Another crazy bus ride to add to the list. This time it was an overnight bus from Uyuni to La Paz the capital. This was a 9 hour overnight bus ride and from what we could tell in our half asleep, half awake state, was that the road was dirt, bumpy, and when corners arrived the bus driver liked drifting… At one point Matt smelt dirt on what he thought was his neck pillow (mum we’re still carting those around, they’re only just alive) and he thought “ew gross” looked up… and saw that the whole cabin was full of dust… It wasn’t just his pillow. Needless to say we didn’t get a good nights sleep that night. 🙂
The French speaking Swiss couple we were on the Salt Flats tour with lead us into the main part of town and we all grabbed a nice hostel together and went to bed (in separate rooms.. that sounded strange).
After some much needed rest we walked around our little central part of La Paz and wondered through the Alpaca and handicraft stores, the Coca museum and had a bite to eat. Many people hate La Paz and say it’s not worth staying there more than a night. I think that’s because the whole city looks like a massive Favela (or slum). But it wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be and we enjoyed having a little shop and checking out the Coca museum to find out the history of the coca leaf…
The coca leaf!!! Some interesting factoids:
- Coca leaves where used in the original Coca Cola recipe and still are (not cocaine though!!)
- The catholic church banned the leaf calling it a seed of the devil, but when productivity went down and they saw how much people loved the leaf, they allowed it again and taxed the leaf to make money and in the mines they made it obligatory for men to chew the leaf because it increased productivity!
- The leaf was the original anesthetic! Synthetic forms of it are used today but originally it was used instead of getting a patient drunk or knocking them out but hitting them over the head before surgery.
- The leaf has been proven to help digestion and have many medicinal benefits
- But of course, when ground down, chemically modified and what not, it creates cocaine, which western countries are the biggest consumers of. Ie. US have over 50% of the worlds cocaine users according to this museum.
So yes… we tried coca tea and coca lollies all to help with the altitude which you can really feel in La Paz! Just walking up a small hill put you out of breath pretty quickly (or is that the lack of exercise lately… eeek!)
Day 2 we arranged to mountain bike the famous Death Road!!! Here is an example of what it’s called Death Road….
As you can see by the tiny bus we were a long way up!! This is one of the first things they showed us was this crash off the side of the cliff. And this part of the road was paved!!! There were also little clusters of memorials and graves along the road the whole way… But honestly if you’re on a bike, the road is no problems because you fit on the road with room to spare. However, most of the dirt part of the road is only big enough for one car… There are little passing points along the road, and if you get it wrong, you’re down there with the bus…
So we cycled from 4,700 metres above see level down to 1,500 masl. It took about 3-4 hours and was 68km long. “Wow such a long way to cycle you must be so fit” you say… well no. It was downhill…. so we pretty much just glided down!! It was bumpy in parts and I hit some dirt and nearly staked it in front of Matt… but all was okay (good save!!)! Just at the end when we had to do a tiny stint up hill Matt’s bike chain died so he was peddling like nothing else and going no where which was funny for me and not for him!!! At the end he kicked the bike and that fixed the chain!!! hehehe
The trip back to the top and return to La Paz was scarier than the bike ride as we were in a mini van!! At one point we went around a blind corner and a big bus was facing us head on!!! The vehicles both stop, yell at each other and work out who’s going backwards to let the other pass. The other thing is, they drive on the left on this road so that the driver can see how close he is to the edge of the cliff!!! So after that pass, we were on high alert the rest of the trip but made it back safely… 🙂
So all in all our little stay in La Paz was eventful and fun and we’re alive!!! Woo hoo!
Timeframe: 23 – 26 September 2013
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