Coincidence update #5

In rapid succession the coincidences mount. Left La Paz this morning and was waiting for a boat to cross Lake Titicaca, when an Irish voice says "Howsitgoin´?". Stared at him and his mate for about 3 seconds and realised that I had met them both in Vang Vieng, Laos back at the beginning of December. Scary monsters.

La Paz to Corroico

La Paz produces practically no foodstuffs, therefore all agricultural products have to be shipped up from the surrounding lowlands. The problem is that these lowlands are at about 3.5km below La Paz (i.e. like vertically, you dig?). Naturally this elevation difference had to be bridged, so a dirt road was built, or rather "hewn" into the side of the mountains. This road is well used, especially by large trucks and buses. So you can imagine the consequences - a very steep, windy, narrow road used by maniac, sometimes drunk, often sleep deprived truck drivers. The accident statistics were horrendous - at least one fatality a month, normally much more.

So in 1995 Bolivia asked the Inter-American Development Bank for assistance in building a new road. The bank commissioned a study to examine how many accidents occurred on the 64km stretch of road between La Cumbre and Corroico. They didn't need long and soon after the bank dubbed it "THE WORLD´S MOST DANGEROUS ROAD" (capitals necessary).

Now titles like that are there to be misused, so within a couple of years there were a handful of agencies offering to take you down THE WORLD´S MOST DANGEROUS ROAD... On a mountain bike.

One would think that if agencies are going down with customers that it must be all safe and cushy, well not really. Last year an English girl dismounted from her bike on the wrong side and fell 600m to her death. An Italian girl died two years ago because her brakes had failed and to make things even more fun, 2 guides have died in the last 3 years.

But your intrepid reporter was not to be deprived of his bragging rights (And I didn't want Mr. Lloyd missing the chance of editing my posthumous travelogue), so it was 28 novenas, kiss the rosary, a hail Mary or ten and on yer bike.

The decent starts just outside La Paz at La Cumbre (4800m), starting off with a wide asphalt section, this then gets progressively narrower until the road is only about 3m wide (i.e. truck width) and the asphalt disappears and is replaced with a rocky dirt track. I was right behind the guide (Omar, Bolivian, Crazy) and we were not going slowly (to put it mildly). There are few words to describe the feeling of hurtling down a bumpy track at around 40kph with a sheer drop of anywhere between 100m and 800m to your left. This is not the sanitised Bungee & Skydiving where you are in the hands of a professional and where statistics show that nothing is going to happen. This is turn your handlebars too far to the left and you are going to be doing a superman... Sans cape and superpowers.

To make things slightly more edgy, my chain ring & crank became slightly separated from each other (not good). The replacement bike on the bus was way to small for me, so Omar bandaged the parts together with an elastic band, smiled and said "Vamanos". Honestly I kid you not, I don´t have to make this stuff up any more... It just happens.

Anyway, 4 hours, 64km and about 3400m vertical drop later and we arrive in Corroico. Dirty, sweaty, thirsty, but alive and with massive grins on all our faces. Corroico is an oasis, after the barren heights of the Altiplano it was pure bliss to walk around in a T-Shirt. The town is situated on a mountain ridge in the middle of a lush valley with parrots & condor flying overhead. The hotel we stayed at had a swimming pool, a sauna and a restaurant with a terrace overlooking the whole valley. It was cold beer heaven.

It all ended to soon and the next morning it was back up in a bus to La Paz... On the same road.

Give me a mountain bike any time.

Coincidence update #4

Now those of you with Elephantine memories might remember some ramblings about a Dutch guy I kept meeting in Asia and an Israeli guy whom we had both met (Jog your memory). Now to increase the scariness stakes, lovely girl from Kilkenny #1 was showing me some of her pictures of Asia when lo and behold Israeli dude turns up in a couple of shots. Is Mossad trailing me? Will consider plastic surgery in Rio.

La Paz

Bolivia has the world´s highest everything (except maybe mountain), so it is of no surprise to find out that La Paz is the world´s highest capital at just over 3700m. After spending the last 10 days at higher altitudes, La Paz is a doddle. Although I nearly fainted as I saw the military take to the streets one morning for a brisk jog... Uphill.

So for your amusement, some pictures of:
Chile
Argentina
and
Uruguay

Salar de Uyuni

The world´s largest salt flat just happens to be in the south west of Bolivia and it is meant to be one of the country´s highlights. So obligingly I signed myself on a 4 day tour of the Salar.

There were two 4x4s going into the Salar, so the 12 people who had signed up were going to be split up into two groups. There were 3 English couples, 5 French people and myself. I suppose it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which group I was going to end up with. So it was Bon Jour, ca va and On y va into the wide blue & white yonder...

Well anyway it was an amazing 4 days - the salt flat itself is a dazzling white desert like affair where you nearly become blinded by the light. On the second day we drove by many salt lakes with diverse amounts of bird life (feathered), finally ending up by sunset at base camp Lago Colorado, whose waters are as red as an Irishman on his first day in the sun. Day 3 saw us getting up at the ungodly (and unsatanly for that matter) hour of 4.30 am to witness some exploding Geysers, which were situated at about 5000 meters. There is nothing really to prepare you for the cold of a Bolivian dawn spent about 200 meters higher than Mont Blanc. On the last day we had a leisurely drive back to Uyuni where I was to wash the dirt of 4 days from my battered body. Things I learned during the journey:
* What a French shower REALLY means.
* That the French and the English don´t actually mix that well (Just watch the masks fall when it comes to sharing not much food between two groups...)
* Tarot is a common card game in France (and it is not an offer to read your future)
* "Ronfler" is French for "to snore"... Go figure.

Potosi

Potosi has the honour of being the worlds highest city at just over 4000 meters above sea level.
According to Lonely Planet, arriving at this altitude you should: Rest for half a day, take very little food, no alcohol and walk very slowly. So of course within about a half an hour of arrival I was tearing around town, had a large steak & a beer for lunch and by evening time had got myself invited to a Bolivian disco with a Dutch guy, an Aussie girl and 3 other Irish guys, where we proceeded to drink the bar dry of beer (honestly). Textbook stuff.

On the second day it was time to do something cultural, so it was off up to the silver mines, for which Potosi is world famous for. The mines are situated in the Cerro Rico mountain which lurks over Potosi like a bad ghost. We were picked up at the ungodly hour of 8am and while we were waiting for the bus I felt like I was back in Ireland, indeed of the 13 people on the tour, 9 were Irish. Is anybody left back home??
The first thing was to don our ultra-realistic miner suits, complete with oversized welly boots and yellow construction caps. When we were all done we looked like extras out of Ghostbusters...
Back into the battered bus we drove up to the miners markets where we were to buy some presents for the miners. Miners love (in order of preference):
1) Coca leaves
2) Dynamite
3) Bottles of 96 perfect "Buen Gusto"(Good taste!) alcohol
4) Cigarettes

Considering 3 out of the 4 proposed gifts are illegal in most sane counties in the world, it was a brave man who asked our guide "Are you sure they are a good combination". We all had visions of pissed, slightly high on Coca leaves miners with a stick of lit dynamite in their hands going "Now, what was I about to do again?". We obliged our guide and bought a bag of coca leaves (50 cents), a bottle of hooch (50 cents) and a stick of dynamite, complete with 3 minute fuse! (1 dollar) and hopped back on the bus again.

We then drove half way up Cerro Rico (already about 4300m), got out of the bus, turned on our head lamps, stuffed some coca leaves in our mouth and entered the mine... Harrison Ford watch out.

The first 10 minutes or so were a piece of piss, stooped slightly, the tunnel was quite wide, only a bit dusty and not that hot. Things changed rapidly as we descended to the second level, where the temperature jumped about 5 degrees, dust to air ratio went against us and the tunnels became about as wide as Kate Moss´s hips. Our 5ft nothing guide scampered ahead of us and left the 6ft plus Europeans groaning behind him.

Little did we realise that there was a third and a fourth level [of hell] to descend to, where the temperature increased and the size of the tunnels decreased each time. At the very end we were crawling on our bellies in about 40 degrees of heat, dust stuck to us like breadcrumbs to a fish finger. At the end of one tunnel we happened upon one of the few miners (well, it was Saturday). He was crouched down, hammering a hole in to the rock wall. I have honestly never seen anyone sweat so much in my life.

Our guide told us that the miner was 32 years of age (our mouths dropped in unison, he looked at least 45). He proceeded to tell us that he had been working for 18 years down the mines, that he had lost his father and one of his brothers in the mines, that he spent about 10 hours a day, 6 days a week down in the sweaty darkness and that if things went well he had a life expectancy of about 50 years. We shifted (well, squirmed) about uneasily and I think 13 people suddenly realised that the good old desk jockey job mightn't be THAT bad after all.

I can tell you that after 2 hours in the mines I have never been so glad to see daylight and breathe fresh air again in my life.

Sucre

OK, before anyone asks, I'm alive in thriving in the rarefied airs of Sucre.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3557350.stm

Santa Cruz, Bolivia

After checking into room number 168 of my travels it was time to get down to the real pleasures of travelling. Getting some of and understanding the local money. Finding and deciphering the local delicacies. Getting washing done. Planning the next journey etc. etc. Fun and games, huh?

For a change in my daily activities I decided it was time for a hair cut. The last one had been sometime in New Zealand and I was starting to look like a unshaven Llama.

I picked the most old fashioned barbers I could find, where the men were all decked out in white coats and looked like they had been cutting hair for centuries. Actually I'm sure one of them HAD been cutting hair for centuries. I luckily got a young ´un (mid thirties). He sat me down in one of those old fashioned reclining chairs. The games commenced.

¨Grble gusutla mmmmhrum usted?¨ he says in a Bolivian mumble.

I'm prepared and reckon he´s asking "How would you like it cut sir".

Now, not being a TOTAL fool, I had rehearsed this one and already knew the words. "Here", "There", "Short" "More" and "A little". I pointed to the back and sides and said "Aqui corto".
He nodded dutifully. "Y aqui un poco mas corto", I continued, pointing to the top. He gave me a reassuring nod and I breathed a sigh of relief. Job done. Piece of piss compared to Vietnam where I had to resort to Extreme Sign language.

He started by getting out what looked like one of those old perfume sprayers - a round looking thing with a nozzle and a rubber hose attached with a ball on the end to be squeezed. I reckoned I must have the good old traveller´s smell and he wanted to neutralise my odours first...
I was wrong, as I soon found out when he removed a lighter from his pocket, squeezed the ball and proceeded to set fire to the liquid coming out of the contraption. A flame the size of my arm shot out and nearly singed my eyebrows. Yes, this weird looking thing was a portable flame-thrower. Some light was shone on the matter when he took all his scissors out of the cupboard and char-grilled every one of them with this weapon of medium destruction.

Eyebrows intact he started to chop. It was all going wonderfully well until towards the end when he started to give me a right parting and brushed my hair back. I thought he was just doing some clever barber stuff (I mean he had seen me come in and seen the way I normally wear my hair?), so I left him go. Mistake.

Before I knew it, he had the blowdryer set to stun and was turning my lovely locks into something that would have made even the Fonz blush. I was stunned, too frightened to scream out "Stop". Before too long it was all over, my reflection stared back at me and I had to grin. I thought the ordeal was all over, but no, the barber of Seville Santa Cruz had it in for me and in the blink of an eye he whipped out a can of super, super, mega, extra strong hair spray and sprayed enough of it in my hair to turn it into lacquer. I was transformed into an extra from Grease. It was so hard that meteorites would have bounced off my bonce.

I paid my money, even gave him a tip (sucker), ran home in case I happened to meet anybody I knew in downtown Santa Cruz and sat sobbing under the shower for 20 minutes. I vowed to use sign language the next time.

Quijarro - Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia

The train between Quijarro and Santa Cruz de la Sierra has a catchy nickname - El tren de la Muerte. Now you don´t have to be a Spanish professor to work out that it means "The Death Train" (cue evil cackling in the background). This is probably something the P.R. department of Bolivian Railways should be looking in to, but the locals all call it that. It apparently got the name because people are always falling of the top of the carriages. Either that or because it derails so often. How ever it got its name, it wasn´t one of those things I was writing home to tell mummy about. But then again, it was the only form of transport from Corumba to Santa Cruz.

So it was an early start in Corumba, motorcycle taxi (an event in itself) to the border, successfully tackle border control and a taxi from the border to Quijarro. At this stage I had hooked up with a German / Iraqi anthropology student and a Wilderness guide (yawn) from Tasmania. The travellers dice had been rolled and I got a double zero for travel partners. We still had 2 hours before the train so we settled into the nearest bar and got familiar with the local brew. Within a couple of minutes I was already a huge fan of Bolivia, just like Laos & Cambodia, it is poor, dusty and dirty but the people are amazingly friendly and always have a smile on their face.

The train left amazingly punctually at 1:30pm and we rattled off into the distance. I discussed the universe and everything with the anthropologist and by 9pm I was mercifully rattled to sleep. At 6am there was a rude awakening, we were already meant to be in Santa Cruz, but we weren't. Instead we were stuck in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Aeons later the guard tells us that there is something wrong with the track up ahead and that we will be staying put for at least another 3 hours. He recommends getting a taxi to Santa Cruz instead. So we dutifully disembark and look for some form of transport. A pick-up truck presents itself with about 20 people already jammed into it. We squeeze on and commence the next leg of the journey. This only lasts about 15 minutes as the driver brings us to the local bridge where he chucks us out and tells us to get a bus. Surprisingly, a bus pulls up right away. The bus is of course filled to absolute capacity and then some. We play twister and mould ourselves onto the bus. This goes well for another while and we actually make it to Santa Cruz, but not to where we want to go. So it´s arms in the air and we hail a cab.

Finally, 25 hours after leaving Corumba, after 1 motorbike, 1 train, 1 pick-up truck, 2 taxis and a bus ride I collapse into a heap in my bed in Santa Cruz. Travelling rocks.

Corumba & The Pantanal, Brazil

Another 17 hour bus ride followed by 10 minutes breakfast followed by another 7 hour bus ride and I was in Corumba, Brazil refreshed and ready to go. Corumba has two things going for it:
1) It is next to Bolivia
2) It is right in the middle of the Pantanal. According to most guidebooks the Pantanal is probably THE best spot in the world for seeing huge amounts of varied wildlife (and for probably contracting the most exotic diseases).

And being keen on birds it was high on my priority list to see.

I booked a 4 day trek into the wilderness and was off the next morning on the back of a pick-up truck with 5 other people. Three of them were lawyers in training and two of these were Swiss, so my expectations of fun and frolics in the jungle were dampened from the start. I mean Swiss lawyers - can it get any worse??

We bounced our way down some hairy country roads and watched the spectacle unfold - Toucans flapped by (disappointingly without a pint of Guinness in their beaks), scarlet & blue macaws flew by in pairs (interesting fact #587: Macaws stay together for life and if one of the partners dies, the other one doesn´t even look for a new partner) and Alligators rested motionlessly beside watering holes with their mouths open wide. Within a couple of hours I had seen more wildlife than on an hour with David Attenborough.

We arrived at our camp late at night and there was already a camp fire with some Brazilian dudes playing music and dancing around. Miraculously the camp also had a small bar which served (in order of importance) Caipirinha, beer and water. We were shown to our hammocks and I threw my sleeping bag in it and proceeded to make my way in an orderly fashion to the bar to quench my dust coasted larynx. With enough beer imbibed to give me the necessary sleep momentum I was already in my hammock at about 9pm. New records were being set.

As usual I stripped off and wiggled into my sleeping bag and drifted away peacefully with all kinds of new, interesting and above all dangerous sounding things going bump, bang, croak, frippet, quark, uhuhooh, wakawaka and grrrrr in the bushes.

It had been mid thirties during the day but no one told me how cold it gets in the middle of the night so I awoke at about 3am with icicles forming on my nose. The fact that my super-light, folds up into nothing sleeping bag has the heat retaining properties of a full body Kleenex didn´t help matters much. I fumbled for my clothes and resumed sleeping, wearing my day clothes plus a hat.

At 6am we were awoken boot camp style by a bell, informing us that breakfast was served. After that the first day was spent walking through the jungle / savannah gawking at various animals I had only ever seen in zoos before: Deer, Macaws, Toucans, Koatis, Armadillos, Vultures, Parakeets, Eagles, Maribou storks, Ibis, Emus, Howler monkeys, Owls, Alligators, Capybara and Hummingbirds to name but a few. Our guide was crazy as a brush and marched barefoot around the place, oblivious to all dangers that were running through my mind.

On the second day it was time for a spot of Piranha fishing. It all sounded like good clean fun until the guide told us to bring our swimming trunks. I trusted his better judgement and we hopped into the truck, destination: piranha infested lake. The rods were bamboo sticks with wire attached and the bait was what looked like a fine rump steak.
All good until our guide ("Hakuna" who, like in the lion king, had definitely Hakuna Matata) stripped off his clothes and started wading into the lake and cast his rod nonchalantly. We all looked at each other nervously and I could already see the lawyers planning a nice reckless damage settlement. Still going by the "He must know what he´s doing" credo, I got into my shorts and waded in after him. After about 3 nervous minutes I finally had to ask him "So why don´t the Piranhas bite us?". He just laughed and said "Because you are not bleeding of course". This reassured me greatly and I vowed to stay away from sharp objects and stopped scratching my mosquito bites immediately. My imagination was working overtime though and every little water movement around me had my pulse up to 180. It was like Jaws, only smaller, and without the give away fin. Once the water came up to my crown jewels and you have never seen anybody hop back as fast as I did.

Within a couple of minutes Hakuna had caught one of the "little" beasts. They are not so little (slightly larger than my palm) and they have a set of teeth that would put a great white to shame. Meanwhile my rod was starting to lightly vibrate and I jerked it out of the water to find that half of my bait was gone, sawn off cleanly. I cast again and waited. A couple of minutes later the same thing happened, but this time I took the rod out only to find the bait missing completely. These bastards were clever. More bait on the rod and I started again, this time getting a rather hefty tug on the bamboo stick. I jerked the rod back and lo and behold there was a wriggling monster of death on the end of the line. I took him ashore and let Hakuna do the honours of taking the hook out. Within an hour or so of Piranha slaughter we had some turkey vultures circling overhead and some huge storks eyeing us up, It was all very surreal.

Day 3 had me horseriding around the pampas on a frisky bastard that liked nothing better than to take off at the drop of a hat. I clung on for dear life as he galloped over the plains, my screams had wildlife for miles around running for cover. I survived and was even doing a bit of the jockey thing at the end. Though, afterwards I was walking round like John Wayne and my arse was sorer than the guy that drops the soap in the prison shower.

After 4 days of fun and frolics it was all over and time to head back to the heady delights of semi-civilization in Corumba. Next destination: Bolivia.

Puerto Iguazu

After a relaxing 13 hour bus ride we arrived in Puerto Iguazu, the Argentinian town attached to the falls. A one donkey town, it was poorer than anything I had previously seen in South America, I suppose a hint of things to come.

On the second day we managed to get to the falls and as in New Zealand I basically have no superlatives left up my sleeve. The roar of the falls can be heard from about a kilometre away and as you approach them it just gets louder and louder. There are some beautiful walkways built above, below and across the waterfalls and they give some spectacular views. You think it can´t get better as you walk along, but at one stage you round a corner and you are confronted without about 20 waterfalls on three levels and a total diameter of maybe one kilometre. It´s mind boggling the amount of water that cascades down every second. The mist can be felt from a distance away and because of this there are enough rainbows present to confuse any leprechaun.

The piece de resistance is the gargantua del diablo which is apart from the other waterfalls and basically resembles the end of the world. It looks like the planet comes to a halt and that the oceans just pour down the sides of the disc we live on. The bottom is so far away and the mist so intense that you cannot see the bottom. The water literally falls into oblivion.

And all that water had everyone running to the toilets at regular intervals.