El Camino Del Muerte - TWICE!

Ahoyhoy friends and family (who are also friends),

I write to you still from La Paz bhut I do have a good excuse for my lack of progress. Yesterday I road the road of death in each direction and feel lucky to be alive - seriously!

I rose early to a cold and wet Bolivian Capital i.e. 4deg C and raining continuously. Having knobbled some info out of the hotel clerk as to where the Ruta 3 (of which the road of death is the first 100miles) started I set off in many layers. It took me at least an hour to travel the 5 miles to the police checkpoint that marks the start of the road. La Paz is not easy to ride in and I got lost several times - Oh how I wished Emily the SatNav had detailed mapping for here; the roads she thinks she knows aren´t even right! 

The map makes it look like there are two roads for part of this stretch but I could only find one. A local told me there was only one road. A policeman also told me that the untarmaced stretch was closed because of the heavy rain. Confused I headed on straight upto 4700m into heavier rain and thick fog that I now think was probably cloud:

As I rapidly descended the rain eased off but I was concerned that I was missing the real Road of Death and would forever regret coming all thisd way not to have riden it. Nevertheless this tarmac road was fantasticly tarmaced bar the unexpected parve sections anfd would have been a hoot in the dry. It was pretty too being above and in the clouds:

The drop off was, as you can seen, a bit steep. After 60miles we had descended 3500m and reached the hamlet (if you can call 3 or 4 buildings a hamlet) of Santa Barbara where, according to the map was the other end of the other road but nothing could I find. I briefly turned around but remembered the maxim I´m sticking too, always go a bit further to be sure. I did and almost collided with a pickup who seemed to be shouting at me that I was on the wrong side of the road. I was on the right and surely thast was right and no sign had told me otherwise? As I went further on I realised everyone was joining the civilised world and driving on the left, rightous. The road was a mess of mud, really muddy, wet, slimy, looked the the floor of a milking parlour, mud. I turned a cornour and all of a sudden I knew I was on the right road:

Indeed the road had been closed that morning and work was still going on:

I can understand the report that at one time 200-300 people a year died on this road and there are my memorials but this couldn´t have just been the road´s fault. The driving was shocking. I saw coaches fishtailing around cornours whilst car and pickup believed that they should automatically be in front of what ever vehicle was in front of them weather there was a gap or not. I pick up completely unnessecarily swerved around me because, as a bike, I didn´t occupy the full width of the road. He missedjudged it, pulled in on me and knocked me over. My head was 2 feet from the edge. Amazingly I had Sir Humphrey up in 10 seconds as was back on my way. Riding on this road in this mud was hardcore by my experience and a million times harder than when the TopGear guys did it in the dry in cars. We gradually dropped a few hundred meters over the next 35 miles and arrived in Caranavi where a sign indicated the need to return to the usual side of the road out here, seems the El Camino Del Muerte has its own rules. 

As usual the town of Caranavi had two petrol stations and no fuel and I wasn´t sure I could make it back to La Paz on what we had left but decided to try anyway after a spot of lunch and photo shoot with some local lads. The road was a bit drier now and far less busy so I was able to snatch an odd second´s glance and the surrounding beauty of the place:

After 20 odd miles af great fun on the perilous road I came upon a road block as the road was closed again, this time because of an avalance/landslide thingy that had blocked the road. It took 2 hours to clear it but soon I was on my way again.

Much to my relief at the unmade road - tarmac junction i found a petrol station with petrol but then realised it was 6.30pm. The sun would set in an hour and I had 65 miles still to go. As the first half of the tarmac rise to La Paz was dry Sir Humphrey and I has a marvelous time bombing around the fantatastic road but the second half was truely horrid. It was pitch black, Sir Humphrey´s lights are rubbish, the lights of oncoming vehicles blind you and sometimes there was no reflective markings down the road´s edge so it was riding whilst not being able to see. To make things worse as we rose to 4700m it became so cold (<1deg C) I couldn´t feel my fingers and the heated grips burnt them. This was the nastiest bit of riding I have ever been involved with. I had to talk to myself and gee myself on to stay with it; very nasty. I eventually made it to the police checkpoint where one of the rozzers asked me for my papers and on seeing me shaking and not having the dexterity to open my jacket pocket he took pity on me and waved me through.

All I had to do now was navigate through a foreign city (both meanings) in the dark with only my memory. I have no idea how I managed it but I found myself 20min later outside my hotel and hadn´t even got lost! I limped into the hotel and they took more pity on me and carried my stuiff to the room whilst making me chicken sandwiches and finding me a bottle of wine.

I did it. I rode the road of death in terrible conditions twice in one day but I am totally knackered now and am going to stay in La Paz until Sunday to recover a bit. Sir Humphrey is happy that now he looks even more the adventurer. He really is an amazing bike when you´re in the tricky stuff; he goes through or over anything. He´s just overloaded and top heavy but he still copes:

I had to wash the mud out of his rad cover as he was getting hot.

Anyway thats all for now folks. Spread the word for Magpas and the ball.

TTFN,

Tiggliosy