La Paz to Buenos Aires

My blog is now ridiculously far behind because I actually gave up on writing it for a couple of months and have just decided to resume it. It’s now 1 November and I will be home in 2.5 weeks’ time, so it’s a bit embarrassing that this post I’m currently writing is about a trip that I took in early August.

I travelled from La Paz to Buenos Aires with G Adventures. On the way to the tour I spent one night in Santiago (after flying back to South America following my 3-week trip-hiatus in Australia). The only thing of note from that night in Santiago was that my smaller toiletries bag (containing my shampoo, face wash and shower gel) was stolen by somebody in my hostel, which was extremely annoying.

Bolivia

Upon arrival in La Paz I had 1 day to explore the city prior to my tour beginning. I chose to spend that day doing the infamous “death road” bike riding tour, which I had decided was safe enough based on the recommendations of my friends who had done it. Unfortunately, the day ended in disaster and, although I survived with nothing but a rather sore bottom from the bike saddle, what happened on this day was a large part of the reason behind my decision to take 3 months to write this blog instalment. A smart friend of mine suggested that I could simply write the blog without talking about that day, but I feel like it played such a monumental role in how I experienced Bolivia that the blog entry would be rather strange if it skipped over it.

Basically, I was expecting to have a fairly thrilling bike riding day and a pretty crazy travel story at the end of it all. Instead I ended up seeing a girl die, which was tragedy enough on its own but compounded by a fragmented and absurd rescue effort.

The only photo that I have from that day (the tour company was taking a bunch of photos that they said they would send around, but never did)

To start from the start: I chose to do the death road with a company called Gravity as it had the best reputation for safety, and safety is something where I definitely don’t want to cut corners when the attraction is called “death road”. Gravity was a good company (by Bolivian standards) and I was very impressed with our two guides, the quality of the bikes, and the instructions that we were given before the ride. Not all companies were as well prepared or safe as Gravity – several groups were riding the road at break-neck speed, rumours abound about the lack of brakes on many companies’ bikes, and some were even drinking alcohol at the top of the death road – so I would definitely recommend Gravity to anybody who insists on doing this activity.

Due to Gravity’s safety standards we ended up being the slowest and last group on the road that day, which suited me just fine. I chose to ride at the back of my group, as I wanted to be extra cautious with my speed, and also wanted to ride with the back guide (our group had 2 guides, one at the front and one at the back, unlike most of the other groups that we saw) both because of the added security of riding with a guide and also because he was sympathetic to my decision to flagrantly violate the road rules by riding on the right-hand side of the road rather than the left-hand side (the side with the sheer drop and no guard rail). Two lovely Irish girls road up back with me and we set our own pace and looked out for each other at all times.

There is no appropriate point in this blog for me to post my Bolivia photos, so I guess I will scatter them through the Bolivia section, even though they are not associated with what I am saying

About halfway down the road a vehicle came rushing back up the road. This was surprising because the road is now closed to regular traffic – as a newer and much safer alternative route has opened – so the road is largely the domain of intrepid/fool-hardy backpacking bike tours. The only vehicles on the road are the vans that drive at the back of cycling groups and the “ambulance” which is jointly owned by all of the cycling tour companies. We knew that the ambulance, the only vehicle that would normally be expected to be heading back up the track at that time of day, was actually in La Paz, as it passed us at the top of the road before we’d even started our descent (it was carrying the first casualty of the day, a man with a broken leg). 

Our guide hailed the van and had a short conversation in Spanish about what was wrong. We were told that there had been a death just around the next corner.

We rode for about one minute and found three extremely distressed travellers from another tour company and the rest of our group. We were told that the last three people in this other group had rounded that corner to discover their friend’s bike hanging off the edge of the cliff. When they went to check out what had happened they saw her body at the bottom of the cliff. It was a very high cliff, I guess somewhere between 150-250m of sheer drop. In my opinion, there was absolutely no way that the girl could have survived that fall, but it was urgent that we get somebody down to the bottom of the cliff to ascertain whether or not she was alive (on the small chance that she had survived the fall and would need urgent help). I also thought that it was important to minimise the trauma that was being inflicted on the people at the top of the cliff, including the dead girl’s boyfriend, and some people in my group who were extremely distressed. Additionally, I thought that this was exactly the sort of situation where the girl’s travel insurance should be immediately notified to see whether they could provide any sort of assistance. Yet, being a tourist with no authority and no grasp of the local language, what I thought didn’t really matter so I just had to stand back a bit and watch as the whole catastrophe unfolded.

Another extremely out-of-place photo

Within about 10 minutes her tour group returned back up the track (they’d finally realised that half of their group was missing) and then panic ensued. All that her company had by way of rescue equipment was a single rope, which wasn’t complemented by any sort of harness, stretcher, or anything else remotely useful. Moreover, there were two other injured people in their tour van, one with a broken clavicle and one with a broken arm. They had been given extremely basic first aid (incorrectly tied slings) and no analgesic; that tour company didn’t even have a full first aid kit!

What followed was three hours of grief, infighting, and poor communication. My memories are fairly fuzzy now (probably a good thing) but I can remember that there were lots of heated discussions between their guides (who insisted on leading the rescue) and our guides (who were providing ALL of the rescue equipment and expertise, other than a single rope of about 50m length). Very little was translated into English, so it was difficult for the tourists to figure out what was going on and whether there was anything that they could do to help.

Knowing that there was not a single doctor, nurse, or allied healthcare worker in the group of people at the top of the cliff (we’d run through this on the bus and I was the only person in our group with any healthcare training), I felt obligated to attempt to help with the rescue effort, considering that I could at least help a little bit based on what I’ve learnt over the past 3 years. I was keen to help the injured riders and provide instructions to the girl’s guides on how to check whether or not she was alive once they had abseiled down the cliff, but I knew that this wouldn’t be possible as this was now the second occasion in which I’ve been in a first-aid situation in Latin America. Based on my prior experience I realised that nobody would take me seriously because 1) I’m a young female, and 2) everybody with a 2-day first aid training course somehow thinks that they are experts on trauma management and refuse to listen to people with the same first aid qualification PLUS years of formal education in healthcare. Because of the horribly helpless way that I felt after I was last in this position two years ago, I chose to mention to my guide that I was happy to help if they needed my help, and then stand back and let that be up to him. As it turned out, the girl’s guides refused to even accept the help of my guides, so I was left standing uselessly at the top of the cliff, thus continuing my pattern of wanting to help in emergency situations but being helpless to do anything useful.

About two hours into these three hours we were told that the guides had reached the girl and that we would be allowed to rescue her if she was alive. If she was dead, we were told, we would have to await the arrival of the bomberos, as moving her body would constitute interference with a corpse. So it was with a mixture of elation (and disbelief on my part) that we all lined up to help when the guides started calling out that they needed people to help pull on the rope that they had attached to her stretcher. Everybody there, a group of around 30 people, stood in a line and spent the next 15-odd minutes slowly hauling her body up the cliff. It was slow because there was no pulley, and we were using five ropes that had been tied together, so had to be very careful with the knots.

At the end of this process we were treated to the horrible sight of her damaged and clearly dead body on the stretcher. To a lot of people (ie, all those who had been doing wishful thinking and acting on faith that she really was alive) this was an awful shock, and several people broke down on the spot. The vast majority of people there had never seen a dead body (so I guess I was lucky that I was more prepared for the sight than them…?!?!) and they just couldn’t handle it. Unsurprisingly, the bomberos finally arrived just at that moment, with them a paramedic who quickly confirmed that she was dead. After that, we got back into our van and made our way back to La Paz (nobody even suggested that we continue the ride).

We were stranded here for many, many hours during our Salt Flats/Altiplano trip

That night I met my tour group. They were elated from doing the death road bike ride themselves (with a company that had taken them down the road before the accident occurred) and were unaware of the tragedy that had befallen the road that day.

The following few days I had a very hard time. Most of my group had been travelling together in Peru for two weeks, and already had friendships, in-jokes, and that level of social-relaxation that comes with familiarity and shared experiences. In contrast, I was a new-comer and had just suffered through an awful experience (one that the others could understand and sympathise with, but nobody could really empathise with) so the presence of happy people was of little comfort to me and actually made me feel a bit worse, so I chose to withdraw a bit throughout the following few days.

During these “dark days” we travelled to Sucre, the actual capital city of Bolivia, a charming town, then Potosi (where you go to see the silver mines) and then onto Uyuni from which we launched our tour of the Salt Flats and the Altiplano, which was yet another unfortunate adventure that I absolutely cannot be bothered to write about here, but if anybody is interested I have written a trip advisor review on that particular experience: http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowUserReviews-g317033-d316550-r222265968-Salar_de_Uyuni-Uyuni_Potosi_Department.html#REVIEWS

This place is called "stinky lake"

Chile

Eventually, we managed to leave Bolivia, which was something that had to be achieved in the dark and on foot at over 4500m elevation. I felt a lot better about a lot of things once we had left the country.  I realised when we were taking photos on the Salt Flats (the funny perspective style photos) that I needed to make more of an effort with the people in my group as I suspected that my grieving was being construed as aloofness, especially when nobody seemed particularly keen for me to be in their group photos on the salt flats. So, I decided “new country, new approach” and from that moment onwards I had a much better experience on my tour.

Our time in Chile was far too brief. It’s a fascinating country with so much to see and do, and I definitely need to go back. Essentially, we had a single day in a town called San Pedro de Atacama, which has so much more to see and do compared to places like Potosi and Uyuni town, so it was a bit frustrating that we spent less time in SPA compared to in those places. We spent our morning cycling to a beautiful lake in the desert:

Next we had lunch at a charming little hippie-café in SPA (including fresh fruit juice, which was something that I desperately felt like I needed after mostly skipping dinners and replacing them with cornflakes during my emo-period in Bolivia). That afternoon we went sand-boarding (I now have eternal appreciation for ski lifts after having to hike a sand dune for each new run). It was awesome fun. Here are photos:

We spent sunset at a place called “the valley of the moon”, which was stunningly beautiful. Again, I’ll let the photos speak for themselves:

Argentina

The following morning we boarded an epic all-day bus ride to Salta, Argentina, through the absolutely desolate landscape of the Atacama Desert, the Altiplano, and then the Jujuy region of Argentina. Unfortunately our bus was delayed by about an hour due to this poor lady (who was scheduled to disembark at SPA) having an epileptic fit on the bus. There is really not much that you can do for somebody suffering an epileptic fit, other than try to prevent them from injuring themselves, and people can become quite unwell in the wake of a serious episode. This lady was unable to stand and was dry retching all over the floor, so that’s why it took an hour to get her off the bus (to be sent to the local hospital).

In Salta we spent our day doing a wine tour of the Cafayate region and then going to a restaurant where there is live music and dancing representative of the local region. As a general rule, I hate that sort of thing (especially when it is called a “cultural show”…shudder) but I trusted my awesome guide, Karina’s, judgment and decided to go to the show. It was really a great day, which is unsurprising considering the amount of wine that I drank. Here are some photos:

From Salta we flew to Buenos Aires where I elected to spend just 1.5 days (as I had spent a few days there just a couple of months earlier). I spent some time walking around the city (including some extremely dodgy neighbourhoods by accident) and then met my friend, Ayelen, for dinner (we eventually settled on steak in Palermo, which is always a good choice). I was so pleased to hear that she is planning on spending some time in Australia – can’t wait to have her on my continent J

From Buenos Aires I flew up to Toronto to begin my adventures in North America, but that’s the next blog post.