Crashing into Bolivia

We’re now in our fourth country in South America, and it’s been an interesting few days as we reached one of the country’s capitals, La Paz. 

Crossing the border into Bolivia was easy if you weren’t American. They have some beef with Americans over a previous president here in Bolivia, so we had to wait a while for the Americans to be let in. One good thing about Britain is the passport.

Shortly after the border, we were involved in a road accident (my first ever). The bus ploughed into the back of a car, which then went into the back of another car. The damage wasn’t bad and no one was hurt, but sorting out the paperwork after wasn’t easy. If you have a crash in Bolivia, everyone has to go to the local police station and sort everything out. This took five hours. Even the town we were in had nothing there, so it was a long waiting game. 

We eventually arrived in La Paz, one of the two capitals of Bolivia (depending on who you speak to). It was straight to bed as we needed to be up early to cycle Death Road.

You may recall Death Road from the Top Gear Bolivia special back in the day, where the road is so narrow, cars need to go right to the edge to pass each other, and if not careful, will end up falling off a cliff. Now a bypass has been created, only locals and cyclists use the road, and that’s what we would be doing, cycling down it.

To start, everyone had to get used to their bikes on the main road, which felt a little pointless to those confident on a mountain bike. It was also freezing, with numb hands and some tears from some people in the group. We then made it to the start line at the top of Death Road, where it had warmed up a bit too.

Within the first 2km, I got a bit cocky and hit a large rock, falling off the bike. I kind of knew it was going to happen so had already planned where I was going to fall. Other than a bruised knee and ego, I was good to keep going.

As we raced down the road, the adrenaline was in full flow. With the uneven surface and narrow passages, you came very close to the cliff edge several times. There’s nothing better to get the adrenaline flowing than dicing with death.

About three hours later, we made it to the end, with the whole group still alive.

We celebrated our non-deaths by having some drinks in the local Irish bar (they’re everywhere in South America). 

The next morning we joined a walking tour of La Paz. Sadly, due to my lack of attention span, I only lasted half of the tour before calling it a day. I very rarely go on organised walking tours for this specific reason. I need to remember that in future.

In the afternoon, we went to watch some female wrestling, which was a source of great entertainment. Of course it was all fake, but it was bloody hilarious.

The next day, we took a tour of La Paz via the cable car transit system. This was a very handy way of getting around the city, especially when there’s lots of hills to navigate.

After all that exploring, it was time to dash to the bus station for our overnight bus to Sucre (the second capital of Bolivia, depending on who you talk to).