A Quick Burn Through Bolivia

Halloween in La Paz was my mission, I decided at some point while staying in beautiful Copacabana. Ever since I was on the scene of the first Madison Halloween riots in 2002, I've tried to do Halloween right!

The logistics were impossible, La Paz is 100 miles from Copacabana. There was no way I'd be able to ride all the way there, find a top hat, get a custom suit made and still be able to stand and go out on the town as Lincoln like I usually do, but everyone needs a dream.

Judging from the map I thought I had a chance. Lake Titicaca is at 12,500ft and La Paz is at 11,900ft. So I get a 600ft downhill boost into the city right? There's just this tiny dot on the map, El Alto, in the way.

So I set out, and right away it's uphill over a thousand feet to the top of a ridge that makes a peninsula. It's a big bloodsugar setback, but no hill climb was more worth it on this trip, that may have been my favorite riding of the trip or my life! I feel like it'd be a tourist crime to travel that stretch by bus, do whatever you can to get in the open air.

It was a really clear sunny day, and up there you could see all the way across the lake back at Peru. The road ripples up and down a little, so you can keep up some good momentum for once. I listened to Kraftwerk - Tour de France on repeat across the peninsula.



At one point I saw a white guy going for a jog with 3 kids following him. Not sure what his story was, there were no towns around. I also saw some kids playing soccer on a farming terrace that was maybe 8ft wide, and the ball got kicked down a few levels. What an elastic game.



Eventually I made it to the ferry town, and reapplied sugars and got on the ferry. Negotiations about the price of a person and bicycle didn't go so well, but still cheap by US standards. Included in the price was a cup of Pepsi, and I'm pretty sure the guy said there was a little coca in it. I figured if his 7 year old son was drinking it, it'd be fine.

I couldn't believe they put tour buses on those things, they were large rafts made out of local trees. If you take a bus through there, they'll put your bus on one boat, and all the passengers on another.

On the other side I saw Bolivia's navy. The country is a little sour about losing their ocean port to Chile, so they maintain a navy on Lake Titicaca.

I also saw the first sign to La Paz, 112km! So I hit the road. The whole day I think I ate nothing but candy, soda and bread, I didn't find any cafes open on Saturday. Near Titicaca I saw some of the nicest resort places, and really fancy keel sailboats. As I got into the interior it got more and more poor and dilapidated. All the kids asked for a lil silver, slang for money. I told them I didn't have any, that's why I was bicycling and not taking the bus.

After the signs to La Paz stopped appearing I started asking people how far it was, and nobody knew the distance from their home to the capitol city. They did know how long it took by bus, which became a good estimation throughout the trip. In the gnarly mountain roads, 2 hours by bus was one grueling day by bike. I got a kick out of how willing everyone was to estimate how long it would take by bike. Obese shop owners would say, with complete confidence, how long it would take to go 70kms by bike. I supposed with all my gear, maybe we would weight the same and travel at about the same speed, but I think they'd give up on the riding earlier than me.

About 40kms out, the altiplano does this weird thing where you look across the farmland and it slopes off and looks like the edge of the earth. I thought this was finally the downhill finale I earned, but somehow I was wrong.

On the final 30km stretch I watched the sun set behind the mountains in a spectacular postcard-esque display, and started getting worried I wouldn't make it and would have to free camp without food and water. Just as I was losing the sunlight over the horizon I noticed I could start to see city lights of La Paz ahead of me, and for a brief moment the low intensity of both was equal before the sun slipped away.

This was a pretty good rush now, riding in the dark with nothing but an LED headlight and no rear light in the countryside, alongside the only two lane road to La Paz, passed constantly by mini buses.

I was sweaty as hell and it was getting cold, so when I came up to a roadside fire, I decided to stop by and make some friends. As I walked up, all the kids around the fire shuffled away frightened. I said, "Soy no peligroso!!" and they came back after hiding for a few minutes. As they were walking back, I noticed the fire was almost half plastic stuff, including a doll. They asked me the standard questions, and also couldn't tell me how far La Paz was. I decided after a minute that I didn't want to breath plastic anymore, so I got back on my bike, and now they realized I was harmless enough to mess with. They followed me to the road, and yanked my bike back every time I tried to ride away. This went on for four times until I finally got away, and 2 hours later I realized they yanked my Lawrence University nalgene off. Probably needed more plastic for the fire.

On the outskirts of La Paz I was limping along hard, taking breaks every mile or so. I knew the airport was in El Alto, so I watched a plane land to judge the distance once. Lots of people were weirded out by me lying on sidewalks and stuff, but my back was killing me.

El Alto is at 13,600ft, so it was one final challenge to overcome. At the end of a 100 mile ride above 12,000ft with 50kilos of gear I had to bicycle uphill through urban dilapidated neighborhoods and keep up enough speed to dodge the hecklers.

Finally outside of the airport I rested one more time, laying on the sidewalk, and this boliviana girl walked by but veered way out into the street to stay away from me.

I stocked up on candy and yogurt one last time and then tried to make it into the heart of the city. Somehow nobody could give me directions. I found out later that I asked some people with a fruit stand how to get to central La Paz while standing on very road to it, and they said they didn't know and told me to go 90 degrees the wrong way. It was for the better though, I got to experience El Alto this way, and my brakes were not in good shape. More on that later.

I think I found the nicest hostel in all of El Alto, it was totally out of place. The last time I had used an ATM was in Puerto Maldonado, about 2 weeks earlier. I'm so glad there was one available here across the street because I was just 1 Boliviano short of checking in to the hostel for a night.

Turns out La Paz doesn't celebrate Halloween, so I didn't miss out on anything by going to sleep right away. The bed in the room was suited for Bolivians, I hung off the end of it a good foot and a half. My room also came with a TV, and breakfast, and it all looked brand new. I can't remember the name of it, but it's near the Cholita (traditional women) wrestling venue (see the Travel Channel article), right near the major street where all the bus drivers selfishly cause a traffic jam waiting to fill their bus.

La Paz had it's highlights, I wish I could have stayed longer. Instead of a long story, I'll just do one liners.

I bicycled down to the city the next day, and 2/3rds the way down my brakes were making a really bad sound, so I poured some water on the rotors and it all came off as steam.

El Alto has several blocks with buses that must be stuck in traffic for hours without passengers. I don't know how they make any money.

I missed out on the Cholita wrestling because there was some circus in town that week instead--major disappointment.

They have Burger King in La Paz, and it was the only way I found to get cheddar cheese on the whole continent.

I went to a chicken restaurant that had deep fried chicken heads in the window and a Burt Renolds looking man purchased 40 full dinners, got into his H2 Hummer and left.

I stayed in the shadiest place I could find in central La Paz, had a juggling competition against a deaf man who was either from Chile, Bolivia, Peru, or Uruguay, and was told a kilo of cocaine costs $45 in Bolivia.

Purchased tea from a place that had good luck llama fetuses for sale in the witch market (brujas mercado).

Took a taxi from the La Paz downtown back up to El Alto, got ripped on the price, and at one point they took a paved road so steep they couldn't make it with two tries and had to go a different way.

The only bit of law enforcement I saw the whole trip was cops on motorcycles telling a woman with a pirated DVD stand to move it out of a lane of traffic in the market.

$1 bills are lucky in Bolivia. Someone paid for a night in the hostel with one, and the hostel owner came up to me and asked if it was counterfeit.
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I'm done here, to wrap up, GO TO SOUTH AMERICA!