R & R in Coroico

The downhill bus ride ended up in a little town called Coroico. What an amazing contrast to La Paz! La Paz is a big city with over 2 million people Coroico is a pueblo smaller than Quincy. Also, by going from 13,000 feet down to 3,000 feet, it´s like going from mild winter to summer. Here the few hotels all have swimming pools and people are actually swimming in them! I spent Friday night in a nice hotel with a big swimming pool. It was $6 a night.

Saturday morning, as pre-arranged, I met up with Luzandina and Rodrigo. Both are in their 20´s. Luzandina works at the hotel in La Paz I was staying at and one of her jobs is preparing breakfast for the guests. Most bolivianos prefer to start their day later rather thn earlier. So, at 8 a.m., when the little cafe opened, I would be the only customer. L. and I talked at breakfast. Her father is a doctor and owns a vacation home in Coroico. She has a degree in business administration, but like 70% of the university graduates in Bolivia has difficulty finding a job. She says she has to start somewhere so the low rung of hotel administration is where she´s starting. Rodrigo writes computer software programs for a company in La Paz. They invited me to spend Saturday night with them at her father´s house.

The property here is spectacular. The house is on the side of a hill looking out onto the towering Andes and the Oroico River way down below. There are orange, mandarin, banana, and many other trees on the property. The foliage is dense. You couldn´t walk through it without a machete.

Saturday evening we had a barbecue. Luzandina had brought along a freshly caught trout from Lake Titicaca (the highest big lake in the world...I go there next). The trout looked more like a small salmon. It was huge. She fileted it and then wrapped it in wet banana leaves right off the property. What a great way to barbecue fish! With the trout we had yucca, also pulled out of the ground in their "back yard," accompanied by salad and the ever-present rice. Yummy!

Afterwards, we went into town to check out the "action." One nice thing about all of Latin America is that in the evening the people sort of come alive. There are colored lights all around the small plaza. Teenage kids walk around it in circles, eyeing each oother. Little kids are running around playing at 9 o´clock at night. And in the warm night, with me in my t-shirt, the old Aymara ladies in their bowler hats are wrapped up in layers of wool, looking very dour but watching the action in the plaza and vicariously enjoying. All the stores are open and there are numerous sidewalk stalls, that were not there during the day, now selling every kind of food. We had a beer and headed back to the house. In the morning I woke up to the sounds of numerous birds squawking and screeching away in the forest. In the course of half an hour, I could see the fog move its way down the sides of the steep mountains, until we too were in fog. I already know it wil burn off by noon.

For lunch Sunday we had BBQ´d "lapi," which I think is the back bone and ribs of a steer. this doesn´t sound particularly appetizing but it was very good. We also had some fruits: "tuna," which looks like a dark green banana. It has a white edible interior and large inedible seeds; and "pacay," some other kind of cactus fruit, both of which were delicious. Added to that was an "almost guacamole:" all the ingredients of a guacamole but in the form of a salad.

What was otherwise a beautiful weekend ended a little bit on a sour note. Luzandina had bought the bus tickets for all of us the day before. The bus left at 5:30 p.m. It was a small bus. There were about 30 seats and 40 people in the bus. I just assumed were going to return to La Paz on the "new road," which is paved and relatively safe. Instead, we started going up the "World´s Most Dangerous road." I figured we must have to branch off somewhere to catch the new road. WRONG! By the time I realized I was on the WMDR, at night in the dark, slipping around curves in the mud (it had rained during the night) in this overloaded top-heavy bus, we were already about 5 miles out of Oroico.

I debated whether to make a scene, stop the bus, get the driver to go up on the roof and throw down my backpack, and walk back to town, or just grit it out. Luzandina was very apologetic. She said she didn´t know the bus would take this route. The bus ride for them to Oroico had taken the new road. She said it would probably be more dangerous for me, as a gringo with a backpack, to hike 5 miles back to the town in the dark. So I gritted it out.

I was on the aisle right behind Rodrigo. He could see out the front window. I couldn´t. For two hours, until we hit pavement, I just kept my head down, as we twisted and slid our way up the yucky road. Thank goodness, the driver´s speed was limited by the whining motor. I later found out Rodrigo was a nervous wreck.

Ironically, on the asphalt part, we came across a recently overturned truck. There was no apparent reason for tipping over, other than unsafe speed, or the right tires went off the pavement. The driver had the incredible luck that at that point in the road there was a shoulder, and not a precipitous drop.

Our bus trip took 4 hours. In La Paz, for some reason, I had no appetitie and went straight to bed!

World´s Most Dangerous Road

Several people had warned me, before coming to South America, to steer clear of Bolivia´s infamous "World´s Most Dangerous Road." (thank you, Chad!). I gather the road has been the subject of programs on the Discovery Channel, National Geographic channel, etc. It was apparently so named by the Inter-American Bank after reviewing the number of accidents and deaths. It certainly has reason for being so well known. The stretch of the road in question is only about 50 miles long. However, during that 50 miles, it descends 10,000 feet! This is pretty mind-boggling. For example, going from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe is half that elecvation gain, but a considerably longer distance. In addition, most of the road is dirt. It´s been chiseled out of mountain cliffs, at times about 10 feet wide, curving and twisting its way downhill. I think we were told there are two guardrails. The vertical drop off the edge of the road is 1000 feet in parts. Each year, up until just a few months ago, dozens of vehicles went over the edge, and all accidents are fatal. Annual fatalities were in the hundreds, according to my guidebook. For that reason, I had long ago decided there was no way I would ride as a passenger in a vehicle down that road. I decided to ride a bike down it instead. What a blast!!!

About half a dozen years ago, an enterprising and enthusiastic mountain bike-riding Brit, decided to open up a business escorting crazy gringos on the 10,000 foot downhill bike ride. He now has other enthusiastic bike riders working for him as guides.

We left early in the morning and rode for an hour up to La Cumbre, a mountain top out of La Paz at about 13,000 feet. There were 13 of us. Ten were somewhere between 20 and 25. Three of us were "adults," including my Swiss buddy Albi. At 13,000 feet, it was on the cold side. We had sweaters and warm jackets and pants...the works. We would ride in and out of fog or high clouds. As we descended, it got warmer and warmer and we peeled off clothes down to t-shirts and the orange vest.

They wisely started us off on pavement with a mix of up and down. The uphill stretches were humbling! No matter how deeply I inhaled, I just couldn´t seem to get enough air in my lungs. My legs and muscles were fine. I just couldn´t get enough oxygen. Fortunately, I just kept my steady, relatively slow pace. The rest of the road was downhill on gravel. Fortunately for us, the "new road" has recently ben completed, so there was minimal traffic on this one. Again, what a blast!

I was so proud of us "adults." Albi and I both have considerable experience on mountain bikes. Albi didn´t hesitate to bomb down the hill like a crazy teenager (I hope he´s reading this!). We had about a dozen "stretches." I was right behind the lead guide on about two of them. Albi was right behind on about all the rest. I must confess that I probably went faster than I should have, but it was too much fun! Two of the young people had spills, one very minor and one a bit more serious. He was knocked unconscious for about 5 minutes and suffered a good deal of road rash, but afterwards he seemed to be in pretty good shape. I suspect he´ll definitely be hurting tonight. Nobody went over the edge.

At the stops, I would take in the spectacular views of steep canyons, lush with green vegetation, the Coroico River down below, the high waterfalls up both sides of the canyon. Then, during the ride, I focused 100 percent of my attention on the road, understandably. I think this bike ride has been the highlight of my South American trip so far!

The tour company that hosted the trip really did it up right. They drove us to the top of the mountain. The bus followed along behind us. About the time I felt hungry or thirsty, they had snacks and water or Pepsi. At the bottom, they had a "free" glass of beer, showers, and a full lunch. Lunch was even complete with monkeys that stole food off your plate if you weren´t careful.

My bike was full suspension (thank you, thank you!) with disc brakes. They wisely had no derailer, only a middle sprocket and the eight or so gears in the back were more than enough for going downhill. I would wholeheartedly recommend this trip to anyone who finds themselves in La Paz! I was very flattered when one bike guide tried to talk me into another ride on Tuesday down a different stretch. The fact that she is young and attractive is of course not a factor of input. I don´t know whether to stretch my luck or not! By the way, Elsbeth, please make sure our health insurance premiums are current.

Hasta luego!

Be-leaf me!

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit a museum that was fascinating! It´s the Museum of Coca, dedicated to the crazy plant and its products, such as Coca Cola and cocaine. I also had the chance to visit the National Archaeological Museum and one thing about it that was fascinating is that there were sculptures of the Tiwanaku people who lived here a couple of thousand years ago, before the Incas, and many of the sculptures showed them with a bulge in their cheek....coca leaves!

The effect of chewing a coca leaf has been equated to drinking a cup of coffee. Obviously, the more leaves you chew on, the larger grows the bump in your cheek, and presumably the more effect the leaves have. For thousands of years, the people of this area have chewed on coca leaves in order to give them more energy when the need arose.

After the conquistadors arrived, the need arose more frequently. For more than three centuries, the Spanish and others got the Indians to work under terrible conditions in the mines by providing them with coca leaves. In the silver mines near Potosi, over 9 million miners died in the course of 3 centuries earning huge sums of money for the mine owners, and government leaders going all the way back to Spain. Historians say that 7 out of 10 mine workers died from the conditions in the mines.

In the late 1800´s, a clever Frenchman put coca oil in his wine which he called Vino Marianni. His wine sold like hotcakes. Sales were helped considerably by the fact that Pope Leo XIII endorsed the drinking of it and gave the inventor a gold medal. Dr. Pemberton, an American pharmacist, decided to put coca extract together with the juice from the cola nut into a "soft" drink. His timing was great. Prohibition arrived and what better substitute for alcohol!

The museum has an article from a Bolivian newspaper claiming that in the 1980´s, the Coca Cola company exported 200 tons of coca leaf out of Bolivia. The company at the time insisted that they used the coca leaf only for its flavor, and they did not process cocaine with it. In the meantime, no doubt, they´ve come up with something else that approximates the flavor of the coca leaf. Needless to say, it´s been impossible to find out the secret recipe of Coca Cola for over a century.

The museum is private and survives off the entrance fees. At least, so insists the ticket-taker, who said they receive no support from the government or the coca growers. I came away feeling that, on the whole, the exhibits were relatively balanced as to both the virtues and drawbacks of coca. There was an exhibit on cocaine, showing the terrible consequences on people who all too quickly become addicted to the drug.

For centuries, coca has been known to help with altitude sickness. In Sucre, a pharmacist gave me some capsules, but told me to drink coca tea upon arriving in La Paz. If the choice at breakfast in the hotel had been coffee or coca tea, I probably would have opted for the coffee. However, regrettably, the coffee in the hotel, as is typical around South America, is instant Nescafe. Yuck! Coca tea comes packaged in a neat little bag, just like Lipton. I opted for the coca tea. I usually seek out a righteous coffee shop for my espresso in the afternoon. In terms of some sort of energy boost, the coca tea did nothing for me. The tea is a very weakened form of putting the leaf in your mouth. However, the best news is tht I had no altitude headache whatsoever! And I had had a little bit of a headache when I first arrived. I´d rather have a cup of coca tea in the morning than swallow ibuprofin during the course of the day.

According to the museum, coca expands the ends/lobes/pores, whatever the word is, of your bronchial passages and helps you absorb a bit more oxygen with every inhalation.

The downside to coca, of course, is that it can be made into cocaine. All of us are all too aware of the terrible consequences of becoming addicted to cocaine. Monkeys in tests would pass up food and sex in order to bang the paddle as much as 4000 times an hour trying to get the dispenser to cough up more cocaine. Not good.

Evo Morales, in his successful political bid for President of Bolivia, was supported by the coca farmers, rose to political power by urging liberalization of coca laws and even held up a coca leaf as an audio visual aid in his first speech to the United Nations in NYC. His colleague Hugo Chavez announced about a month ago that Venezuela will import more Bolivian coca for "medicinal purposes."

The US, with 5 percent of the world´s population, consumes 50 percent of the world´s cocaine. The US has attempted to eradicate coca in the past by putting heavy political pressure on Bolivia, providing lots of money, military hardware such as helicopters, military advisors, etc., in its attempt to eradicate it. I can´t help but think it´s kind of like trying to eliminate the problem of winos by wiping out grapes. The US government is going to have to dream up some more ingenious ways if they want to get Bolivia to reduce its production of coca.

Hasta luego!

Greetings from La Paz, Bolivia! I took the bus from Cochabamba to here. In doing so, the bus went from 8500 feet to probably well over 13,000 feet before descending into La Paz at 12,000 feet. It was a spectacular ride.

For starters, wonder of wonders, the road is paved! Not only that, in spots, it even boasts guard rails! It´s about a 220 mile trip. It took seven and a half hours. The road was in great shape. The reason for the average speed of 30 mph is that the angle of ascent is pretty doggone steep! It reminded me of the road on the eastern side of the Tioga Pass, winding its way steeply up, up, and up. The bus was geared way down going about 20 mph.

When we finally got up to the top, or spine, of the Andes, the road turned north and stayed on the crest for the rest of the trip. It felt like we were on top of the world.

Despite the fazct that this was a double decker very nice Mercedes bus the driver never turned on the air vents or the reading lights (they never do). Despite the altitude, the outside temperature was righteously hot. Inside the bus, the people had all the windows closed. The temperature inside the bus must have been well over 80 degrees. I had an aisle seat so I couldn´t touch the window. I was the only gringo on board. There was one nice young guy from Argentina who was the only other foreigner on board. He sat across the aisle from me and opened his window a good four inches. I thanked him profusely! Fresh air! The Argentine and I were in t-shirts. All the locals wore wool sweaters, jackets, and wool caps. I have since discovered from talking to Paceñas (people from La Paz)that they always do this, no matter how hot. The women in the bus were very unhappy with that open window. (It reminded me of old German ladies in the transit bus that cry out "Es zieht" ("there´s a draft") when anyone has the nerve to open the window.) The Argentinan was skillfully oblivious to them.

Along the way, I was surprised at the number of "houses" on both sides of the road. Despite the high elevation, there are small farms carved out of the surrounding hillsides. The land is very bare, what appeared to me to be sagebrush and rocks. The locals use the rocks to build fences. Their houses, or one room shacks, are made of large adobe blocks with tin roofs held down by large rocks. Every few hundred yards there would be a group of half a dozen cows and some one watching them.

With my ears popping like a high school girl chewing gum, we drove over some awesome passes with breathtaking views. Every one on the bus was sound asleep. Nine to 10 o´clock in the morning is not an active time for most South Americans. The only ones awake were me and the Argentinaian who were spellbound by the views.

Half the women on the bus were indigenous, wearing their colorful skirts and those strange-looking English bowler hats. The hat size is always much smaller than their head, so that the hat sits perched way up on the top of their head.

I tried to start up a conversation with the Bolivian lady next to me and failed miserably. I thought it was my poor Spanish. She then confessed to me she was suffering from altitude sickness. She had come on the overnight bus from Santa Cruz, which is practically at sea level. She took some sort of medicine but it didn´t seem to help. I felt very sorry for her. I offered some of my medications, but she wasn´t interested.

Knock on wood, I have been incredibly lucky. I got a little bit of a headache as we approached La Paz, knocked back 2 ibuprofin, and I´ve been fine. I even, foolishly, hiked from the bus station to the hotel with my heavy backpack up and down the steep streets of La Paz. I had to stop about every block and pant. More on altitude sickness in my next report!

As we neared La Paz, we overtook transit buses making their way to the city as well. They would be jammed with people. In addition, the tops of the buses are fitted with roof racks so that huge amounts of baggage, boxes, and even people can ride up there. They put wooden poles in the aisle of the bus to help hold up the roof. The best sight of the day, though, was seeing three llamas calmly kneeling on the roof of a bus, chewing their cud, and watching the world go lurching by. I haven´t the slightest idea how they get them up there or how they them back down. I wonder what kind of fare they pay?

La Paz is situated just a little bit like Reno. Imagine instead that the Washoe Valley is much, much smaller, and the snow capped mountains are in a ring around the city, and easily twice as high as the Sierras above the valley floor. That´s La Paz.

The streets were jammed with people. Half the sidewalk space is taken up with street vendors, usually indigenous women in their bowler hats, selling something. It´s warm, t-shirt weather. But the locals are all bundled up in wool. Today, I basically got my bearings. Tomorrow, I´ll start exploring the city.

Until later!