Day 179: Buena Onda!

La Paz – La Cumbre – Coroico – La Paz, Bolivia

A week ago, I had no idea what The Road of Death was. Upon hearing that I’d continue my trip to Bolivia, a guy at the hostel I stayed at in Arequipa told me I had to do “El Camino de la Muerte.” Even though my Spanish isn’t good, I understood “Muerte” (Death).

On my bus ride to La Paz, Nat mentioned that Ben and she would like to do it. I figured since I’d have company, I might as well give it a try.

I knew it was dangerous but had no clue how serious it was until I came face to face with the tombstones and memorials of dead bikers over the years. Our awesome guide, Celo, told us stories about these unfortunate souls, how they plunged 60m into the mouth of the deadly cliff.

The 64km ride started off in La Cumbre at the altitude of 4643m, from which we’d be biking down more than 3000m, to the altitude of 1615m in Coroica. I had an awesome small group consisting of only Ben, Nat, Celo our psycho guide and Leslie our driver.

The first part of the ride was on wide asphalt road with other traffic and the weather couldn’t have been more nicer. The view itself was spectacular. When we stopped for our snack break, I stupidly said that it was pretty easy and quite relaxing. I was told that we weren’t on the Death Road yet. Duh…

On our bus ride to the starting point of the road, the weather turned foggy and we passed by an accident that just happened involving a motorcyclist that zoomed pass us only half an hour before and a car. Bad sign!

The Death Road lived up to its name. All gravelly, very narrow and curvy and entirely downhill. There wasn’t a need to paddle at all. I was constantly on my brake, making sure to slow down on curves as to not fly off the road and go down the cliff. It wasn’t easy with all the rain and fog. At times, I’d find myself relaxing somewhat, getting more confident and letting loose of the break clutch more. Then, I’d tell myself to wake up, slow down, pay full attention to all the rocks on the road cos the tiniest mistake could send me to meet my maker.

We all made it through the toughest and most dangerous alive and fine. But the drama came later. I was biking fine through the muddy and rocky road and next thing I knew I was landing on my left side on the ground. Hard! Leslie who was driving behind me found me sitting on the ground holding my left shoulder. My arm paralyzed for a bit from the pain but luckily I didn’t break any bones; only a scrape on the left elbow, bruise on the left hip and swollen right palm.  I opted to ride with the van for 5 mins to join the rest of our group then continued biking. Ben apparently had fell as well but wasn’t injured.

Later on, Nat also fell and had her bike landed on top of her. She got a puncture wound on her left hip but she took it really well. Such a trooper

We ended our successful adventure alive and celebrated with beer (and I with orange juice).  Shaggy and Barbie also stopped by to celebrate with us. Hehe. Nah, it’s just that a couple drove down Death Road with a Scooby Doo van and the guy looks like Shaggy and the girl, Barbie. After the drink, we were then taken to a hostel yo use their shower. We were all drenched from the rain and the waterfalls that we passed through and also muddy from our falls. After the shower, we had a nice buffet. I ate so much, more than I needed but heck, I deserved it.

Three hours van ride later, we were back to our hostel in La Paz at 9:30pm. I went straight to bed, watched the season finale of Justified then dozed off.