Cycling the Death Road, and Down the River of the Pampas

Having been convinced by a number of backpackers that the "Death Road" is not nearly as scary as it sounds, I decided to sign up for a bike ride along the infamous road.

The real name of the road is the Yungas Road, and it winds nearly 60km along the edge of precariously steep cliffs and hillsides. It is great for downhill bike riding, because the ride starts at 4,650m and finishes at 1,200m. So downhill all the way.

I have to say that I started out a little nervous. However, the scenery was so stunning - an eery mist hung in the air, lush rainforest glistened and sprung from the depth of nothingness providing a dark, almost sinister yet mystical setting, and waterfalls tumbled down the canyon walls, irridescent in places, like a prism catching light and casting blue and pink dancing beams - for want of better words, for words alone cannot describe such a magical place - that I was, after a short time, completely distracted from the danger that lies in the sheer drop that fell to my left. Only one time I glanced down, and having discerned that there really was nothing there, I made my mind up not to look again.

Like the road to Macchu Picchu, the Yungas Road is not sealed, and very bumpy, and muddy in places.

The road´s nickname, the "Death Road" or "Death Route" is attributed to the number of car and lorry accidents that have occurred over the years. Not much more than 3 metres wide, the accidents were due to cars meeting on the road travelling in opposite directions, with one having to back up in order to let the other pass. I could see how vehicles could easily veer off the road and plunge into the deep canyon below, backing up in this way. Rows of crosses adorn the sides of the road, bearing witness to these tragic accidents, and the ghosts of the dead seem to loom in the fog, silently forming a useless wall of protection for those that continue to pass through the deadly route.

There are only mostly mountain-bikers that take the road now. A new Yungas Road was constructed a few years ago for the lorries and buses.

I thoroughly enjoyed the road and at the end was able to throw the bike down, sink into the grass and cool myself down with a cold drink.

For some reason, this wasn´t enough adventure for me, and some friends and I enquired back at La Paz into taking a military flight to the Bolivian jungle town of Rurrenabaque (on the Beni River). We were able to get flights for the following evening, and during the taxi ride the girls and I were so excited we got the giggles and couldn´t stop laughing nearly the whole way.

It wasn´t exactly funny, though, when the taxi driver took us to the wrong airport, and informed us of his error with a big grin on his face accompanied by the figures of the cab fare. After a bit of persuasion though, he agreed to take us to the right airport, with no extra charge.

At the gates of the military airport, a sleepy guard in a grey poncho waved us through, with cheery gesticulation and no concern whatsoever as to who we were, which for some reason made us laugh more (you had to be there, I suppose), bearing witness to the fact that your humour can still remain in tact after a number of slip-ups. Sometimes, when things go wrong, all you can do is laugh.

But it wasn´t funny when the cab drove off and I realised, upon having to pay the airport tax, that I had left my purse behind in the taxi, probably having fallen onto the cab floor in the mad rush.

Why then were we all still laughing?

Nor was it funny when, after waiting for our flight for over half an hour, we discovered that it was cancelled due to "temperature" problems. Apparently, the plane doesn´t fly when the temperature reaches over 17 degrees. Dodgy! We were guaranteed a flight the next morning, at 6am. In the meantime, my friends and I had kept ourselves entertained by watching a bunch of military men expertly roll down a red carpet along the length of the airstrip, and into the terminal. I joked with Luis that perhaps Chavez was paying a visit; being a corrupt capitalist dictator behind the mask of a benevolent Socialist demagogue, the man is not highly popular amongst the Venezulans, least not my good friend.

We watched the men pat the carpet, stretch it out, straighten it, and make a general fuss over it. Some of them lay down on it for a while. I had the impression that not a lot goes on in this airport. Perhaps there was no arrival of Chavez, or Evo, afterall.

The airline kept their word and we were able to get our flight the next morning. The military plane was not a green camouflage plane as I had expected and we weren´t crouched on the ground with helmets nor with parachutes. It was an ordinary plane, with ordinary passenger seats, and an air hostess offering yoghurt and fruit salad from a trolley. Pretty regular, really.

We landed in the fog on a grassy airstrip. The tropical heat hit like a hurricane.

Sweat was pouring off my face within five minutes. Whilst the girls took a jeep into town, Luis and I decided to take motorcycle taxis. It was a lot of fun, passing one another on the dirt road, despite the dust in my face. We were met in town by a little green Spanish-speaking parrot, which muttered incoherent phrases that neither Luis nor myself could comprehend. We played with it for a while and then went to sort out our boat down the river.

I could talk about the Bolivian pampas forever. We started with a drive in a jeep for a number of hours on a dirt road, stopping for a lunch of yucca, cooked green bananas, egg and rice. This is a typical jungle dish. It was really good. It was so hot that day. The jeep stopped again at a roadside shop, for cool drinks and a swing in a hammock. I played with the puppies there before reembarking the jeep and driving for several more hours, before reaching the river.

About eight of us were shuffled into a long narrow canoe-shaped boat. The girls had gone off in another boat, Luis and I remaining in a Spanish-speaking group. We glided down the river for a good three hours. It lay brown and glistening in the afternoon sun. The weather was very hot. Like Australia, the water was muddy and whatever lurked beneath remained a hidden mystery. The guide, Jaime, pointed out birds - storks, pretty small ones, and crazy birds that sport a colourful mohawk. Aligators lounged all down the riverbanks, gleaming eyes and rows of teeth exposed, their jaws open wide to regulate their temperatures.

I loved the little families of tortoises clumped together, basking on rocks in the sun. The animals have real personalities, reminding me of the film Animals are Beautiful People: the tall stork-like birds are similar to solemn-faced undertakers; the tortoises look as though they are doing tai-chi, balanced on their sides with a foot or two sticking out in calm contemplation.

The birds stretch out their wings to dry in the sunshine. The aligators wink at you and sink like rock into the water.

The chocolate river winds its way through the golden, rippling pampas. I suppose you would describe the pampas as a grassy prairie, where tall grasses sweep across the lowlands. Anacondas are hidden in there. So are many other things.

Our boat drifted through patches of sunlight and of shade. The cool, shady parts were the best, a relief from the oppressive sun, puddles of shade trickling over our sweating bodies. On the river´s edge the trees grew high and leaned over the water, dangling its parasitic roots as if they were fishing for pirouanas. Cannibalisitc trees.

We stopped here, in a cool, breezy spot where the trees formed a semi-canopy over the riverbed, and cast our lines to try our luck with the pirouanas. Luis was the first to catch one, although he let it go. I had no luck whatsoever; every time I felt a tug, and I pulled my line up, the sneaky little thing had gone, together with my bait. I suppose I would want to get away as quickly as possible too, if I were that little fish, so I couldn´t blame it.

In the early evening, loads of backpackers sat up in the forest lodges, legs dangling from the boardwalk, to drink beer and watch the sunset.

During the night, the boat slid quietly through the water under glossy black sky, a backdrop for a ceiling of stars. The night reminded me of childhood days in the Malborough Sounds in New Zealand. My Dad and uncles took my sisters and I garfishing at night, rowing silently through the still, dark waters, trying not to make a sound, except for the splash of the oars and of our small hands stirring up the golden dust of phosphorescence.

The next day we went walking through the pampas. It was an oppressively hot day, and my face was already coated with perspiration despite the day being still young. I will never forget walking through that tall, apple-green grass, rustled by the wind´s caresses, stretching on forever.

We found two anacondas, asleep inside the hollow of a tree, their bodies intertwined. It´s funny the way that humans do that too, with their legs, when they sleep in a bed together.

In the darker recesses of the shady forest, I was suddenly overcome with memories of my childhood, sweeping over me in waves. I picked a mushroom and carried it for a while, my thoughts revisiting the fairy stories I read when I was little, about deep dark forests and magical creatures. I also found a snake skin and tucked it into the pocket of my shorts.

During the night I lit an incense that night to try and ward off the mosquitos. Between that and the mosquito net, I did quite well - didn´t get a single bite, wasn´t going to let them, either, not after my rafting trip mosquito experience.

In the morning, we went for a swim, and found ourselves not too far from some pink river dolphins. Francis and I had a mud fight and Luis got bitten on the nipple by a pirouana. They kept getting me on the neck. It must have been a real feast for them.

I saw tucans too, and capybaras.

Lunch was really good that day. I have been eating like a horse, however it is that horses eat. I have put on five kilos and a roll around my tummy. A roll of rice and green bananas.

On the third day, the jeep took us all back to Rurrenabaque, flying along the dirt road at an alarming pace. Brooke and I were out of money, so we ate as cheaply as possible that night, particularly as I was covering for her and only had 16 bolivianos remaining. I chose a 13 b meal. Brooke had her eye on a 15 b meal (something like $2.00). I gave her a discerning look of disapproval across the table, eyebrows raised, and we burst into fits of laughter. ("Uh, Brooke." "Oh! Then I´ll have the vegetarian tacos. The entree size.") The funny thing was the fact that we really didn´t have that extra 2 bolivianos!

Rurrenabaque was a great little town: underdeveloped but quaint, dirt road and simple roadside cafés, shops selling brick-a-brack from soccer balls to cheap beauty products, to hammocks and mosquito nets.

My best buy was in Rurrenabaque in fact: a large blue hammock, in colours that remind me of the sea, to hang up in Cairns! I had been dreaming of this perfect hammock for some time, and during a walk around Rurrenabaque had become a little lost, as usual. Turning a corner, there to my amazement was my dream hammock, hanging up in the door of a store.
Some things are just meant to be.

What I love about La Paz

Omri, Itay, Amir and I took a bus from Cusco to La Paz, Bolivia, via Lake Titicaca and Cochabamba.

(Did you know that Titi Caca means "grey puma"? Amazingly, it was named this way by the Incans...or possibly even pre-Incan, but I will need to check that fact...because upside-down, the lake actually looks like a stretched-out cat. How could they have known this though, without an ariel view? The answer to my question was vague: the Incan empire holds a lot of mysteries.)

In the middle of the night, as we neared the city of La Paz, we were all woken up and informed that we would need to get off the bus and onto a ferry so that the bus could cross the lake empty of passengers. (There had been accidents in the past. Did I mention that before a bus-ride in Peru or Bolivia, somebody hired by the bus company walks around the inside of the bus filming the passengers faces in case of a bus crash? A rather disconcerting thought for people intending on travelling around South America in the future, I know...so I´m sorry if I have put anybody off...but it is one of the quirks of travelling in this vast mountaineous continent, and as I find it amusing myself, I thought I would mention it.)

Rugged up in blankets and warm clothes, we huddled up in what was not really a ferry but more like a dinghy, sleepy dismal faces on a rocky boat that didn´t leave until nearly all of us were already seasick. I remember that boat-ride, because it felt like a dream. The most surreal experiences tend to be, not surprisingly, at strange hours, and when you are not expecting them.

We were glad when we finally got a hostel and climbed into warm beds.

What do I love most about La Paz? Well, everything, nearly.

Drinking Bock (a local beer), 7 percent alcohol content, at high altitude. It really improves my Spanish. (This is my first point, because I was jotting down notes in my journal whilst sitting in the bar of my hostel, the Wild Rover, and having a drink whilst waiting for a friend.)

I love the Witches Markets. This is my second point, because everybody has to mention Witches Markets. They are quirky, and you can get great bargains. The textiles are dazzlingly colourful and there are things that constantly surprise you - such as walking around a corner, and finding shrunken, dried up llama fetuses, their eyes gouged out, necks stretched thin as string beans (can you imagine bombarding Australian Customs at the airport with a couple of those? Yuck. Yet tempting...).

I love the mix of old and new. I love the way in which people go about in old-fashioned business suits, in the streets lined with boot-polishers and men employed to type on clunky old typewriters whilst somebody dicates to them. I entertained the idea of dictating a letter to somebody this way - a Pablo Neruda poem perhaps, or a Bolivian counterpart - but sadly didn´t get around to doing this (like many things).

I lean against the table in the bar and scratch the mostquito bites on my legs, a ritual that has become a daily, automated event ever since my rafting trip. In between my leg scratches, requiring heavy concentration, I think a little more about what I love the most about La Paz.

I love the kindness of people that takes you by surprise. Walking down the street with Brooke one night, an older ex-patriot approached us and asked if we would like two tickets to see the Bolivian Symphony Orchestra, with a guest violinist from Argentina. It was on in five minutes, and we gladly accepted. It was lovely to watch some classical music, and the violinist performed exquisitely. I´ll include his name when I remember it. Brooke and I were enchanted and left feeling very grateful at the man´s kindness, and filled with the sweet potion of music from head to toe.

It is funny, that many people don´t like La Paz for the reason that many people live below the poverty line. Remembering my walk around the city, I wonder why there aren´t as many beggars and desperation here as I expected - at least, what is visible to the tourist´s eye. Have the poor - who possess the type of desperateness that causes people to claw at you, cling onto your clothing as you brush past them, to wail, to cry - have they been swept out of sight? Into the backstreets of oblivion and out of the suit-clad man´s consciousness?

I wonder about the welfare system here and how society is taken care of. Is it different here from that of other countries? I don´t know how much you can tell from the smiling faces about a country´s government.

I love the old women, the cholitas, who stroll along the narrow pavements, in a slow gait. Large women wearing long, puffy skirts that make them appear twice as wide, with polished black shoes and bowler hats, which were introduced by an English business-man once upon a time when the hats were in fashion in London. The story goes that the hats didn´t catch on amongst the Bolivian men, and so in order to sell them he convinced the Bolivian women that bowler hats were a current London fashion item (amongst women). They caught on, and are still worn, although you don´t really see any young person wearing them. Perhaps my generation will be the last to see this sort of dress, to feel as though you have stepped into a time capsule and gone back several hundred years. I feel that in this way, La Paz is a real treasure, in that precious, genuine tradition has been preserved.

Macchu Picchu (Cont.)

I´m writing two blog entries about Machu Picchu not because it deserves such a long account, but really just because it takes a lot of words to properly describe the way that the hike there made me feel, the emotions the surrounding wonders of nature evoked in me, the spirits that were let loose in that rugged landscape.

I should probably first say that I made some really great friends on this trip: Luis and Gustavo, two good friends travelling together from Venezuala, Omri, Itay and Amir, three friends from Israel who I found incredibly relaxing and enjoyable to spend time with; and the fun-loving Danni from Australia. I loved all of these people and I really hope I will stay in touch with them; as free-spirited citizens of the world I am sure that some of us will find each other again, in some obscure part of the planet.

The walk was partly along windy dirt roads thousands of metres above sea-level, carved into the side of the mountain. This was what gave me the most vertigo. There were parts where my legs froze and simply wouldn´t carry me any further. Very frustrating that is, when the body won´t obey the mind. We stopped at a horrifically dizzying boulder and Willy took some time to explain the Incan culture to everybody. Basically, the Incans worshipped nature so that they would be treated kindly by her, through rain and good harvest. Pachamama is the Incan word for Mother Earth, and many rituals were...no, are... performed daily in worship of her, such as by offering coca tea leafs by throwing them into the river. The Incans also worshipped the Sun God Inti, the Moon goddess (the partner of the Sun God), and most importantly, the river, the source of all life. I believe that, too: the river gives me life, insofar as she gives me energy. It is the river that gives me the most energy (see my posting about my whitewater rafting adventure), and that is something I need to live a full life, to keep the fire burning in my spirit.

I thought about the river a lot whilst I was hiking.

For quite a long stretch of the hike, though, we walked along an old railway track, headed towards Aguas Calientes, from Santa Teresa. After a good night´s sleep at Santa Teresa, my legs had sufficient spring in them to take me across the old wooden railway, which wound its way through lush jungle. Luis and I chatted as we walked side by side, our feet falling on each plank simultaneously like a coordinated march. Eventually, I fell behind as I stopped to examine small things on either side of the tracks. I saw an amazing flutter of orange butterflies, clumped together on a rock. A few minutes later, a fat green caterpillar crawling lethargically along the edge of the railway, at a pace I could strongly identify with. I thought: is this the pace of life that humans should be adopting? At the caterpillar´s rate, the scenic views would be thoroughly and permanently stamped onto one´s mind like a copper etching. Wouldn´t we appreciate everything a little more if we took things a little slower? At the same time, I couldn´t help feeling as though, like the caterpillar, I was falling behind with life; but of this I was glad.

After a long day´s walk we arrived at Aguas Calientes and I had a good night´s sleep.

The climb up Machu Picchu was slow and steep. I climbed over 1,000 steps at 4:30am with a flashlight. It was a very sharp incline and the steps seemed to wind up and around forever. At the top, I found all the tourists a little overwhelming, so I sat on a rock and closed my eyes for a while. When I finally opened my eyes again, I saw the mountains rising directly above me, the edges sharper and the colours brighter. It was like being reborn! It was an amazing experience. I couldn´t help thinking that the image of Machu Picchu must be, for many people, such a worn and faded one; sort of like looking at a photograph for so long that it no longer has any effect on you. I found that by closing my eyes and shutting the iconic images out for some time, and forgetting where I was, I could almost surprise myself by letting it all flood back in again at the chosen moment.

"Sube a nacer conmigo, hermano"...

I had meant to bring my book of Cantos by Pablo Neruda so that I could, like a real gringo, read Alturas de Macchu Picchu (Heights of Macchu Picchu) from the top. I had forgotten my book completely, however, so I contented myself to look around the ruins and learn a little bit about them before retiring from the buzz of tourists.

Back in Cusco I got the Santa Ana bus back to the school to see the kitchen that we had built just one more time, and properly say goodbye to the teachers and to my little Luis. A big toothy smile spread across his tiny face when he saw me and he leaped into my arms like an orang-utan. I´m really going to miss that little monkey. I´m sure my face will fade in his memory in time as he grows up, but I´ll never forget his. No; I´ll go back sooner than later. I´ll make sure of it.

Don´t we always tell ourselves that?