2007-02-14T18:37:00.000-08:00

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And my last image from Peru is from a Turkish Restaurant in Arequipa.. Apparently one Turkish married a Peruvian woman and moved to Arequipa.. This hardworking guy was able to build up a small chain of restaurants in arequipa, and currently there are 7 restaurants in Arequipa that belongs to him, now his family is also with him living in Peru. He was able to make peruvians get used to doner kebab, I was proud, and of course I had to take pictures of the peruvian waiter with moonstar working suit !!!! And believe me there is no joy like asking "Yo quiero un ayran por favor!" in Pèru!!! =)

And finally I am in Bolivia, the cheapest country of all in south america, the country of salar de uyuni, isla del sol, and may be the worst buses in the whole world... My feelings about bolivia are mixed, and other than a stupid mistake I made which costed me my mobile phone I still believe bolivia has more interesting stuff to offer a tourist than one would think... We start from La Paz, capital of Bolivia, which is not the most attractive city in Bolivia, but good to get prepared for the upcoming batch... I still have the bitter taste of losing my camera to hungry sand dunes of Ica, and hope to have it fixed here... While having it fixed I also buy another refurbished digital camera for 110$, just as a backup!!!! In the mean time I decide to try my new camera with the plaza murillo, one of the famous plazas in La Paz, which also hosts the parliament...

After Plaza murillo, I head for the Plaza san Francisco, the heart of the city, where all the buses go through, and traffic is drastically stuck during rush hours... It is no different than istanbul, you can see people simply moving through middle of the cars as the batch of cars trying to move never ends independent of the traffic lights... In Bolivia, it is really hard to find some super market, let me explain this way, I bought my yoghurt from the street sellers!!!!

Selling something in the street, on the bus or bus stops is the lifestyle for the people living in rural areas or slums of the city... Bolivia is the poorest country of all, yet when you get into higher scale parts of the city you see also rich people who are really snobby and have their own way of looking down at the other people... Let me explain the difference very simply, I paid 4$ for my hotel for a single night stay for a room with a queen size bed... I also paid 12$ for an upscale coiffeur!!! (and it wasnt amazingly good, at least for my criteria!!)

After going for my upscale barber, I decide to wander around plaza estudiantes, the higher end area... There is a park close by called the central park =), where actually is the alacitas fair at the time I arrive there (last week of january). This fair is based on ekeko, the god of good fortune in the andean community. It is small cheery little chap with a happy face and pot belly. Believers say that those statues bring luck to them when they are received as gifts. During the festival of alacitas (the feast of the plenty), everything under the sun can be bought in miniature. Trucks, buses, suitcases, money university diplomas,.... The trick is to have your mini-purchase blessed by an aymara priest, and the real thing will be yours in a year...

So I am lucky to be in La paz just in time for the fair, and wander around to see what I could have in a year =)... Lets start small with irons, sewing machines, and home stuff.. And then we see the trucks and get ambitious =),, and the driver is already big enough for driving us wherever we want, we dont need the aymara priest for him =). Soo we have furniture and a truck, now we need a house and of course a suitcase for our travels =)... But if you are greedy you can get a whole apartment complex directly, yet I have no clue what happens if you bless shrek with an aymara priest =)

Or you can insist that nothing is better than the cash, of course we have that too... After all that we want we want to be able to spread our genes in the next generations, who cares about the genetics, just take the baby to the aymara priest and the delivery is within the year =). Unfortunately I also could only look at those delicious cakes as you do right now, as I had a diarrhea thanks to our helpful first class bus company (ormeno) from peru which made us eat the bad eggs =(.. I guess they really dont want us to buy a lot in Bolivia =)... And of course entrepreneurship has no age =)...

And finally I am ready for the most dangerous part of my trip, the notorious death road of bolivia.. This road segment from La Paz to Coroico is known as the road of death, and has the highest death rates in the world.. We will see whether it is still up to its reputation... And they made a tourist attraction out of death...!!!! The downhill mad bicycle ride through the death road.. The idea is you have safe bicycles and somewhat safe guides in the deadly road while only going downwards without any cycling at all for more than 4 hours.... Let me help you guys understand why the death road is dangerous. i. it is not maintained properly... It is only rocks.. ii. One side of the death road is totally unprotected fall for more than a hundred meters. iii. During the wet season visibility is reduced a lot, sometimes you don´t see anything even your frontiv. during the wet season it rains a lot reducing braking capabilityv. during all seasons you have to pass through two rivers on the roadvi. during wet season there are occasional rocks falling from the top, more often than you would expect and there is nothing for protection there... The road is a constant landslide area....vii. the people who are going downwards used to get crazy and hit the climbing vehicles and throw them out of the way, so only in death road you need to go from the left of the road.. This means that if you are cycling downwards you are in the fall side!!!!!
For me, my original plan was not to do this road at all as I was there in the rainy season (the best company that does this road is called gravity, they are totally professional, and they don´t do this road on the wet season for a good reason, it is simply way too dangerous to risk their reputation with a death.. Every year 1-2 more tourists actually die here..).. But then I saw this argentinian girl who did the road and told me that it was fun, and I told myself if she can do it, I can do it =)... So I promise myself to always take the utmost care without sacrificing anything else and go for the most expensive option (the most expensive bicycle (paid 65$ for one day, which simply is an enormous amount of money for Bolivia)), and also drive the slowest throughout the road... I have a promise to my mother to get back home in one piece, and I am not going to risk this promise here =)... Sooo here I come to the death road!!!...

We start from an altitude of 5200 m., which is probably the highest peak I have been so far. There is a gorgeous mystic lake here, but we dont have time to explore... This is the time to gooo for adrenaliiiiiiinnnnnneeeeeee....

As you can see the road is not deadly, because it is not the actual death road, this part is the fun fast driving trafficky part of the downhill madness... And the views are gorgeous, as long as you have time to look at them when you are going down around 25km an hour on the bike!!!

Did I tell you the views are gorgeous =))...

And now we finally come for the actual thing... The real road of death.... As you see I am totally ready for it ;)....

Those are the gorgeous waterfalls we saw on our way, these waterfalls have a small difference than the others I have seen in my life though.. They are simply just going down exactly on to the main road where vehicles are passing!!!! And as you can see from the pictures, the road that they are falling on to is not the safest road in the world!!!

In the first picture you can see the water hitting on to the road, in the second one you can see better what will happen if you miss your steering wheel =)... In the third picture, you see the grave of a previous unfortunate israeli girl who was doing this trip downwards with another company... We also have seen a place where a japanese girl died, actually this was very unlucky for her because her problem was not her own steering mistake, her brakes didnt work!!!! (It is why someone would pay 65$ in Bolivia for a bike rental for one day, right???!!!!! ).... The last picture is from the valley... I have a CD of pictures taken from the van following us while we were doing all those kind of dangerous stuff,,, lets say rockfighting... But I am not sure if the cd is good or dead by now... If it is not gone, I may be able to update the website with photos from there...

And finally after all this road, we ended up in Coroico, which is a small town in the middle of valleys and mountains with a gorgeous nature and fierce mosquitoes, I love my repellent... And of course, some more sunset poses on our way back, we deserved it all after all this tiring ride...

And coming back to La Paz, I am ready for one of the most interesting Islands in the world.. Isla Del Sol... The birth place of the incas, in the middle of lake titicaca, the highest lake in the world.... With one of the best sunsets in the world.. There is a reason that it is known as the island of the sun... Just before I leave a few more pictures from the "ordinary people" of bolivia...

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My death road