Deane's Motorcycle Trip In SOUTH AMERICA
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Deane's Motorcycle Trip In SOUTH AMERICA |
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April 15, 16 - La Paz, Bolivia 350 miles, Potosi' to La Paz |
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Whoopeee!! A 350 mile riding day with no dirt or gravel roads, no sand pits, and all on very good quality paved roads!! What a joy to ride. This main route between the two large cities, "Route 1", in Bolivia apparently had been paved recently, because its surface was excellent, with almost no patches, and it is in a very difficult weather region. The road went over a 15,000 ft. elevation pass, and both going up and going down in elevation took many miles. With Potosi' at just under 13,000 ft. elevation, and La Paz at just over 13,000 ft. elevation, I don't believe we were ever under 10,000 ft. elevation all day. This is what we have been building up to. The first part of the ride was the most scenic day we have had, since starting in Chile. The mountains were still quite dry, with some bushes but no trees, but the coloring and ruggedness of the mountains was just gorgeous. The subtleness of the landscape and the wide open space would not be captured well in a photo, so I didn't take any. There were many tiny villages of the native Bolivians, as well as those who lived "in the middle of nowhere". Add to that the fact that these people live at elevations up to 15,000 ft, and one can see it is very hard living there. There were no trees, only minimal bushes, and I couldn't see how they had any fuel for fires, to heat their houses or even cook. I never saw a house with a door open, so that may explain the need to conserve any heat they could. (Maybe they use Llama dung for fuel, since they all have herds of Llamas.) In and around the villages and outer homes, there are miles and miles of rock walls. Maybe they enclose small pastures, but I did not see one animal within all the rock walls. Over the distance we traveled, there had to be a thousand miles of rock walls enclosing small pasture areas, and they covered whole mountain sides! Maybe these were a holdover from the past, or maybe these were winter pens - who knows? In the meantime, all the animals were outside grazing. These high Andes people have many Llamas, and there were probably some wild ones also, so we saw at least over 2,000, maybe 3,000 Llamas along our route. The Llamas were in herds of 10 to 300 maybe. The people have some sheep also, and herds of Llamas and flocks of sheep seemed to get along nicely, grazing together. In every case of a herd or flock, there was a herder or herders. Most of the time these were women, out in the very cold weather, 45 to 55 degrees F, with a stiff wind blowing. They had blankets, with their backs to the wind, but they still wore skirts instead of pants of some kind - freezing! To go anywhere, the people go out and sit by the road and wait for a bus. They don't have any cars, but they seem to have unending patience waiting for a bus. We did ride in some rain, mostly showers, and that along with cold and windy weather made us put on our rain gear, more to keep warm than to shed rain. We stopped for lunch, and had a humorous mix-up with languages. I saw "Sandwiche de Hueves", (egg sandwich), on the menu, and ordered one. The two guys with me ordered the same, but at the last moment we each ordered two eggs (dos huevos) on our sandwich. The net result was that we each got two sandwiches, each with one egg! Oh well, we each ate two good egg sandwiches. Entering La Paz and finding our hotel was quite a chore. We had good written directions, but La Paz is a city of several million, and frightful traffic, so it was a challenge. Unfortunately, our day was marred by a bad accident by one of our motorcycle riders. This was a serious crash, in which he hit two sheep and was thrown off the motorcycle. Apparently something ahead of him spooked a herd of sheep at the roadside, and they ran out into the road very quickly and in a herd, and the rider couldn't stop in time. The result turned out to be several bad breaks in his foot and ankle area. The fortunate side of the bad accident was that group of riders (I was with another group of riders and didn't know about the accident until we reached La Paz) were close to a small first aid station in a small village, and close to a large city, Oruro. They had him in the ambulance within a very few minutes, and to a hospital in a short time. There they x-rayed him and decided to send him by ambulance to the better equipped city of La Paz. So they transported him to La Paz, and right to a well-equipped hospital. To go on this motorcycle tour, one of the requirements was that we each carry a specific medical insurance to cover this type of thing. That medical insurance has a coordinating function to get doctors at the location in touch with specialists retained by the medical insurance company. By the time the ambulance got to La Paz, the surgeon at La Paz had been in touch with the MedVac insurance agency and doctor, and they had agreed on a procedure. Within an hour after arriving at La Paz, the rider was in surgery. There was a pinched artery that could have caused far worse problems if not taken care of immediately, so that was done. We visited him today, and he seems quite well after the surgery. The process of getting him and his motorcycle home has started, so things are moving. On the happier side, we took a tour of La Paz today, and enjoyed it. La Paz is a city of 1.8 million, and is built on very steep hills in a bowl.
This narrow street is said to be the only "original" street from the city founding in the mid-1500's.
And while looking at the President's Governor's Palace, they actually have a "changing of the Guard", with appropriate uniforms.
Other than visiting our injured rider, the day in La Paz was very pleasant. Tomorrow we ride across the border to Peru, so we'll have a start on a new country. |
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