La Paz - hikes and bikes on deadly roads

We arrived in La Paz at about 5:30am. With the help of the lonely planet’s write up and going on other people’s off the cuff comments, we had managed to form quite a bad opinion of the place before even arriving and were viewing it purely as a stop gap to better, safer destinations. The station consisted of a roadside on a dark street and with no pre booked hostel we headed down the street trying to seem confident and assertive whilst making our way to an area about 15 minutes’ walk away where we knew a number of hostels were located. With absolutely all our belongings with us at this point, we hoped and prayed for no confrontations! 

The route to the hostel area followed a main road. At the roadside there were already many little Bolivian ladies starting to organise their stalls for the day, so it all felt fairly safe and easy going. We located a hostel, asked for a double room and luckily for us we could check in straightaway, so by 6:30am we already had a bed!

Before anything else, we investigated online our options in the area. In summary, the hikes we’d have loved to do were mostly closed due to it being the rainy season, as we had anticipated. The one hike we thought would be a potential, turned out to actually be for novice climbers, so wasn’t really an option for us and any previous thoughts of going anywhere near the jungle were soon dismissed after reading about the amount of mosquitoes and bugs you are likely to encounter at this time of year in particular. With common stories of people suffering over 200 bites on their legs alone, I feared, due to my frequent sufferings even in areas where apparently there are no bugs, I would probably be eaten alive and never return. So we knocked that idea on the head too!

Still in the confines of the hostel and listening to the constant sounds of what appeared to be gun shots outside, we decided to book a ticket to Bogata for as soon as we could, which was 3 days’ time.

However, on leaving the hostel we were pleasantly surprised. The streets and alleyways were lined with the most colourful shops and open air market stalls. Everything from packets of nuts through to alpaca shawls were on display. All the women were sat on little stools or the ground next to their goods, some shouting what they had to offer, others just dozing. An old Bolivian man came up to us mumbling ‘fossils, fossils’ trying to entice us to buy one of the 2 rocks he was holding in his hand. We wandered down the road in the direction of the tourist info and the colour continued wherever we went. A man was selling shoelaces and was wandering up the street with at least 5000 different coloured laces attached to him. There were shoe cleaners and people pushing around trolleys of empanadas and other baked goods and the smells were great. 

The urban chaos of La Paz

These amazing vehicles are used as the locl buses

The famous flower market

The colourful women seemed to merge into their stalls. They had obviously leant to exist in the tiniest of spaces and were happy to sit there all day, only ever moving the top halves of their bodies and all of them wearing the distinctive little bowler hats on top of their heads. Most had at least one gold tooth too which was visible due to their big friendly smiles. They were extremely gracious when you bought anything, even a 10p bag of dried broad beans. The poverty were clearly notable but still they all seemed like really amazing, hard-working and friendly people. We found somewhere to eat and orientated ourselves across the day, finding a few nice places to have a beer later into the evening. 

Much to our surprise, we were both really struggling with the altitude and found it really tough just walking up an incline. So to put ourselves to the test, the following day we decided to do a hike just out of town up to a rock formation called Muela del Diablo – Molar of the Devil. It was hard going but it took us through a beautiful little village up in the hills to the south of the City and we made friends with a donkey along the way and at the top. All the locals were really friendly with acknowledgements and smiles. It was also a fantastic vantage point for watching the storms organise over the nearby mountain range of the Cordillera Real and sweep through La Paz, luckily missing us! It was clear to see why most mountain hiking was not recommended at this time of the year!

Looking over La Paz from the hills in the south

Donkey friend number 1

All the local kids were really friendly

Muela del Diablo - Molar of the devil which we could hike up to

Donkey friend number 2

The backside of Valle de los Animas - valley of the spirits with weird organ shaped spires

As a reward for our day’s effort we returned to one of the previous night’s bars and treated ourselves to a big dinner. I tried lama steak which was really succulent, but I can conclude I still prefer chicken! This particular bar also offered bike tours down Death Road – the famous road in La Paz which is apparently the deadliest road in the world due to the number of lives it takes with people driving off its narrow cliff edge corners. This we thought would be a great thing to do on our last day. We had heard many other people rave about what a great day it was and so we booked ourselves in for the 6:30am start the next morning, for a whole day of fast downhill cycling along bad conditioned roads with sheer drops!

Toasting our decision to do Death Road on bikes

Lunar tours were fantastic and we had such an awesome day. Often these tours can have up to 16 people in a group, but when we turned up in the morning we found out it was only going to be the 2 of us and the guide. For me, I wasn’t so sure if this was a great thing because I had been planning on staying at the back and merging in with all the other slow people. However, the lack of people meant I was always going to be near the front! I was a bit scared. Particularly in the van driving up through the misty cloud forests of the yunga region of Bolivia. However, as mentioned, the guide was amazing and the views were magical and dreamlike and my nerves were soon calmed, especially after being kitted out with an awesome bike with hydraulic brakes, super suspension and enough protective gear that I probably wouldn’t have even noticed falling off. Now, all I had to do was stay on the road! The guide also took photos and videos throughout the day, so we have some really great moments captured.

The morning of the ride

Let the race begin

Part of Death Road

Another scary part of Death Road - in fact it was all scary!

Trying not to slip off the sheer drop

Statutory dangly leg shot. Then I nearly fell over getting up. Oops.

After 63km of downhill we arrived in a village where we could buy a beer.

Beer time with our guide Omar

We then stopped at a hostel with a pool for some lunch and finally made our way back to La Paz, via bloody death road again! 

Much more relaxed times!

They did give us the option of taking the newer asphalt road back but when you’re here, you can’t say no. I would look like a chicken. So back we went and again we survived. My nerves were pretty wrecked though. Luckily I didn’t hear their concerns about the approaching storm that would make the driving conditions particularly challenging. Tim only told me that bit over a beer later that evening!

We then had a further challenge. Arriving back in La Paz at about 6pm, we had to stay awake until 11:30pm when a taxi was due to pick us up and take us to the airport for our 4:25am flight to Bogata. 

We managed it and at 4:00am wearily made our way onto a plane to take us to Columbia. Bolivia had been a short but sweet experience. Uyuni had provided some spectacular natural wonders of nature and La Paz had been a colourful and friendly city, way-exceeding any pre-defined expectations. There is no doubt we will return one day in the dryer season to explore everything else it has to offer. But for now the focus shifts to Columbia with an arrival time of 7:30am on only 2 hours sleep across the last 27 hours. Here goes!