La Paz, Tiwanaku and Coroico

LA PAZ

La Paz is quite nice. We got there in the late afternoon and got straight to our designated accomodation, Hostal Republica. It was a good choice, the place is just 3 minutes from the main square and really beautiful > www.hostalrepublica.com
We stayed 3 nights there and took it fairly easy, considering that this city is at 3,600 m and, being scattered all over the hill sides, steep roads are the norm. Generally, we cannot say that high altitude has affected us too much (Gregory more than me – choking sensation while in bed trying to sleep), however as soon as we do a little exercise, the effects are felt immediately – walking uphill is quite fatiguing. La Paz is quite chaotic and there isn’t so much to see really, apart from the main square and the many markets. It is quite extended and yet it has a provincial feel.
We spent half a day going up and down Calle Sagarnaga – the gringo street with the artesania shops and the travel agencies – and went to take a look at the famous Mercado de Hechicheria (witchcraft market). Here we bought a few good luck charms and amulets (they look cute and, should they not bring any luck, they won’t harm either) and took some shots at the many exsiccated lama foetuses which lie in heaps and are used by the Aymara population (the indigenas) to bring good luck. They burn them, together with other strange ritual material, on the grounds of new houses to bring fertility and fortune. Apparently they do not kill the lamas for the foetuses, these come from natural abortions. However, they do worse things to these animals, including buring them alive near the mines or cutting their throat and then eat them by the mine entrance in ceremonies held to wish for more minerals…

La Paz

Central Square

Calle Sagarnaga

Mercado de Hechiceria, see the llama foetuses in the basket....

TIWANAKU
The next day we went to visit Tiwanaku, a pre-Inca site about 70 km from La Paz founded about 3000 years ago. While the museum was fairly interesting and furnished, with lots of ceramics, a mummy, a good few elongated skulls (they used to stretch the skulls of babies in order to make them larger and create more space for brain cells!!) and monoliths (none of which could be photographed unless a bribe of 5 BS was paid to the museum guard) the actual site was quite pathetic. We managed to scrape a couple of decent pictures together but it really was hard work: the place has been pulled apart and the massive stones making up the pyramids displaced by the Spanish when they found gold in the ground, even breaking up the big ancient stones with dynamite to provide gravel for the foundations of the railway! Bloody hell.
This civilization grew quite large thanks to a remarkable agricultural system of raised fields called sukakullo, which enabled them to produce incredible quantities of food surplus. They say that in their time, the Tiwanaku could feed over 100,000 people, while today the same area produces food for only 7,000 or so. So they are thinking about re-implementing the same system today, which seems so much more effective than the modern technological methods! Quite incredible.

THE MOST DANGEROUS ROAD

From La Paz we booked the famous bike trip down to Coroico in the Yungas, through what’s known as the most dangerous road in the world. ‘We’ is Gregory on the bike and me more safely in the minibus…. Yes, I chickened out and did not sign up for it.
At the beginning I was the one who was enthusiastic about it, and Gregory didn’t want to know. Then we did the mini-version of it back in Tupiza, and things changed for both of us: I did not want to do it anymore, but Gregory did!! So we booked the trip, but under the agreement that I would follow in the support minibus following the group. I came to the conclusion that there was little point in doing something that cost a lot of money and I was not going to enjoy (braking hard for 4 hours on fearsome precipices is not what I call fun), and in fact being in the bus and having the chance to actually look at the views rather than watching the road and being able to take pictures appealed to me a lot more. The road descends over 3,500 m in just over 60 km, and it is a crazy incredibly STEEP road. Nobody knows how many people have died there, but it is in the many hundreds. The thing is, nowadays the road is a lot less dangerous than 6 months ago. Until 6 months ago this road was the only one from La Paz down to the Yungas, meaning that it was very trafficked day and night in both directions. In some places only one car can fit, and they had coaches carrying 50 people and big trucks going on it! So every month some vehicle would fall down into the precipices, sometimes with lots of passengers. Many accidents were due to mechanical failure, some to human error and many others to drunken drivers. Drunken drivers!! It is just impossible to grasp how anybody would contemplate drinking while on a road like this. So now that a new road has been built and most vehicles use it, I’d say that it is a lot safer, though a couple of people still managed to die in the past 6 months while doing the bike tour. Even if you don’t fall off into the precipice (from where they can only retrieve you by abseiling down), there is still a real risk of falling off the bike and injuring yourself on the rocky road, and big stones still occasionally fall on the road from above. So not so safe still…One of the girls in our group fell off the bike and had to have 3 stitches in her head. So I spent the time worrying about Gregory, reminding him at every stop that he should exercise maximum care and feeling really rotten for having him doing this while I was sitting back in the bus. Well, he made it without ever falling once!
I think we picked a good company to do this with – Downhill Madness. They had some of the most expensive bikes ($65 - probably the most expensive, but even though really stingy, I was not going to go on the cheap on this) and the chap that we saw in the office, one of the guides, inspired us. His name is Aaron, a young English guy full of enthusiasm and a loud voice who has been doing this for months. Lots of attention to discipline and instructions, he spent a lot of time briefing the group at the beginning of each section of the road, providing lots of commentary on the many stops that they did. Most of the road is dotted with crosses in each spot where someone has died, quite an incredible sight really, so you get an account of the biggest or most curious accidents that took place over the years. I got a lot of stories too in the bus with Ollie, the driver, who was driving down the crazy road while taking pictures for the group, much to my extreme worry.
Downhill Madness - highly recommended company, the only one that uses full face helmets that protect your nose and teeth and not only the skull. Not cheap, but worth it.

The paved beginning, 9 am, 4,800 m....

Isn´t it scary....

Our intrepid Gregory...

Watch this.. it happened to Aaron a couple of days after we came down the road with him, a biker broke rule no. 1 and overtook him. Consequence: innocent other biker broke a shoulder...

see also news about dangerous road-update 25/04/08
http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=8167589

COROICO

Down in Coroico we were taken to Hotel Esmeralda for lunch and showers. We had already organised to stay down for a few nights to enjoy the warmer climate and unwind, given that there is a big swimming pool on site, sauna, pool table and lots of tranquillity. So this is where we are going to be till the weekend: www.hotelesmeralda.com