Death & Concentration

In addition to the family and friends who I'm wholeheartedly missing while away, the top five things I yearn for most are;

• My Car
• My Bike
• The Flat
• The Pub
• Money

Until now I have managed to satisfy my surfing, sailing, skiing and mountaineering desires, which had I not, would be firmly on the above list.

Separated for 18 months

La Paz Bolivia. The mountain biking capital of South America with its famous 'Death Road'. The key word to extract from this is 'road', not 'path', 'animal track' or in my dreams 'single track'. Not interested in paying £45 for a trip down a 'road'. Although not wishing to pass La Paz without a descent, I toured round the operators haggling for the best price hard core downhill day available. Upon strolling into one tour operator I bump into Leo, my Norwegian trawlerman/ streetfighting friend I'd met in the famous route 36 nightclub.

    “if you are asking for hardcore downhill you must be quite a good rider? We are looking for guides – keen?”

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Dribbling with anticipation for my first return to the pedals in 18 months my first day training was simply just to go along and follow the group down the 61km 3343m descent! I could have left after that and been over the moon. £45 quid saved!

More beautiful than dangerous

I was way more serious about it than that so what followed was; two days in the workshop (somehow blagging what they called a level 2 competency in bike maintenance – I can hear a bespoke laugh) and 5 days of descents, two of which leading groups under the watchful eye of Hector. Chief guide and there since descents of the Death Road began in the late 90's. No pressure. He was thorough and I was pretty clueless – my strengths clearly being as the comical Scottish guide and knowing when to pam gear and brake repairs over to the other guys. On my final day of training Hector made me help the bike washer – just to make sure my 'gringo ego' was where he liked it.

Look - they are actually listening to me!

This descent is soo popular, the backpacking fraternity just druel over the 'I survived the Death Road' t-shirts, although let it be said that statistics were once quite deadly. 200-300 deaths annually. In response to the level of deaths the Bolivian government constructed a new road which mile for mile is the most expensive road in South America. Backpackers now descend the original road on bike.

When it was really dangerous

What's conveniently missed in the tale is that it was only really really dangerous whilst full of lorries and buses driven by drunk, incompetent, instinctual, coca leafed up, sleep deprived Bolivians who blindly put there safety in the hands of some questionable god (Pachamama – sorry).

That said, there has been a number of deaths as cyclists plunge over 400m+ cliffs due to temporary blips in concentration, Hector has seen two. But as I said in my safety briefings;

“concentration – it's the name of the game”.

I completed the training unscathed and it was the evening after my first paid descent. This had been a VIP group of American Soccer players who thanks to my 'space docking' and 'lucky Pierre' chat had had such a fun day that they gave me a whopping tip (£8 - a Bolivian fortune). Quite chuffed I headed off to the bar for a beer to celebrate.

So I'm in the bar with Shauna; the Canadian, Cruyff turning, Shakira lookalike who, if I think I could talk into coming back to Scotland with me - I'd marry in seconds.
Because of the altitude on the Altiplano this was my first beer in about a month and it did go straight to my head – literally. Concentrating intently on the banterful beauty infront of me, I energetically stood up for the second beer only to receive a concussion inducing wallop from the low hanging, crumbling, concrete roof support.

“Concentration – it's the name of the game”*

*this shot is from about 3 days after the bloody hair matted mess had been cleared. It probably should have been stitched or glued but there was no way I was going to a Bolivian hospital! Also I had to sit there and like, pretend it hadn't hurt.