So it´s only been 16 days since we started our ride from La Paz to Konani through the Yungas region of Bolivia (check out the previous post for photos from this leg).
The day started with a typically large breakfast/lunch at a cafe near our hostel. Slightly less typical was the fact that the waitress ran out of the cafe to buy the ingredients after we placed our order. Also rather typically, we spent the final hours just before leaving on figuring out the exact details of our route and where we could find accommodation/supplies.
We weren´t keen to ride out of town in the afternoon because of the horrible traffic and many steep, cobbled streets in La Paz. So we jumped into a taxi and got a lift 30 km out of town, which very conveniently happened to be at the top of a rather large climb (La Cumbre, 4650m). It was raining by now and the taxi skidded around a bit on the steep, wet roads. The fact that the driver kept eating coca leaves and crossing himself didn´t help increase our confidence in his ability to deliver us safely to our destination. At the top of the pass, we reassembled bikes, layered up and freewheeled down a dreamily smooth road. Descending through layers of clouds and being surrounded by huge snowy mountains (which became more and more green as we lost altitude) was truely epic. The only problem was the cold and rain but we were at our destination for the night before anyone could begin complaining. The ´village´of Unduavi where we planned to spend the night turned out to be no more than a police checkpoint and a few shacks selling food by the road . There was no accommodation and camping wasn´t really an option in the surrounding terrain. After talking to practically every person in town, we managed to find an empty room where we could stay for the night for 30 Bolivianos (3 pounds). The price included mattresses (sacks stuffed with straw), a stove with no gas canister and a wheelbarrow that should be used to keep the door ´locked´overnight. The owner helpfully warned us that we would be electrucuted if we tried to use certain switches in the room. As hungry cyclists do, we went out for dinner and ordered the biggest looking meal on offer. This time, it happened to be fried chicken and corn and it was only after it was served that we began to consider how long the pre-cooked chicken had been there for. Andy devoured the slightly cold chicken whilst me and Toby nibbled reluctantly. Andy prepared a vomit kit containing toilet paper, wet wipes and freezer bags in anticipaction of the chicken´s revenge before going to bed.
We woke up to some heavy rain and decided to sleep for an hour more, hoping it would go away. Luckily, the rain did get a lot lighter and we were riding before long, continuing our long desecent from the altiplano down into the Amazonian lowlands at around 1500 m. The tarmac ended pretty quickly and we were treated to a long rough and muddy descent to a low point at Puente Villa (1240 m). The scenery continued to be dramatic and it was hard to believe how quickly it changed. Being surrounded by waterfalls and lush greenery was a very nice change from the high altitude scenes we had become accustomed to. About half way through the descent, Toby stopped to do something very unusual... hitching a ride DOWN a hill! He had been having issues with his braking fingers for the last few weeks and the bumpy descent seemed to have made it much worse. He jumped onto a passing bus whilst me and Andy continued on. The painful descent ended soon and after a Bolivian cena lunch (just as bad a Peruvian food, but cheaper) we began a painful climb up the other side of the valley. It was long, hot and bumpy but the oxygen-rich low altitude air certainly made it a lot easier. Despite this, we were more than happy to grab the back slow passing trucks to get some help up the hill! From the top of the climb, it was a short descent into Chulumani, our destination for the night where Toby had sorted our accommodation for us already. That descent must has been the slowest I have ever ridden down a hill due to the atrocious road condition and very regular dog chases. By now, we were pretty much experts at handling the dog situation and we always had rocks handy to drive the stupid animals away. This was the first time we noticed what we call the ´small dog syndrome´ where the smallest, fluffiest dogs are the most aggressive and first to give us a chase.
We slept through our alarm on the morning of day 3 and had to get a taxi 5 km out of town (all uphill!) to make sure that we would get to the next town with accommodation at the end of the day. The driver was of the coca-chewing variety and he also crossed himself regularly as we drove along. Andy´s standard taxi driver small talk led to the mention of Colin McCrae and we noticed a step increase in the aggressiveness of our taxi´s cornering after this. We were soon descending through the rain on a wet, bumpy road which led to a 10 km climb, a 20 km descent and then another big climb to Irupana. We made the schoolboy error of skipping breakfast and lunch today and our constant snacking wasn´t enough to power us up all the hills. We were all feeling very very low on energy by the end of the day and Toby´s grumpy bonk face was quite a sight! We checked into the only accommodation in town, which just so happened to also be the town´s bakery. The owner was just finishing a fresh batch of bread and Andy, with his obessession of baked foods, was over the moon.
Having learnt our lesson the previous day, day 4 began with a big breakfast of scrambled eggs, fresh bread and tea. The day´s riding was fairly typical for the Yungas, i.e. big climb, big descent, big climb, big descent and awesome views all the way. The weather had changed overnight and we were finally treated to a dry, cloud-free day. Within minutes though, we began complaining about how hot it was and started to wish for a bit of cloud cover and maybe even rain! Andy was determined to make sure he took in enough calories today but probably took it too far by eating 10 cakes over the course of the day. He also had another mechanical today (a chain breakage) and Toby and I milked the situation to hurl as much abuse at Andy´s bike as possible. We finished the day in Licoma where the owner of the accommodation was slightly scammy and charged 5 Bolivianos for every warm shower we took (he kindly offered cold showers for free).
We rode through a busy market on the way out of town the next morning, buying lots of food as we passed the various stalls and were soon climbing up let another big massive hill. Toby had a puncture just as we got to the top of the climb and he took one whole hour and two tubes before he was ready to ride again. Me and Andy watched unhelpfully from a distance and the usual bike mocking continued. The view from the top of the climb was a frustating one as we could see the road wind its way all the down into the valley and then switchbacking up the other side to the town of Inquisivi. A zipline or a bridge of some sort could allow us to get to our destination in minutes rather than the half day´s riding that lay ahead of us, although you wouldn´t have heard any of us complaining during the awesome descent into the valley. The climb up the other side was a bit sloggish (Andy had another mechanical during this climb) but after a eating a bit of mac n cheese we felt we had enough energy in stock at the top of the climb to push on for another 20 km. This road was awesome, with huge 1000 m vertical drops off the side of the road into the green valley below. It was getting dark as we arrived into the town of Quime and we met a couple of cyclists from New Zealand near the town square. They had just cycled from Uyuni (destination of our final leg) and we got some useful information about cycling across the salt flats from them. We had stayed in the same hotel as these guys and the look on the lady´s face after her first breath in our room was hilarious. Toby´s feet had made an overly generous contribution towards the cocktail of bad smells that pervaded our tiny little, poorly ventilated room. For dinner, we had fried chicken and chips for a fifth nigth in a row because it was the better of the only two undesirable dinner options available in Bolivian towns (the other option being a set menu of bad soup, bad meat, bad rice and bad potatoes).
Our last day in the low altitude Yungas region inevitably meant an enormous climb up to the high altitude altiplano. We swallowed our pride after reading the description of this road (long, steep and bumpy) and got a lift in a taxi to the top of the pass (Abra Tres Cruces, 4729m). From here it was a great, easy descent on good tarmac down to the town of Konani, where we jumped on a bus to the large town of Oruru where we planned to rest and prepare for our final leg to Uyuni.
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| GPS tracks of Yungas leg |
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| Altitude profile of Yungas leg |
