The Arena Of The Unwell: La Paz, Bolivia - Once You're Dead, You're Made For Life

If you're a fan of Irish hospitality and premiership football then The Wild Rover in La Paz is right up your strasse. Spread across four rickety floors which centre around an Irish themed bar, this place grabs hold and doesn't let go. My room is a four bed dorm on the top. You'd call it a penthouse if it didn't feel quite so much like a shed but I love the quirkiness of it and my roomies are real friendly. I arrived in the middle of a fierce rainstorm. Across the rooftops from the courtyard I spy a familiar looking frame, standing alone in the rain on the rooftop of the Loki hostel across the block. The Canadian stoners get everywhere.

Now, I'm fully aware the nine-to-five reader thinks spending my days on buses is a thoroughly relaxing experience and I should be full of beans every time I step off. Bollocks to that. At 3,600 metres above sea level, this is the highest capital city in the world at and I'm barely functioning. So what could I be doing instead of kicking back? In short, risking my life. Tourism round here seems to encompass a significant degree of danger - the Potosi Mines and the notorious San Pedro Prison to name a couple - which bring in hordes of hedonists who like nothing more than to blow shit up and chin-wag with convicted drug lords. Do your own research on these, I never went to either. I did however read about the opportunity to cheat death on the worlds most dangerous road and that's why I'm here.

The dark history of The Death Road is as fascinating as its modern day revival. I'll give you the story I heard. Some time in the 1930's Bolivia and Paraguay were embroiled in a bitter war over some long disputed border territory. During this period Bolivia took a number of Paraguayan prisoners and sent them up into the hills with spades and sticks of dynamite to cut a large wedge into the mountain rock and create the first meaningful trade route to Brazil. Smart move, because although they lost the war the new road would prove to become one of Bolivia's biggest post-war assets and, years later, one of its biggest tourist attractions. Ironically perhaps, Paraguay now appears to have a tourist industry on a par with North Korea and the contested land, which both sides were convinced contained oil, has yielded approximately jack shit for the "victors". The road continued to operate as the main trade artery until about 2005. Ten years previously an American development bank had published a paper it which it described "The World's most Dangerous Road", upon which an average of two hundred people per year would die attempting to navigate. To clarify, this wasn't two hundred accidents per year. Many of the passenger vehicles on this precarious route were massively overcrowded. In the worse case, back in the mid 1970s, all one hundred passengers were killed when a single truck toppled over the edge and it took a week to recover the bodies. The ambitious bypass proposed by the Americans was approved. Ten years and six billion dollars later the Death Road was rendered almost obsolete before the mountain bikes arrived in numbers. I spent much of my childhood on two-wheels and cycling is firmly in the family blood so this is a no brainer ... I have no brain.

There are currently about thirty Death Road bike tour companies in La Paz ranging from those who think it's fun to encourage their customers to race each other down to those which have helicopters on standby. I'd heard about Vertigo from another blog but the guys in Wild Rover are in bed with a rival firm named Gravity. Being short on time I signed up and paid Vertigo online a few days ago but they were treating this like a school trip to a zoo. First they asked me to repeat all the information I'd given them already (e.g. height, weight, etc.) and then asked me how I'd like to pay. When finally they suggested they pick me up from the wrong hostel I totally lost it. I've got one day left to organise this and if I have to die doing it I want it to be with a company that gives a hint of a shit about the minor details. I head down to the Vertigo office to get a few things straight. The Bolivian lady there sizes me up for the equipment and makes me sign a disclaimer with precisely the right amount of small print to discourage me from reading absolutely any of it. She then tells me I can't do it tomorrow because I'm the only one taking part and they need at least three. Jeez, I thought these guys were the real deal but right now this is squeaky bum time. I explain that I have to leave town and can't delay any further. This is total horseshit, of course - Wild Rover's screening Liverpool vs Newcastle on Saturday and I ain't missing it. So she calls her boss to discuss a refund and quickly hangs up. "You'll never guess what?", she exclaims excitedly, "My boss tells me two more people have just signed up for tomorrow!" I rip up the disclaimer in her face and reply, "So I guess that makes a total of, what, two?" before storming out like a proper drama queen. In a panic I peg it over to Gravity, bitching about South American customer service, and secure a bike for the following morning. It's a little bit more expensive but I'm past caring and sprint back to the hostel bar to calm my nerves with a few liquid liveners. With Vertigo it was just a catalogue of stupid errors which freaked me out, but in their defence no-one I spoke to had ever heard of them screwing up quite so badly before and they did refund my money promptly so I hope their future customers have a better experience than me. Lesson learned here, don't pay for The Death Road until you're happy with what's on offer.

At 7am a pack of sleep-deprived lemmings meet at Alexander's coffee shop on El Prado and wait for our guide. He's, this dude named Phil who looks like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. We hop on his bus with all the bikes strapped to the roof and set off to our starting point on a tarmac road high above the town. He asks us who's scared? Almost everyone there puts their hands up except me. "Good", he exclaims, "I'm never worried about you guys, it's the other idiots who bother me and they're always Australian guys." I guess that's the entrance exam passed then. After splashing a little good luck alcohol on our front tyres in customary Bolivian fashion we set off. The bikes are awesome - built like tanks with all-round suspension and disc brakes. Perfect for the job at hand. The fast tarmac section stretches out for a good few miles which gives us plenty to time to get comfortable and practice our cornering techniques at 60kph before the real action starts. There's a killer 8km uphill section towards the end of the tarmac road and I accept the offer of a seat on the bus for this - I'm not here to bloody graft so fast forward me to the fun bit, chop chop! Another short pep talk about avoiding the big rocks on the dirt road (derrr!) before the main act begins.

The first dirt road section is fairly wide with the mountain on the left and the steep drop to the right but it quickly flips to a narrow and more familiar orientation as we pass from one mountain range to another. The Death Road is the only place in Bolivia where it's permitted to drive on the left hand side of the road. This is because the driver, whose seat is on the left, stands a better chance of surviving if he can physically see how close his front wheel is to heading over the edge. I guess it also gives the downhill driver more time to react on the sketchier right hand turns where the mountain obscures the oncoming traffic.

Along the way we stop frequently to regroup and Phil treats us to a number of horror stories which, incidentally, don't involve Australian guys. One girl had her seat set a little too high and stopped next to the cliff edge. As she balanced on tiptoes her weight shifted and her cliff-side foot slipped. The bike casually tipped her over. Worm food. Another girl was closely following the bike in front during a rainstorm when her visor got splattered with mud and she missed the next corner. She was re-enacting the ET flying bike scene before she realised what happened Toast.

I think it's fair to say I nearly bought it a couple of times too because none of these potential Darwin Award nominees stopped me from attempting to keep up with Phil who been doing crazy shit on bikes for years. I'd heard all about the irresistible temptation to go fast and furious here and I thought I was above it. I wasn't. You can't deny yourself the thrill of getting a few inches from the edge at full speed or hurtling through the muddy puddles of a showery waterfall beneath the overhangs. Anything this much fun should be illegal. As we hurtle along I notice these patchy hot thermals which hit you like a furnace door being opened in your face and, in a flash, they're gone. It's a new and totally weird experience. All this continues for a couple of adrenalin fuelled hours.

As we approach a town near the end a young local lad thinks it'll be hilarious to squirt liquid in my face from a plastic bottle as I bomb it downhill towards him. No harm done. Best not to think about exactly what it was. In any case I probably smell pretty bad by this stage. When I reach the checkpoint, a back-marker says "Did anyone else get something squirted at them by a little urchin back there?". I explain that I thought the little shit might have learnt his lesson after I stopped to punch him in the face a few times. Note to self: I need to be very careful with this brand of humour.

I don't notice my legs have turned to jelly until we finally dismount at the foot of the valley by which time we've descended 3,600 metres. After lunch, we've got an hour to hang out with the monkeys at a nearby animal sanctuary before hopping back on the bus for the return journey back up the treacherous road. This gives us a little more time to digest the scale of what we've just done and take some decent photos, sans mountain bike. It's well after 9pm before we get back to La Paz.

On The Death Road today I randomly bumped into James and Paddy again. The Irish brothers are volunteering at The Wild Rover and we later work out this is the fifth time that our paths have crossed since we first met back in Quito. I think those guys should consider applying for a restraining order! Tonight is The Wild Rover's third anniversary fancy dress party and the place just goes mental. They have a pretty decent U2 covers band playing and there are ten people dancing on the pool table while the barmen are serving drinks between the legs of another dozen bouncing about on the ramp. Among the many girls here in fancy dress tonight is one carrying crutches. I thought they were a nice accessory until I find out she broke her leg on The Death Road the day before. Ooops.

On the Saturday, I hang out in The Wild Rover until 2:30am and hit a club in town named The Blue House. It was probably a mistake. Our three cabs rock up outside and there's a power cut in the club. They're not letting anyone in. We hang about for fifteen minutes until the lights return and we file inside. The power lasts for about twenty minutes until it's plunged into darkness once again. In the confusion I find myself getting pushed outside again and the bouncers won't let me return. A guy standing next to me says, "Listen up, the cops are here. I've lived here for two years and I'm telling you that means 'go home now'". I wish I knew where "home" was right now, how the hell did I get here? The few cabs hanging around here get snapped up and the street empties out. Nice. Now, I'm on the wrong side of town and the streets of La Paz are not the best place to be caught alone at 4am. I tuck my wallet down my socks and do my "confident" walk along the dimly lit streets until I recognise something ... anything? To cut a long story short, I get back physically unscathed shortly after 5am but it's not an experience I'd like to repeat. Turns out it wasn't my time to die. Let's get out of here before my luck changes ...

Next stop, Santiago, Chile

Choon of the day: Foo Fighters - D.O.A