9.7.8 Death roaders, let’s go!

This was not something anyone had ever said to me before and, frankly, it’s a bit silly. Anyway, off Robin and I went, down “the most dangerous road in the world” (™UN 2004). It’s a 40km ride down 3,100m from rock and ice to sultry jungle. In fact, now there’s no traffic on it, it’s considerably safer than Hyde Park Corner—as long as you avoid the precipice perpetually to your left. The days of 100s of deaths each year are over. However, we were overtaken by another group, at the back was a man old enough to be indifferent to another birthday. Trying to keep up, he screamed past us; dangerously out of control, he dragged his right climbing boot as he tried to pull himself around the bend and away from the sheer drop—nothing but air for hundreds of feet.

Exercise here is a confusing business—there’s very little of it, apart from the ubiquitous football. The swimming pool is a place for standing around, flirting and showing off. My attempts to swim lengths involve slaloming around teenagers chatting, catching their breaths after two or three furious strokes of front crawl or recovering from landing on their backs after an ill-conceived dive.

There’s very little running, with the exception of the busy main road from La Paz to El Alto. Even in the dark, the slender hard shoulder of this steep climb, which rises 550m, is lined by people in tracksuits pounding the long dangerous route. The air is thin of oxygen but thick of carbon monoxide, so these guys’ lungs would be a wonder to scientists.

Bar the very odd, very solitary, lycra-wearing nutcase, only the police cycle in La Paz. On cheap bikes donated by the Chinese, they puff along (often on the pavements). Bicycle policemen are an utter farce here, a brisk walk up any hill would be enough to let any robber escape with his swag.