Mountain Biking in La Paz

So, we eventually left Bariloche and worked our way up to La Paz in Bolivia. It took three days and two nights worth of travel with a stop over in Santiago, capital of Chile, (for sushi, a posh hotel and drinks) and Arica, beach resort at the border with Peru, (for a walk on the beach). A lot of miles but softies that we´ve now become we´d taken the premium option on the coaches which meant the standard of travel was similar to going first class on an aeroplane so wasn´t all that bad.

Bolivia is very different to Argentina and Chile. In Argentina it didn´t always feel like we had left Europe. Bolivia is a different world. The people nolonger look European, they are a lot darker and many wear traditional clothes. The women in particular wear brilliant outfits consisting of an ill fitting bowler hat and wide, calf length skirts padded out with multicoloured petticoats. Back to people watching territory!

La Paz (the administrative capital) was our first destination in Bolivia. It sits in the mountains at 3500m so the surrounding scenery is spectacular. We´d travelled from sea level to La Paz so we really felt the altitude on arrival.

We soon forgot this though once we´d spoken to a few tour operators and realised that La Paz is a downhill mountain biking heaven! So, we hired two good full suspension bikes and a guide and set off into the mountains surrounding La Paz.

The tour company´s driver took us and our bikes to a mountain top and all we needed to do was ride down 800m of single track downhill. We´d previously been warned that it would be a technical route. It was sooo brilliant! It took us a little while to get used to the bikes and biking on such dry, sandy terrain but once nerves had settled (mine more than Phil´s in fairness) we were loving it. It took about an hour to get down and we swooped over (not always in great style - I took five falls!) boulders, drops ( some very steep and fast), and jumps.

It was perfect terrain for me, highly challenging and a real adrenalin rush but steep sections were followed by flatish sections so I was able to catch my breath to prepare for the next section. Phil had a blast too.

US AT THE BEGINNING

THE VIEW BACK DOWN TO LA PAZ

RIDING THE TRAILS

THE HEADLESS IRON HORSEMAN

That section completed we got back in the car to head off for the next track. Unfortunately on the climb up the mountain the car got very ill and was unable to take us to our destination. So, as we were pretty high up the mountain we unloaded the bikes, left the car to free wheel back down to the nearest village and we set off discovering a new off road bike route down the side of the mountain.

The first part of that descent involved biking over very steep and technical moutain ridges with drops either side. Despite our guide giving us his full face helmet (it quickly became apparent this was necessay for me) I soon decide that section was way out of my league and pushed the bike down the tough bits. Phil loved the challenge and had great fun riding them.

Once the tricky bits were over we biked down some nice terrain to meet the car. Car still very poorly so we biked down through the villages to meet another pick up. Excitable dogs made that part highly technical!

DEATH ROAD

The next day´s biking was a 3500m descent along the infamous ´Death Road´ aptly named due to the amount of buses, trucks and occasional cyclists that have plummeted off the sides. We decided to give it the respect it deserved and take the day seriously.

THAT WOULD BE VICKY HITTING PHIL OVER THE HEAD WITH BANANA PEEL!

This route is highly popular to tourists and masses of us mountain bike it every day. It´s actually a pretty easy ride as the first 32km is on tar mac on nice wide roads and traffic no longer travels on the second 30km section which is the rougher road with sheer drops.

The first half of the route was downhill over tarmac road. You could get some speed up on this as you could see for miles down the road and consequently any oncoming traffic. Whizzing down this part was fun and the scenery was very dramatic.

EVERYONE AT THE START

PICS OF US

The second part of the ride was more fun though. The tarmac and wide roads ended to be replaced by a narrow stony track which curled its way around the mountain. The mountains are in a rainforest so the scenery was stunning. It had rained the night before so there were waterfalls all over the place including over the road in some places. Most of the time there was a sheer drop on the left side of the road and the guides always pointed out where trucks, buses or bikes had toppled over the side! Unless you did something incredibly stupid there wasn’t much risk of going over the edge. Really, it was a very fun ride swooping around corners amongst such dramatic scenery.

The day ended having a swim and lunch at a nice hotel in the rainforest – perfect.

Steep steeper then steeper still!

The next day we went out to do the singletrack route we were supposed to do before the car broke. We started at around 4000m and needed to descend about 1000m to our destination.

START OF THE DAY WITH A 6700m MOUNTAIN BEHINDIt started out pretty steep but after I learnt to use the brakes properly (!) it became easier. The second section was the rough and rocky kind of route we were used to from the UK. Feeling more confident with the terrain we had a fun hour blasting down this section. The route then opened up into smooth but very narrow single track over a not too steep gradient. This was a very dramatic section as there was a sheer drop to the side of us. I’ve never concentrated on not looking down so much in my life!

SCENERY WAS JUST TERRIBLE, BRING BACK THE MUD COVERED PINE FORRESTS OF THE UK The last section was far too steep really with tight bends. No room for the feck up fairy taking over given the drops if you got it wrong. As it kept getting steeper I got off and pushed – way

out of my league.

SPOT THE TRAIL THAT WE RODE DOWN THE FINAL RIDGE

Another excellent day of biking!