In case you didn't believe it's the world's most dangerous road

The WMDR (World's Most Dangerous Road)

I went on a mountain bike ride over the weekend down "The World's Most Dangerous Road" - as proclaimed by the U.S. Department of Transportation because there are more deaths per year (180) than any other road. [I also found out that I had traveled down the 2nd most dangerous road in the world while traveling down the mountains from Lesotho to South Africa 4 years ago.] The bike ride starts at an altitude of 4,680m and ends at 1,400m after only 63km. It took about 4.5 hours, because we had to pull over several times to avoid the occasional truck coming up the road, but we could have down it much faster otherwise. The first 20km were paved and of the guides and I got up to 90kph (54mph)! It was totally fog-covered when we were riding down, so we couldn't see the 600-1,000m cliffs that we were riding on, but at one stop I threw a couple big rocks off the side of the road and couldn't hear them hit anything so suffice it to say it was steep! On the way back up the next day we could see the view and it was marvelous, but we all agreed the drive up was actually scarier than the ride down.

Summit of Huayna Potosi

Climbing Huayna Potosi

The first day we hiked up to base camp at 5,100m and after an early dinner got into our tents and tried to sleep at 6pm. That's because the next day we were up at 2am to start climbing. The wind picked up at night and battered the tent so much we thought there was a fierce storm outside. It took us about 6 hours to get to the summit at 6,088m, but there was not much technical climbing. There were only two walls, the first of which was only 50m high at about 75%. Then we crossed several crevasses and jumped over a 3 foot wide crevasse (at least 100m deep, but we couldn't see the bottom) to get to the summit wall. The last wall was 200m high at an incline of about 60%. We were so excited by that point that the guide and I were racing each other to the top. From the summit you could see all the way to Lake Titicaca. Can't wait to go climbing again, the mountains here are incredible!

Catching alligators in the Amazon

The Amazon

I took the week off and flew to the Bolivian Amazon, which was amazing both for its beauty and its stark contrast to the altiplano (the region containing La Paz). The altiplano is a sort of high barren, almost desert-like, plateau, where almost everything is brown, and when you cross over the mountains the valleys are green and fertile, with large (muddy) rivers, all of which eventually drain into the Amazon. The planes that make this trip are tiny, seating only 12 people, with a small compartment for luggage below, like on a bus; and don’t inspire much confidence – before you get on they wish you good luck! Not exactly what you want to hear, especially when we were coming back to La Paz. It had been raining all night and the “airport” we were supposed to take off from was “under water”, so we had to drive to the next "airport", although both of which were just grass strips (yes, the runways in that region are just grass). They even sent the tractor out to mow the (wet) lawn before we took off! I wasn’t sure if I should be more afraid of the conditions or the Israeli guy who carried a machete and bow and arrows with metal tips onto the plane. Now seriously, who thinks that it’s a good idea to have that as your carry on luggage?

The jungle itself was incredible. We took a long boat trip up the river through protected rainforest and eventually stopped at a small camp. There we met some guides who took us on several walks through the jungle where we saw Macaws, howler monkeys, spider monkeys, tons of butterflies, tarantulas, and all sorts of interesting plants and animals. It was so hot there during the day that you pretty much can’t do anything between the hours of 11 and 2 besides sweat. Then we took a trip into the “pampas”, which are the small rivers where there is more animal life. There we saw and endless number of alligators and turtles, as well as capybaras (the largest rodents in the world – about the size of a large pig). We also saw a 10 ft. long anaconda, and more birds and monkeys. The highlight was swimming in the dirty water with pink dolphins (they actually are pink, and don’t ask me how they got there) in an alligator and piranha-infested river. Our guide said it was safe so a few of us jumped right in, but after a few minutes we several sharp pinches on our backs, desided maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all and got out. Afterwards when I asked the guide if there were piranha in the water he gave us a huge smile and his eyes lit up... "Si!", he said, seemingly fighting off laughter.