Wet and wild in La Paz

Last known location: 16°11'23.8" S 67°43'44.7" W

We arrived in La Paz, one of the capital cities of Bolivia, about one week ago, rather dusty and shaken from an epic 12 hour bus trip over the most corrugated roads I've ever been on.
La Paz is a frenetic city over-run with both pedestrian and vehicle traffic, located in the bottom of a canyon. Arriving in the city is quite astounding as you can't see the canyon until you go over the edge, and suddenly there's a big city below you, with brown clay houses climbing the impossible slopes up the canyon sides. On the day we arrived it rained in La Paz, which meant snow on the higher slopes, so we were treated to beautiful views of the snow-capped Cordillera Real, the chain of mountains defining the eastern edge of the altiplano. Although La Paz itself didn't hold much to interest us, in the surrounding areas are Tihuanacu, the ruins of a massive capital city that existed many hundreds of years before the Incas arrived; the famous "Worlds Most Dangerous Road", and a great deal of trekking in the Cordillera Real.

Our first stop was in La Paz however, at the Coca musuem, a tiny museum dedicated to the history and uses of the Coca plant. Although it is an internationally banned product due to it's use in the production of cocaine, coca is an important product here as the locals use it in unrefined form (they chew the leaves!) to combat the effects of altitude sickness, and for religious purposes. Chewing the leaves and drinking the tea produce barely noticeable effects, and because of the importance of coca in the local economy it's a very political issue. The US won't give aid if Bolivia doesn't stop growing coca, yet stopping growing coca will put many farmers out of business - catch 22!

Tihuanacu was quite an impressive ruined temple, a lot of it is reconstructed because the conquistadors raided the ruins for building stone, but it was amazing to see the level of stone masonry from over a thousand years ago. In the absence of cement, the perfectly shaped building blocks are held together with copper hooks. The site records thousands of years of history, and was only abandoned due to climate change. The Incas only arrived at the site about 300 years later, and are believed to have obtained many of their ideas from the Tihuanacans. It was a good introduction to the ancient history of the Andes, and it will be interesting to compare Macchu Picchu, where we will be in about 2 weeks time, with these ruins.

Having had enough history for the week, we decided to up the adrenalin by mountain biking down the La Paz- Coroico Road (officially 'The World's Most Dangerous Road'!). Starting in the snow at an elevation of 4800 m and ending in the subtropical Yungas at about 1100 m, this ride involves a short 7 km of uphill and then 57 km of downhill! The first stretch is tar, and easy, but then you hit the narrow (one car wide with occasional pull-off points), dirt road, with sheer drop-offs to the side. HECTIC!!! Unfortunately during our ride it was misty, so we couldn't see how bad the drop-offs where, but apparently in one section the steep slope goes down for 1 km before levelling off! Watching the traffic on the road is entertaining - vehicles going uphill have right of way, and the vehicles switch sides i.e. drive on the wrong side of the road, so that drivers going downhill are on the outside of the road and can look out of their windows to make sure that their wheels stay on the road! If two vehicles meet, the one going downhill has to reverse until they come to a wider point. The bike ride was amazing, especially as we had good bikes. We got extremely muddy and wet, but it was all fun. You can get some idea of the steepness of the road by knowing that the return journey to La Paz in a car, all 64 km, takes 4 HOURS!

We weren't satisfied with only going down once, but headed back up to La Paz, packed our backpacks and started the El Choro trek the very next day. This trek has the same starting and ending points as the bike ride, but goes down an adjacent valley, where there are no roads, just an old Inca pathway. The trek starts by climbing about 200 m over about 3 km, and at an altitude of 4800 m, this took us more than an hour! It didn't help that a snow storm started on our way up. From the top, it was all downhill for about 2 days, along slippery Inca paving. The scenery was amazing, going from Puna grasslands at the top, then gradually getting greener and greener until we entered subtropical cloud forest. The only problem was once the snow stopped, the rain started, and it basically didn't stop until half-way through the third day. Hiking in wet shoes and rain for three days is hard on the feet and mind. We were lucky to find some kerosene along the way so that we could cook hot food to keep us going. The third day involved lots of up and down through incredibly steep valleys, past beautiful waterfalls, hearing lots of birds in the trees. We arrived in the final town rather exhausted, but happy to have survived the wet experience, thankful for the gear we'd invested in before we left SA. Unfortunately our camera got wet (along with a myriad of other things including our plane tickets, most of our clothes, our backpacks etc.) so we're back in La Paz biding time while it is repaired (hopefully). Then it's off to Titicaca, and then Peru.