and the one reiterated by our own guides with sufficient detail and clarity as the death happened on their watch occurred in October of '09 (Go Veritgo Biking). This happened to be an Englishman who they assume blacked out whilst travelling at a half decent click and Evil Keneviled himself off Bolivian terra firma and into the lush tropical rainforest below. Their assumption was that excessive partying and excessive altitude had caught him unawares at the wrong point in time - sorry dude, they don't offer refunds either!

Bugger it though, I though if Alby could do it then I could do it too. I signed up with Vertigo biking and awaited the 8am pick-up for the drive up to the top of La Cumbre pass, the starting point for our 64km scream down the Yungas.

The first thing that I have to say is this. Standing at 4650mtrs in a shirt, shorts and a flimsy yellow road workers vest at 9am is like cannonballing three frozen milkshakes all at once and having a half hour brain freeze. My actual 'brain fade' at not bringing suitable warm clothing did actually become an asset later on rather than a liability but for the first hour I was serverely questioning my internal fortitude and capacity to hold out until some warmer weather came our way.

It's the call of the Llama - an early morning start om the Yungas

Geared up and ready to roll

Yup, pick the odd man out in this cheesy shot!

With the early morning chill heightening the quite obvious nervous anticipation we all carried , we jumped onto our two wheeled thunderbolts and rolled out down the leeward side of the range. Having not ridden any sort of two wheeler for a while and just letting the bike roll away was fantastic thrill until the point in time that the speedo advised me that I was hitting between 60-70kph and then as a result it  dawned on me that shortly I'd be passing moving vehicles, buses et al at speed on a few of the upcoming turns. Use those skills mon frere!

Start of the Yungas, an speedy 22km roll until the dirt track commenced

Taking buses on some of those hairpins was sketchy

Helisher @ speed!

The first 22kms down to the start of the dirt version of Yungas was actually a lot of fun and more than a little confidence building. It allowed you to get a feel for the bike, its limits, your own (supposed) limits  and a speed that you could comfortably cope with. The only issue as I mentioned earlier was the fact that we were passing cars and buses at speed. In the first hour I managed to encounter my first sketchy moment where I made a passing manouvere on a vehicle that at the same time decided to make his own passing manouvere on the vehicle in front of it. I got pushed to the outer edge of the road lining up perfectly with an oncoming lorry and had to break swiftly in the dirt in order not to be the next order of pancakes for the day. Ok, no problems, just keep on riding, everything will be all Kool & the Gang , #33.

Making our way to the main Yungas checkpoint we stacked our bikes back onto the van and made our way the 6kms uphill to the actual start of the Death Road. With our collective anxiety already building the elements decided to throw their own bits and pieces in to heighten the tension. The clouds rolled in up the valley, a steady drizzle set in and visibility dropped off noticeably. At this point I wasn't sure which was going to be more valuable, not being able to see the 600mtr drop to the valley floor or to not seeing the road in front of me!

'The balcony' during the downhill run

'The balcony' in the afternoon - who is that idiot hanging over the edge???

WooHoo - mad props for the massive drop(s)

Without question, as the elements closed in around us the start of the road looked sketchy. Not something that looked desperately unachievable on a bike but at 3-3.5mtrs in width you really wondered as to how these cocoa chewing bandits made their way up and down the hill considering there was always two lanes in operation. I've seen some  photos and it looks like a cheap Boliviano adventure ride for all. Even on a bike for the first 10kms or so most of us were relatively hard on and quite dependant on the certain functionality of the back brakes, keeping to the wall on the inside of the road and not really getting the opportunity to peer over the edge into the abyss. I readily admit that it took a fair amount of time to have the confidence to just let the bike roll out and to be able to trust myself enough to know that I could handle the bumps and dirt with relative ease.

Peering over the edge - I love how the road just disappears into nowhere

Yup, hands firmly on the brakes there!

The Yungas just rolls away a hundred or so metres below us

What you do find however is that as your confidence builds you don't concern yourself so much with the drop but just focus in on the task at hand, which happens to be the road infront of you. I mean, you definitely notice the crosses on the side of the road (and there are many), you notice the distinct lack of guard rails and you notice when your guides call out (Italian, French, Israeli) - the explanation here being that  the corners are named after the nationality of the biker that went over the edge at that point. Thankfully to date there hasn't been a need to name an Australian corner, plenty of Israeli corners however...there's no real hypothesis for that discrepancy, just stating the facts.

This story would not however be complete without my own 'relatively' sketchy moment and it seems that everyone has at least one. So I'd say somewhere close to halfway along the stretch I managed to pick up a little bit of speed and noticed myself coming into a hairpin turn a little too fast for my liking. I put on the back brakes but for some reason the bike crossed up in the mud and started to slip out from under me. Now crashing onto the dirt would not have been so bad but as I crossed up it quickly came into absolute focus that the drop off on the side of the road was somewhere close to 50mtrs, a nice 'sayonara' farewell would have been had by all. I managed to hold onto the bike and thankfully stayed on but those few seconds really sharpened the experience up for me.

Our guides - ummm, yeah, we 'trusted' them!!!?

From the altiplano into the tropical forests

The last 15-20kms of the run was relatively cruisy. The road widened by a fair margin and everyone obviously felt a lot more comfortable with their capacity to handle the road. In some places we were still pulling 50-60kph even though the drop-off's were in the 50-100mtr range - relatively safe unless you got it desperately wrong.

Approximately 3-4hrs after commencing at the pass of La Cumbre we rolled into Coroico with the Road of Death firmly tucked away for safe keeping. It had been a lot of fun and I'd say for the majority or the ride relatively safe. So if you're in La Paz and want to go out and get your 'ride on' then I fully recommend it, just don't blackout before any of the corners otherwise they'll be naming those wicked turns after you...or your nationality at least!

Safe in Coroico, the Death Road completed! Although nobody told us that we'd be riding back up the same road in the van as night began to fall!

La Paz - Marching powder

La Paz  (Bolivia)
20 Nov - 27 Nov

After our hiatus in Santa Cruz we as a 'collective' decided that we'd move onto La Paz. As per my previous entry, I was close to cutting ties with the crew at this point with my sights set on the making it to the Salar de Uyuni via the judicial capital of Sucre. The promise of us to heading to La Paz however and then setting up an 'expedition' to the Salar with the aid of an Israeli contact of Gado's did have me intrigued and a little bemused as to how the plan would be executed. Needless to say that I went with it, albeit with a great deal of pessimism.

The journey from Santa Cruz to La Paz was to be somewhere in the vicinity of 19hours. I know, it sounds like a barrel of laughs right!? Well the real highlight of the jpurney actually comes from the process that you by duty need submerge yourself in at the bus station when attempting to purchase a ticket. Spruikers for the 100+ bus companies that base themselves in the bus station are in a constant battle with one another to make their destination point heard over all others. For some reason their voices tended to sound like that of a farmer that may have been calling in their chickens for feeding time, 'Potosi, Potosi, Potosiiiii', or 'Sucre, Sucre, Sucre, Sucre, Sucreeeee'. If you can imagine a cross between the wail of a police siren and someone calling in barnyard animals from their day out in the sun and then you'll probably start to get an auditory understanding of what was going on.

Chosing a bus company is a lottery. You try and find yourself the best price but at the end of the day they're pretty much all the same. Dina, Jade, Nick and myself decided that a cama (bed) as opposed to semi-cama (semi-bed) would be the best way to make the northen journey, but Gado, doing things in his own individualistic inimitable style, sorted himself out a 'chicken' bus for approximately 8-10 Euros less than our ticket prices and headed off on his own into vastness of the Bolivian countryside. Bidding him farewell we truly didn't know if we'd ever see him again, c'est la vie.

De riguer on our own Bolivian chicken bus, well, let's say my own strict formula for surviving hours of monotony was to read for as long as I was able to physically make out the written words on their respective pages. As the sun dropped out of sight and hid for another evening the ability to read was unfortunately negated by the lack of available light that Bolivian buses typically provided. For some reason their individual seating lights never worked and I wondered if the switches existed simply for show or whether they were deliberately inactivated in order to appease the animals and coerce them effortlessly and soundlessly into nocturnal bliss? No matter, this is usually the point where phase 2 of my own 'deal with the programme' plan comes into effect - I simply shut down and will myself to sleep. I don't know why or how but on buses I manage to morph into a type of human sloth, I tend to sleep for hours and hours on end, well, that ofcourse is unless we're travelling the Sucre to Santa Maria leg and the lovely beams of moonlight displays a drop from the precipe of something equivalent to an AJ Hacket bungee jump...a long, long way into space.

A few hours out of La Paz, we encountered a mobile protest

As a new day dawned and my travel companions wondered how many sleeping pills I had actually taken, I awoke to find myself awash in the rays of a bright new day and the road blocked by a large bunch of Bolivian activists supporting gay rights - well I could only assume that this was the case as there were a whole bunch of rainbow flags being waved by fanatical protestors in this parade. I was only to find out later in my stay that the flag or the Wiphala is an emblem commonly used to represent the native people of the central Andes. If you want you can check out what I mean here (Flag view on Wiki). As you can probably imagine, our progress in the next 40 mins or so was quite tedious. Damn those Bolivians and their honourable social causes!?

Arriving in La Paz - Bolivia

La Paz - Bolivia

La Paz - Bolivia - Illimani in the background standing at 6,438m

There's a couple of things that catch you immediately when you arrive in La Paz, the first is that the scenery is quite dramatic. The city itself if built in a canyon that was created by the Choqueyapu River, the buildings in turn look as they are cascading down the hillside into the centre of the city. The more affluent areas are located towards the centre at the lower altitudes and the poorer areas tend to hug the ridge line, although they do offer the better views! The second thing that catches you out quicksmart is the altitude. At 3,660m La Paz is the highest capital city in the world and in turn trying to fill your lungs with enough air to be satisfied quite often means a full breath and then a half breath in order to resolve the issue. Acclimitisation often takes several days, in the interim period even the most basic tasks of carrying heavy bags or walking up a flight of stairs will often have you panting like a porn star within seconds.

Downtown La Paz - Bolivia

Coloured collectivos

Another thing that I was also quickly finding out in La Paz, although this more than likely would have happened anywhere, is that when travelling in a group of five when everyone has their own idea of what they want to do and where they want to go, the compromising point blank sucks. Shortly after we arrived I discovered that the planned trip to the Salar was being severely compromised by each persons idea of what they would be willing to accept, for example, Gado and Nick didn't want to sit in a 4WD for two days and wanted to conquer the Saler or motor bikes, Gado also wanted to spend something like 10 days on the Salar whereas I was comfortable with doing 3 and Dina, now having made her way north to La Paz kind of figured that it was silly for her to be backtracking with time for her being of the essence etc, etc. It was all turning into a round of petty bickering, so much to the point that when Gado actually said, 'Hey, we're not married, you can do whatever you want', I felt like ripping his head off as he was one of the instigators of the idea of travelling in a collective - ahh, I should have known, compromise in travel always achieves second best or third best results. It was right then that I decided that I'd do a couple of things that I had originally intended to do whilst in La Paz and then I'd strike off down south on my own, the anticipated timeframe being something like 3-4 days.

The view from the Wild Rover hostel - the magnificent blue skies of La Paz providing the backdrop

La Paz - Bolivia

One of the things that I did want to do whilst in La Paz was make a visit to San Pedro prison, made famous by the well known, Australian authored book, Marching Powder and its ever so casual mentions in subsequent Lonely Planet guides. Now for those that don't know, Marching Powder  is the story of a British drug smuggler named Thomas McFadden who was caught trying to get out of Bolivia with 5kgs (or thereabouts) of cocaine. The story of Thomas and more importantly the ongoings within the prison of San Pedro are kind of remarkable, especially when your head does battle with itself against all the preconceived ideas of what a prison is.

So a couple of things, San Pedro is like a self-contained society, a little piece of the outside world within the confines of 15-20mtr high walls. It's location, not insignificantly is in the very centre of La Paz, prime real estate essentially. The inmates in this prison actually need to work in order to survive, and by survive I mean that they need to work in order to either rent or purchase their actual cells in the prison. If you don't have money then you don't have a roof over your head and then you'd better be very well aware of your place if you intend on sleeping in the courtyard or in the cramped halls.

In terms of finding work in the prison,well as I said, it's like a small self-contained socity. There are restaurants, gyms, grocery stores, spas, pool rooms, tv rooms etc. As an inmate your objective is to try and sort yourself out with work that will in turn allow you to earn enough to support a decent type of lifestyle (as of a lifestyle that a lack of absolute freedom can provide). In addition, there are a variety of sections, or you can say 'prison suburbs' where the 'well to do' prisoners live, the 'middle class' prisoners and the 'poorer prisoners' - from memory I think there was something like six distinct sections. Even more surprising in this peculiar penal system is that prisoners are allowed to have their families either come in and visit them regularly or even live with them. Indeed one of the oddities of the prison is that during the day you'll see children running around and playing freely, surrounded ofcourse by all sorts of characters that have made their home in San Pedro due to their extra-curricular activities, please see (murder, rape, drug trafficking et al).

Nightscape - La Paz

Nick @ the Wild Rover

Since the release of Marching Powder and San Pedro's ensuing notoriety, gringo's have been allowed to enter the prison for a price, the price being a nice bribe paid to the prison guards. Whilst these tours have been taking place since 1997-'98 there have been extended periods of time when they had been stopped. On the day that we went however it was 'all systems go' and the process of entry goes a little something like this. You make your way to the square/park across from the main gates of the prison and wait. What your advised to do in all the guidebooks and by the plethora of other backpackers that have taken the tour is just to wait, a prison guard will inevitably find you as you'll be standing out like a sore thumb. They'll ask if you'd like to take a tour and positive response will have you quickly escorted to the front gate.

As we were escorted inside the prison we were promptly taken to a waiting room. The guards explained that a 'prison escort/guide' would be along to take us on the tour shortly but that in order to secure access we would need to make a payment of 400 bolivianos per person, the equiavelent of 40 euros....and who says that corruption is a dieing artform in Bolivia? Once this is organised then you're assigned to your escort who by necessity is a San Pedro inmate. The three of us (Nick, Jade and myself) were assigned to Jose ( a Portuguese inmate who was busted for drug trafficking, although he had not been formerly charged or sentenced as yet...work that out). Accompanying us were another two inmates that were to provide the 'muscle' should there be the misfortune of encountering any trouble.

It's a Llama massacre in the Witches Market

The front gates of San Pedro

As you're guided out of the holding room and then into the throng of inmates that are crowding the main courtyard you become accutely aware of the privelege you've just paid for - to walk around a prison full of convicted felons (and ofcourse, some that haven't been convicted). At that moment you become a little hyper vigilant as to both your surroundings and belongings. Whilst you pretty much know that everything will move along swimmingly you still can't be 100% sure. As the tour progresses however you tend to ease into the scenery and become more bemused by the novelty of it all. All the guidebooks and all the hearsay from other backpackers are right on the money, it's a small community that operates pretty much in the same manner that things outside the wall operate. I mean, it's still a prison, the cells are small and the whole geography of the place has you in now doubt as to where you are but on the flipside of that there are thriving businesses and families within the complex that makes it difficult to marry up the idea you (I) understand a conventional prison to be.


At one point in the tour an inmate did stop and stare at me for some inordinate period of time. Not wanting to provoke the guy I looked away but this character walked to within a couple of metres of me and started shaking his head. He said something to Jose which I didn't quite catch and then Jose said to me that the guy thought he'd recognised from somewhere - actually he said that he was sure that he'd seen me in the prison before. I just shook my head and smiled back at him but this guy seemed to be quite adamant. We managed to get past the guy but encountered him once again towards the end of the tour at which point he started up again. This time however both he and Jose were laughing and it felt like they were having a bit of a joke and my expense, although when the guy approached me for a chat his eyes looked as though they'd been sprinkled with a couple of grams of crazy, at that point I just didn't know what the deal was.


The tour lasted for something like two hours and I'd say for the pure novelty of the experience it was worth doing. Jose guided us to a final 'holding room' at the end of the tour and it was at this point that the question came, 'So, if you would like perhaps a drink, or a smoke, or perhaps something else'  then it is ok here. We already knew what the 'something else' was but to be certain in our understanding we asked Jose to be unambiguous with his words and call a spade a spade - the 'additional item' on the menu was ofcourse coke, perhaps the other tourists snorting lines in our vicinity would have given it away. Nick looked at Jade, who looked at me, who shrugged and gave the 'When in Rome expression' ...a surpremely odd experience if there was ever one to be had. What's more, as we wrapped things up in San Pedro both Nick and Jade decided to take a few grams out for their own personal use. What a mind bending situation that was, actually knowing people that took drugs out of a prison!? Well, it is Bolivia, what else do you expect, right?