La Paz, Bolivia

Day 63

After a hellish 12 hours of bus, we made it to the chaos of La Paz! We could tell we arrived because the bus crawled the last 10km into the city! We found our way to a taxi and headed to our hotel successfully and dropped our bags off. We were both very tired so went to get a coffee from a cafe called higher ground which is owned by a couple of Aussies! They even sell vegemite, what a luxury!

We then went to do a walking tour at 11am. While we were waiting I realized the park we were standing in is right next to the famous San Pedro prison. I read a fantastic book about it called ‘Marching Powder’. The walking guides told us a bit about the prison which I knew a bit about but I found it more gobsmacking to hear it come out of the locals mouth! A few interesting things about the prison are as follows:

• The prison holds 3000 people. Some prisoners families also live with them
• Approximately 14 guards control the prison
• The inmates have to buy their own cells. The more you pay in rent, the better the cell. Some have tvs, internet, kitchen & private bathroom
• Inside the prison is its own city, including supermarkets, cafes, restaurants, hairdressers etc.
• Cocaine “used to be” made in the prison. The government has stated they have put a stop to this but not everyone believes that. The president of Bolivia is also the president of the Cocoa union in Bolivia.
• Tours of the prison used to be available for anyone including tourists. It used to be the number one thing for tourists to do, but it is now made illegal because it is dangerous.

What happened next on the tour was very interesting, when the guides asked, “any questions?” There were 5 hands that went straight up in the air, and about 20 minutes worth of questions just on the San Pedro prison! I have never seen this before in any walking tour. Usually people (including me at times I admit) have zoned out and are staring at a whopping big church thinking, yeah, its nice, but the Sagrada familiar shits all over it. The San Pedro prison had a group of 40 people’s full attention! What a good class, asking all the right questions like; “How do they make the drugs?”, “How to they get the cocaine in and out of the prison?”, “Do they only make cocaine?”

We then walked through a big food market, today was a Wednesday. And apparently on weekends the food market can take up 40 blocks! And they shut off all the streets to cars. These kinds of food markets are a big thing in Bolivia we are starting to notice, and I don’t think we have seen one supermarket. As we were walking around we noticed a few older ladies wearing funny hats that look far too small for them. These ladies are called Cholita’s.

We then learnt a bit more about the Bolivian’s relationship with Pachamama (Mother Earth). To ask for permission or blessing from Pachamama to build a new house or building on the earth, a baby llama or fetus would be buried in the foundations. This Llama is already dead due to natural causes. What we were told next was super disturbing, for larger buildings, a baby Llama isn’t enough, and a human person is buried in the foundations, alive! This person is often homeless, so no one would notice if they just disappeared. There are movies and books around these rumours, and whilst no developer would ever confirm if they have done it, when demolishing old buildings, human remains have been found in the foundations. Very disturbing! We were told that foreigners are also worth double to Pachamama! I think he was just trying to scare us though 🙂

We continued to the town square and were told a little about past presidents history. One of the best presidents in the time was Gualberto Villarroel. He paved the way to abolish slavery (the law was called something else but it is basically slavery) of indigenous people in the mines, created retirement pensions and created workers unions. In 1946, there was a serious backlash from a lot of rich people in Bolivia due to the abolishment of slavery laws. There was a serious protest, armed people stormed his presidential palace, shot the president multiple times, threw him from the balcony and then hung him from a lamp post in the town square. What makes this worse is, years later, people acknowledged this was a terrible thing to do as he was the best president in recent times. To acknowledge his work, a statue was created and put right in front of the lamp post he was hung from. This is the most awkward statue I have seen in the world!

Another crazy time, was in 2003, the president of the time was Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. He holds Bolivian and American citizenship. There was a lot of things people were angry with him at the time for, but in 2003, there was a protest of Police officers in the same square Gualberto was hung. The protest was because police officers had to pay taxes, the Bolivian army did not. Possibly a bit paranoid, the president ordered the army to barricade the presidential palace and also placed snipers on the roof of the building. As the police headquarters is directly in the opposite corner of the park, they put snipers on their building. Then an 18 year old boy in the army, was shot by a sniper in the head. This started a shootout where 59 people died. The president fled to the United States, to this day is where he lives, peacefully, 89 years old. I wonder why USA citizens have to pay a lofty visa entry fee when entering Bolivia!

After the tour we went and finally checked into our hotel and had a nap. We also booked a 3 day hike to the top of Huayna Potosi which sits at 6088m. We are both very excited and nervous!

Day 64

We woke very nervous and headed off to the tour agency to begin our journey to the top of Huayna Potosi. There was one other guy in our group named Shane, from San Francisco. In classic Australian fashion, we named him Shane’o.

We arrived at base camp at around lunch time, which took around 2 hours from La Paz. Base camp sits at 4700m. We had a quick bite to eat and then headed off to a glacier nearby to learn how to use our crampons and ice axe. It was a lot of fun. There is two guides for the three of us, Ellen & I got paired up with our guide named Eulogio. It was a lot of fun walking on the glacier and we also got to climb a 10m ice wall. Man it was hard in the elevation! Every step is like running 100m.

There was a group of three French that just reached the summit of Huayna Potosi that morning at the base camp. Unfortunately, they couldn’t see anything as the cloud completely whited out the peak! I sure hope that doesn’t happen to us.

We then went back to have dinner and chill for the night. We are all feeling ok in the elevation, just short of breath which we were told is normal.

Day 65

We woke at around 7am and had some breaky. Today we head off to high camp which is a 2 hour walk and sits at 5100m. We headed off very slowly, Eulogio was very patient early on. He noticed almost straight away that Ellen was battling with the weight she had to carry up to high camp so took all her heavy things, including boots, crampons & water. I was battling too Eulogio, why didn’t you take my water!

We were going very slow, but we were reassured by Eulogio that we were going ok and we will make it to the summit! This boosted our spirits. Shane’o (the American guy) left us in the dust. He has been working out and running in altitude so isn’t feeling it much at all. When we were nearing the top, but still had a lot of stairs to go, we could see Shane’o in the distance waving at us. Ellen wasn’t very impressed by this because of her current pain and quote Ellen – “F….ing asshole”. Aunties can’t swear Ellen! Eulogio even had a little chuckle.

We arrived at our Refugio and had some lunch. Our little red Refugio was perched on the edge of a mountain, with mad views of the mountain ranges and the huge Huayna Potosi we have to climb the next day. We bunkered down for the afternoon, trying to get used to the altitude. I got a ripper headache for a couple of hours but it faded after I had a sleep.

We had dinner at 5pm, I didn’t feel like eating much, mainly because every mouthful I had the harder it was to breathe! Eulogio gave us our instructions for the next day (tonight). We will wake at 11:30pm to leave at 12:30am to make sure we get to the top before sunrise. The hike can only be done at night because when the sun comes up, it melts the snow and makes it slippery and dangerous. Shane’o and his guide will be leaving an hour after us.

We went off to bed at 7pm and tried to get some sleep. I think we all only got about an hour, I was really struggling to breathe when laying down and when I was almost asleep I would start breathing really hard! I think my brain thought I was dying due to the smaller amount of oxygen I was getting.

Ellen and I got ready in the freezing cold and dark, before we knew it we were off. From the Refugio we first had to scale a small rocky hill in our plastic stiff boots. Which was no simple task in the slippery, dark conditions. We made it to the snow after about 30-40 minutes. From here we put our crampons on and we roped up to each other. Eulogio in the front, then Ellen, the me. The next 5 hours is a complete blur. It was an awesome experience, trudging along in the snow in the dark, in complete silence except the crunching of the snow beneath our feet. At around 4 hours in, Shane’o, and a couple of other German guys caught up to us. I was glad to see they were also going at a very slow pace. We were just having more breaks! I can’t thank Eulogio enough, he was very very patient with us, he didn’t rush us at all and wanted to make sure we got to the top.

We arrived at the base of the final ascent to Huayna Potosi. Only 188m of ascent to go I told Ellen! Trying to sound motivating, to also encourage myself. She just scoughed at me lol. We could see the head torches of the others that overtook us a little higher up the mountain. Ellen hated that she could see how far she had to go! The final ascent was up a 65-70 degree slope, with 5-6 switchbacks! It was so tough – Ellen’s technique changed completely and she was now using her hands to stabilise instead of her ice axe. She wanted to get to the top so bad she was almost crawling! We got to the final switchback, we could see the others at the top. I told Ellen only 10 steps 60 times to go! And then 2 steps 30 times! And then 58 steps! (not sure why I was so precise, I was bloody tired too). We were going at 2 steps at a time by the end, and finally we made it! The last ascent took as over an hour, but we got there, just in time for sunrise! I started crying. I think because I was so tired, sore and the views were bloody spectacular. I say the views were amazing a lot, but I can’t put into words how good it felt to be up there, on top of the world. There was 8 people at the top including us, and there wasn’t a lot of talking going on, we were all just taking it in.

We hung around at the top for around 15 minutes, taking in the views before the sun started to come up. We then started to descend, in opposite order this time, I think this is because if we fall it is easier for Eulogio to catch us. It took us around 2 hours to hike back down to high camp. I am so glad we hiked in the dark, we came a hell of a long way, up some very steep hills.

We had a quick bite to eat at high camp and packed our things. We all wanted to crash out at high camp so bad, I felt like I was going to vomit, but was still on such a high. We then all headed back down to base camp to catch our bus back to La Paz. The Huayna Potosi hike was the most amazing experience – fun + challenging + insane views. Ticks all the boxes for us! I can see how mountaineers get addicted to this. Although, 30+ days in a row on a mountain might be a bit much for us.

We arrived back to La Paz and collected our free t-shirt because we made it! Yay. We then went and had a well earned nap. Early dinner at the Australian cafe, it felt nice to have some food that felt like it was from home for one night. We were both in bed by 8pm – so tired but completely satisfied.

Day 66

We both woke surprisingly well, had a quick breaky and headed off to explore the city of La Paz via their system of cable cars. Step aside fantastic subway systems, cable cars are the real deal! These are used by the locals to commute to work daily. We did a full circuit of the city, first going up to the top of the hill to El Alto and then swinging back around. We could see the whole city from the cable cars, along with peoples backyards. We jumped on and off several different cable car lines to complete the loop, same as you would when changing platforms at a train station. It is a really cool setup – and cost us only $4 AUD for the full loop. Australia should build these things, it would be heaps cheaper than building a light rail. I guess privacy would be an issue. But to be honest, I wouldn’t care if randoms saw me in my nickers everyday if it meant I got to work in 10 minutes and it cost me 20 cents!

We then went and had some lunch. We also booked a death road mountain bike tour (sorry mum) for the next day. Coffee, milkshakes, nap & repeat for the rest of the day. As we were trying to nap a big random parade went past our hotel, cars just had to wait until they went past. We are not sure what it was for but they looked to be having a great time. We are stoked with La Paz so far!

Day 66

We got up early, had a quick breaky and headed off  to the tour company to depart on the Death Road mountain bike tour. We were told by our guide that the road is known as Yungas Road but the locals, but was made famous in the 70s due to the number of annual car crashes which occur and fall directly down the steep 200-500m drops beside the road!

It was only Ellen & I with this tour company today which was good so we could go as fast as possible! After an hour of driving in the tour bus we arrived, put on our safety helmets, elbow & knee pads (necessary for me!) and got a few pointers from our guide. The first section is all sealed road (and downhill) to get us used to the bikes. We fanged down the hill, the scenery was straightaway breathtaking, our guide was riding one handed, with a video camera in the other taking shots of us. I hope he doesn’t do that on Death Road!

After another hour or so we arrived at the commencement of Death Road! This road is mainly used as a tourist attraction now as a bypass for cars has been built, although, some cars still use the road so we were told to keep an eye out! We cruised down, a bit slower this time because of the bumpy road & the 500m sheer drop off the side! A bit freaky. It is easy to see how accidents occur, one small mistake and a car could go toppling over the edge.

At regular intervals, our guide would stop and tell us about the next section and what side of the road to stay on. This gave us a bit more confidence we weren’t going to superman it over the edge into the abyss. After an hour or so, we stopped for a long break and our guide just casually told us “see that sign over there, an Israel girl fell straight off there and died”. That made it all seem so real, Death Road isn’t just a nickname! Apparently the girl was trying to take photos of the view and ride at the same time.

The ride took us from around about 4700m altitude to 1400m, it was a lot of fun not having to peddle. After around about 4 hours of cruising down the mountain we made it to the end! We survived Death Road, yay! After this we went to a resort sort of place for a buffet lunch they put on for us which was nice. We had a couple of beers and chilled out before jumping back into the bus and driving all the way back up the mountain (the nice bypass road) and into La Paz. We arrived home at around 7pm, very tired again but happy with todays efforts.

Not much occurred for the rest of the night, we just packed our things for our departure tomorrow. Bye bye La Paz, hello Copacabana & Lake Titicaca.

More photos are here.