World's Most Dangerous Road

I'm not one for big cities, and La Paz was no exception. Marcia and I took a bus from Copacabana to La Paz after a ferocious morning of hail and sleet over Lake Titicaca. La Paz wasn't much warmer, and transitioning to such a bustling place was overwhelming. The demeanor of Bolivians is drastically different

La Cumbre (4700m): The Start of the Death Road

than those in Peru and Ecuador: more aggressive and a pronounced dog eat dog mentality. We were advised from other travelers to do day trips out of La Paz; as a city there wasn't a whole lot of must-sees or must-dos. The one day trip that we went on was the 40 mile mountain bike ride down the World's Most Dangerous Road. It came highly recommended to us and I as well will share such enthusiasm. WHAT A BLAST!

We woke up early (ugh I still have yet to sleep in past 6:30am on this trip) and met our group at a cafe in downtown La Paz. We met our group and our guide who was a rare breed of Aussie/Kiwi mix (if only I could capture how ridiculous his accent was...). Similar to my Cotopaxi adventure, we piled into a van with mountain bikes attached to the roof. Up, up, up we went as we took in fantastic views of Mount Huyana Potosi and Illimani. We braved snow and wind at the top of our ride, but by the end we were suffering through the hot and humid jungle (we descended 3600m).

The easiest way to describe the WMDR is to outline 4 sections of it: the first part was a very easy downhill

Yum...mountains!

on paved road for those who haven't biked in a while to get to know their bikes and brakes. The second part of the ride was loose gravel and sharper turns and a bit steeper of a grade. The third part of the ride whizzed around turns with a 500 meter drop off to one side. The fourth part of the ride was extremely easy and came with a wall of heat and humidity as we entered the jungle. It felt so good to be on bike again! So free...so fast...so exhilarating! The ride itself was extremely beautiful. I still have yet to take it for granted of the beautiful mountains, volcanoes, and jungles that I have seen so much of on my trip.

The most exciting part of the day was when I put my WFR skills to use. I was on the heels of two bags of Aussie testosterone as they raced each other down the road. Luke (bless his heart) has been quite accident -prone on his trip so far, the WMDR being no exception. He hit a big rock and flipped over his handle bars, landing into a quite uncomfortable looking faceplant. I got him into a safe position, went through the ABC's

There's the road...and the cliff that drops 500m...

of first aid, and provided the calm over chaos needed until other medical help arrived. The report is one dislocated jaw, two broken arm bones, several broken ribs, and probably one doozer of a hospital bill. Yeesh....at least it's not me going to the hospital for once.

The last part of the ride was my favorite, simply because I was basking in warmth and oxygen levels (we descended pretty far in altitude) that Marcia and I hadn't seen for almost two weeks. The jungle never ceases to amaze me, and I loved riding through the different pockets of sounds and smells of this remarkable road.

Our muddy group (minus Luke) had our last laughs together over some cold brewski's before we parted ways. Our day was long from over, despite having mountain biked over 40 miles. It took three hours to return back to La Paz, and then we got our luggage out of storage and headed off to the bus terminal. We took the overnight bus to Uyuni, which was 10 hours of bumpy, unpaved roads. I could have sworn that the bus had square wheels, If I hadn't known any better....

Upon arrival to Uyuni, we hunted around for a reliable agency to take us into the Salt Flats, on a highly recommended three day jeep tour. Success! Stay tuned, team!