The 2018 Blog / September 21, 2018
Alright, so we visited Bolivia in a particularly interesting time. We were just coming off of two weeks of trekking and a couple days of let down at Lake Titicaca. So we decided to play it cool and spend about a week in La Paz, Bolivia. This was a city that quickly became very high on our radar due to their extensive hikes in the nearby mountain ranges, the awesome and fun gondola transportation system, and the great healthcare system… (yes I’ll get to that don’t worry). But anyways, La Paz is a beautiful city that I already miss so much. And since we spent so much time there, we also did a lot there. And because I’m so lazy, I don’t want to break this up into multiple blogs so here is one mammoth of a blog that pretty much includes everything we’ve done! (Warning: A lot of the good stories are towards the end, so stick with me!)
So to start off, we rolled up to our AirBnB at 10pm at night in an area just outside the city. You could tell this definitely wasn’t a very touristy place especially considering the Peru Hop guy laughed when we told him our address, but, we managed and it turned out to be super nice actually. Our host, took us around and spent about thirty minutes explaining in Spanish every single map that he decided to hang up on the wall. And of course, we smiled and nodded while waiting for this to be over. Until, he then took us to the rooftop where we got this awesome view! And of course you know how much I love rooftops so I was pretty excited! I mean you can check it out for yourself! Look at that night time glow!
On the first day we discovered that La Paz has the largest system of cable cars in the entire world. There was about ten or so cable car systems that spanned miles to bring everyone across the city. AND UNLIKE NYC IT DID NOT COST NEAR THREE DOLLARS TO RIDE! It literally cost five bolivianos (less than eighty cents to ride). So we started the day by checking out the markets downtown, walking around and just really exploring the city! We walked passed this market with a bunch of dead llama fetuses as well in which I would love to show you more pictures, but they were all in my phone RIP. But that market did eventually lead to this awesome view!
La Paz probably has to be one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen! It truly left me out of breath. And thats not because of the insanely high altitude (12.5 thousand ft), but i mean look at this view! Anyways, after riding around these awesome cable cars we then had to check out the healthcare system due to a slight toe injury. (don’t worry all is solved, but shout out to you Bolivia for having a great health care system.)
The next day, we decided to check out Valley of the Moon. This is a valley with some pretty awesome rock formations as you can see! After taking the Cable Car about thirty minutes, we were then able to take a short Uber up to the start of this little park (which turned out to be a lot smaller than i guess we expected). But we rolled in, made our tuna sandwiches at the start of the hike and then proceeded to walk around. There was a little trail that made its way all the way around and back to the start. Anyways, it was a little underwhelming, but thats okay! Because the next day we checked out Valley of the Animals, which was a much more low-key but infinitely larger version of the small and underwhelming valley of the moon!
Alright fam, so here’s when things start to get juicy. As talked about, the next day we decided to hike the much less touristy Valley of the Animals. In order to do so, this meant taking a collectivo (which is halfway between a taxi and a bus) to the starting point. Note: We did not know where the starting point was.
Already off to a great start!
So we stood on a street corner for about twenty minutes watching maybe fifty of these collectivos drive by us not knowing what to do. Finally, a collectivo with the writing “Valley of the Animals” on it hidden at the top rolled past us and we were able to flag it down. We got in to the little white van (Yes I know…. doesn’t sound too safe, but well yea you’re probably right) and waited for the next hour as people yelled random Spanish phrases at the driver to stop. Luckily, Sarah actually understood that they were yelling to stop at the next corner so when we thought that we had made it to where we needed to go Sarah yelled out the phrase and the driver stopped and let us out after we payed him a solid 10 bolivianos or so.
View from the Cliff Edge!
So now we got out, and were in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road and we weren’t able to see anyone. Sooooo we just decided to start walking. After about two hours of getting almost nowhere we decided to sit down, eat our tuna sandwiches for the twentieth day in a row and attempt to figure out where we were. So to do this hike, we decided to follow someone who had done the hike before on our trusty Wikiloc app. HOWEVER, I did not check to see when this trail was created, which turned out to be a pretty long time ago. WHICH MEANS that when this trail was done, THERE WAS ACTUALLY A TRAIL. Now, there was no trail…. we were walking through grass, plants, and just random dirt up a steep mountain as you can see on the picture to the left.
After really getting off trail we found ourselves surrounded in the plants. I then decided to run up a little further to see if we could get over this snowy mountain pass and when I finally got to the top all I could see was just a thousand foot vertical drop to the valley that WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN.
So nope not that way. And we then decided to trudge our way through the plants on the side of the mountain around the vertical drop for another hour or so until WE FINALLY SAW A TRAIL.
Wow that was a great feeling to actually find a trail! And that great feeling quickly diminished when we saw another trail right next to it and we had to guess which one to roll through. So we picked one, ended up walking through more plants, basically rolled down the side of the valley and FINALLY made it to the bottom of Valley of the Animals! And while it was a little worrying at some points and we did get a bit scratched up and walked four hours out of the way, I’d have to say it was pretty worth it to be standing at the bottom of these massive rock formations! Truly out of this world!
After we finally got to the ACTUAL Valle De Las Animals we were able to walk down to the end in about an hour on a flat ground trail! And then a one hour collectivo back, we were dead but ready to rest up for our next day when we attempt the world famous Death Road!
Death Road: the most dangerous road in the world….at least until the 1990s when they finally took a lot more safety measures (but pshhh no one has to know that!). On this trip we barely planned things beyond a few days in advance, but doing Death Road was on our list of “must do’s” before we booked our first flight, and we didn’t even know what it really was…it just sounded cool.
Famous Photo Spot on Death Road
So when we finally got to La Paz, we quickly did some research and found a company that fit our two requirements: cheap and no reports of rider deaths! And just like that the day came and we were off! We squeezed on to an old bus with ten other people and rode an hour and a half up the mountain. This was easily the most enjoyable bus ride on the trip, since our guide William played some hella good tunes - I’m talking 90s hip hop and 2000 pop jams. He really got the whole bus bumpin. AND we made a little breakfast stop at this market where everyone else got something substantial and healthy like a sandwich but, as you might expect, Jonny and I got not one, but TWO Bolivian funnel cakes with extra sugar sauce! And with that….we were ready for DEATH ROADDDD.
We finally got to the starting point, and it was super cold and windy, but we knew it would warm up soon. The first 20 kilometers of the 60 kilometer ride are on a really smoothly paved road, so we all practically flew down the mountain. And there were guard rails so it wasn’t too scary! But just when we had gotten comfortable on the nice pavement, feelin good, lovin life, the 20 kilometers were up and it became time for the real death road….with no pavement…just rocks and dirt and mud and 400 meter drops into a canyon and a record of 300 deaths per year until the 90s. EXCITING.
At first I was like, oh this isn’t too bad since even though the road was bumpy, it was still pretty wide and I figured we could just stay close to the mountain side. BUT THEN we were informed that not only did we have to ride on the left side of the road (apparently this is safer?) but the left side is WHERE THE STEEP ASS CLIFF IS. So we were navigating a bunch of rocks on bikes with less than a foot between us and the drops! And on top of that…it was raining, and everything was extra slippery.
But slowly we made our way down, stopping frequently for pictures - we were told there are too many picture stops, but honestly I was so grateful for each stop because it meant my hands could take a break. The whole thing is downhill, so it’s not difficult, but the constant bumpiness literally made our hands completely cramp up for days afterwards!
And before we knew it, 10 picture stops, a few hours, and 60 kilometers later, we made it to the bottom! The last 20 minutes of it was the best part because it was just the right balance of bumpy and smooth and we could actually get some speed. And when we finally finished, we were greeted with some ice cold beers, hot showers, and a lunch buffet! (And a free t shirt, which honestly could have used a much better designer). And that was the story of how we survived Death Road!
This was our trusty crew of people that all barely survived death road!
So this was easily one of the most bizarre things we did on the entire trip. To be honest, I’m not even sure the history of how this whole event started, but on every travel blog we read for La Paz, people said the same thing: go see Cholita Wrestling. Apparently, it’s like WWE, but with fat Bolivian women wearing traditional Bolivian dresses. It sounded super weird, so we knew we couldn’t miss it….but despite how often it was mentioned on blogs, it seemed impossible to find directions!
Some sources said it only happened on Sundays, some said it was on Thursdays, some said it was at a stadium on one side of town, others said it was in a barely marked building on some random street on the opposite side of town…so we took a chance on a Thursday night and Uber’d our way to the random street on the opposite side of town, walked back and forth a bit until finally we smelled popcorn and heard cheering through, you guessed it, a door in an unmarked building (it had a number on it, but barely visible tbh). We walked in and paid for our ticket, which also got us popcorn, a drink, and a keychain!
We were a little bit late, so things had already started when we walked in but it was still the opening act, which was actually two guys wrestling instead of girls like we expected. They had costumes and there was even a riveting story line, and the announcer was super loud and got the crowd really into it (the crowd was entirely drunk white people lol).
BUT THEN the main event started!! And out walked two heavyset Bolivian women in hoop skirts! The first storyline had one of the women in cahoots with the referee, who then participated in the wrestling so it was two against one…but the underdog won and the crowd went wild. Then it got weird, because the next set was a woman against a man who was trying to use a taser on her…? But again she won, obviously, using some extreme moves and launching herself off the ropes. I forget what happened in the third and final act, since at that point the novelty had kind of worn off and I was really craving more popcorn…but it was a really interesting experience overall! And that, my friends, was Cholita Wrestling (so weird, especially because I’m pretty sure ‘cholita’ is a derogatory term but hey, what happens in Bolivia stays in Bolivia I guess…right?). Ciao!
One last story from La Paz, y’all, and it’s a tragic one. Once again, I ended up in the hospital. I really don’t know why this kept happening to me, since Jonny is the one that likes to do dangerous things, but alas, I had the privilege of having a nice (English-speaking!) doctor take a look at my red, inflamed, and painful toe, conclude it was a fungal infection, and send me off with some ointment that apparently is useless (according to my aunt). Anyway, the next day, my toenail fell off and the swelling and pain subsided, and now I just have an ugly ass big toe, but it was FINE. Until I got frostbite in Uyuni. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Originally published September 21, 2018 / See the La Paz gallery
