Death Road

We got up at 6 am to get picked up for the Death Road.

Btw, we live in the world’s highest Irish pub, situated in the world’s highest capital.

We live a few blocks from the presidential building, where you could go and watch Evo work. Evo is now in political asylum in Argentina, so they might want to update this poster.

Bolivia has been in three wars and lost every one of them. One was against Chile, one against Brazil and one against Paraguay, in 1932-35. In the latter, they at least got thousands of Paraguayan prisoners, who were forced to build a road between La Paz and the Bolivian Amazonas. While it was used for cars, about 200-300 people died every single year, making the risk about 1% for every person travelling it. Now it’s been replaced by another road. The old road is now used for tourist bicyclists. On average one tourist dies every year, and since they are about 35,000, the chance is 0.03%.

We were picked up in the hostel.

The last proper toilet. Which was closed.

We start at 4700 meter above the sea.

Every car has a stretcher in case someone gets hurt.

We get our bikes and equipment.

The beginning of the ride is on asphalt, mixing with cars. It was fun. Really, really fun. You had to brake all time. Here, the cars go into a tunnel, and bicyclists must enter a dirt road, which soon turns into “Death Road”. Look at the Evo signs btw. Maybe he used the government rather than private supporters to paint “Evo” everywhere? That sounds undemocratic.

Female toilets.

Men’s toilet. Here you could do number 1, number 2 or, why not, number 1.5?

Death Road starts. This is the only left-sided road in South America. The reason is to make drivers as close to the edge as possible, similar to how drivers are on the left in right-sided traffic, since the most dangerous part is other cars.

To the left: happy cyclist. To the right: relaxed tourist, who went down here in May 5, 2015.

Do you see the cyclists down there?

Of the ones that die every year, I’m sure stupid selfies are one reason. Like this girl, climbing out on an edge and just sitting there, no matter what kind of wind that could suddenly come. Brrr.

I’m not like that! Taking a picture two metres from the edge.

Our ride was divided into many parts, as the leaders wanted to count us all every now and then. I took it quite relaxed since the road was steep and packed with big stones, and often only 3 meters wide, with a deep, deep fall on the left side.

The others were racing though. Life or death, who cares, I want to become number one!

Do you see the car?

Towards the end, it felt a little bit safer, as the road got wider and the steeps not as sharp, so I also started racing. The system was clear: if it was straight, or upwards, I gained on the others. But if we got slopes, I lost, since I simply do not want to die. But I won the second-last race! And came number two on the very last race, beaten by the very sporty Australian.

They are making fields on the mountain sides.

Big bird looking for prey. Maybe a dead cyclist somewhere you could chew on?

The first person to see the car gets an ice cream.

We did it! All alive.

Give me a bath now, please!

The road is 55 km, during which you go down from 4.7 km above the sea, to 1.2 km. The car drove us through parts of the initial paved part, so maybe we cycled 45 km.

Then we went for a lovely buffet, and a child-packed swimming pool. You needed to queue so long for the showers that almost none of us did it. Me and the sporty Australian took a bath though, clean or not *revolution*. He asked why I took the container ship from Europe to South America. Jesus, Australia is burning to ashes. Approximately a billion wild animals have died, and a number of species might have gone extinct this winter. 6000 houses are destroyed. With climate change as the leading cause. Ironically, Australia is the worst country in climate policies, worse than the USA. And Bolivia and Peru is packed with Australians (for example 5 out 7 of our bus this morning) who fly around, eat meat and don’t fucking give a shit about their own country. How stupid can people be?

Yes, I took the container boat in order to save Australia (and Kiribati, Bangladesh, East Africa etc) from death and misery. For Sweden, it’d mostly be good. We could make wine! The grapes are already flourishing at my cousin’s summer house.

Then we went back to the hotel. The new road was so packed in clouds that we drove through constant fog. In the hotel there was karaoke night! I sang “Barbie Girl” by Aqua.

I must admit that it’s quite boring to be sober though. Gah. Can’t wait until next week!