Yes, we had to ride the “most dangerous road in the world”

Picture your favorite bowl, the one you use in the morning for your cereals: this is what La Paz looks like when you first see it. You arrive through El Alto, basically the rim of your bowl, and there you can look at the entire city as it spreads across all the inside of your bowl, both sides and bottom. It was very impressive and as we took the highway, we slowly descended into the bowl, now looking up at the sides filled with little houses all the way up to the rim. The traffic was pretty dense and we noticed quickly that we were the only motorcycles. Surprisingly, the cars were very respectful of us, maybe just not really sure about how to deal with us.

La Paz, a capital city made for exploration

We struggled a little to find a hotel with parking and once we did, we put our walking shoes on to stroll in the city. La Paz does not have very famous monuments or attractions, even if there are many beautiful plazas and churches, so it was not like we had an agenda or a list of things to see. Rather, we wanted to get a better feel for the soul and spirit of the city. The first things we hit was a very touristy market where you could buy everything a tourist can dream of. We had a good time going from store to store where the Alpaca was really the star souvenir. Hats, sweaters, gloves, scarves: you could buy anything made of the soft Alpaca wool. We decided to treat ourselves to a scarf each that we would surely need in the mountains. We continued our walk towards the Mercado Negro. On the way, we passed all the black magic stores where you could buy things like dried up Alpaca fetuses, that bring you luck if you hide it under your house. They also had powders, liquids and strange looking and smelling things; we did not dare ask what they were for!
As we arrived at the Mercado Negro, we started feeling the heart of the city. All the streets were so busy and you could buy anything you could think of. Everything was moving around us and there was so much energy, even early on a week evening. We sampled some of the food that they were selling like the fresh fruits with yogurt and honey, the Beso de Negrito, a candy made of marshmallow dipped in chocolate, the local version of the hot dog, giant looking popcorn with caramel. It was hard to resist the temptation and the more we walked, we found out that all these things were not only sold in the market but also on the side of other streets in the city. Overall, we had to impression to walk in a giant market where each street and sidewalk was used as a prime spot to sell you merchandize. It seems that there was nothing you could not buy and it was pretty challenging to resist buying things all the time. La Paz had really the vibe of a busy, lively city where no corner was left quiet.

Just fulfilling the need for a challenge on our motorcycles

From travelers we had met on the trip and through our guide book, we heard about the famous “most dangerous road in the world”, also called the Ruta de la Muerte (Death Road). It was the old road between La Paz and the jungle city of Coroico: the road was about 30 Kms long, all dirt with places as narrow as 3,2 meters (10 feet) and descending more than 3,000 meters (about 10.000 feet) from start to finish. This road had seen the most casualties in the country until the new paved road was constructed. It was so narrow and had both way circulation, plus the sheer drop would take you a few hundred feet down, a fall you were not likely to survive. Today, since there is the new road, the Ruta de la Muerte was mainly used as a tourist attraction for people looking for a thrill. It was mostly ridden by cyclists: a classic tour offered in La Paz was cycle it down on a rented bicycle. This seems to be a challenge that our motorcycles were made for too. Tomorrow, we would ride the Death Road.

We got up early to ensure that we had enough time in one day to ride the road down and come back to La Paz using the new and fastest paved road. It was a little hard to find it as we had pretty vague directions but we finally got lucky: we saw the tourist vans with the bikes on top of the roof and knew that all we had to do is follow them to find the road. This was the right idea and they took us to the entrance of the famous dirt and gravel road, reminding us that the rule here is to drive on the left so that the driver could better assess how close he was to the cliff. We started the descent and the steep grade was taking us quickly into a more jungle like environment. The road was indeed scary: dirt, gravel and rocks on a very narrow strip with many blind curves where you have no idea if there was oncoming traffic. But if the bicycles could do it, we could do it! The road was hard but maybe not as difficult as some that we had done previously such as in Colombia. We could see miles away down the valley since we were so close to the edge and it was steep and deep. The scenery was captivating: everything was green, plants had been growing wild and there were some wet patches in the road due to waterfalls.We took it relatively slow, honking at each turn in case someone was coming the other way. Luckily, we had nice weather which at least helped with keeping the dirt road dry and non slippery. We stopped multiple times to enjoy the view and the beauty of our surroundings, drinking a lot of water as it was getting much hotter with the lower altitude.

To our surprise, we arrived to a big waterfall that was directly over the path. We had no other option but to ride underneath and get completely soaked. We were really laughing when we saw each others' clothes and gear totally wet. In addition, Caroline did not have time to close her helmet, making it even more refreshing for her face and sunglasses. The cyclists were doing well too and passed us when the road became a little wider. We were both happy that we had no fear of heights as the cliffs were really scary. In the last part of the ride, we even had to do three river crossing, with the water deeper each time. The last river got even the inside of our boots wet as it splashed the water so high. It did feel like a real adventure and with the amazing views we had, we were glad we did the road. Needless to say that it would also give us an endless right to brag about having done the most dangerous road in the world:)

Driving back to La Paz, the asphalt road was equally fun tough much less challenging. We saw how lush and widespread the jungle was: we were happy we got a sight of the lowlands of Bolivia. Back in town, we had a mission to fulfill. Caroline's bike had been leaking some radiator fluid since Peru and while it was not much of a leak, we had to start taking care of it before it became much worse. We went on a quest into the city to find radiator fluid for motorcycle and see if we could order the part that had a problem since Chad thought he knew what we needed. After a lot of asking, we found the Suzuki shop, both for bikes and car, that unfortunately would have to order the parts we needed from Japan, which would take about 45 days. This was of course way to long for us so we will have to find other options to get the parts to us, probably through internet. Let's hope that in the meantime things won't get worse. At least we were able to get the radiator fluid we needed for the bike so we will be able to refill the fluid as we will continue to lose a little each day. The good news is that we are no longer riding in a hot desert so the engine should be able to handle the temperature.