Bolivia

Day 3 in Bolivia and we have just completed the ride down 'Death Road' on mountain bikes. This is a 64 km ride - 34kms of it down the 'world’s most dangerous road ' - given this classification in the late 90’s due to the number of deaths on this road compared to any other road in the world ( an average of 26 vehicles a year used to disappear over the edge). In 2006 an alternative ‘new’ road from La Paz opened which takes the majority of traffic and now the W.M.D.R. is used primarily by cyclists and their support vehicles. The actual ride wasn’t as difficult as I had imagined (though Matt had told me I would ‘cope’. He did it last year.) and recent practice in Peru on the challenging downhill ride that we did, was good preparation. We chose to go with the more expensive but reliable Gravity Assisted Bike Co. that was started by a Kiwi and the guides, bikes (modern with fantastic twin suspension), safety equip were great. I actually learnt a lot from the instructions given and have never ridden so much ‘standing up’ as I did today (much less pressure on the rear end!)We had a great team of 14 cyclists and several others of our age – and I was one of the fast ones!! J I even past a truck at one stage (that re-past me on an uphill stretch – yep, there were ‘some’ up hill bits.) We started at 4600m in clear but cool weather, went through serious mist and then drizzly rain and finally into sunshine and heat after a 3300m drop. All and all a spectacular day.

Some interesting facts about this road. There of course has been plenty of fatalities on the road but one ‘stunning’ one was in 1944 with the general elections. The current ruler apparently offered a democratic election process. When the opposition’s’ looked like threatening his rule he had the 5 of them captured, bounded and pushed to their deaths over the side of one of the 350+m drops. There is a memorial to mark the spot! A few more memorials mark places where both tourists and locals have died. On our trip there were 2 crashes when people used their brakes incorrectly, but at no time did I feel at risk.

Robin and Claire departed yesterday afternoon after being with us for the past 6 weeks – 3 in Ecuador and 3 in Peru. They arrive back in N.Z. (Chilean ash permitting!) on early Thursday morning.

We are now in the country village of Coroico, nearby the end of the W.M.D.R. where we thought we would have a couple of nights before heading to another village for a couple more. The scenery is stunning – huge mountains and deep valleys with carved roads zigzaging their way towards La Paz.