Las Photos del Camino

Need I say more?

El Camino de La Muerte

This past weekend, I bicycled down the most dangerous road in the world, a 66 kilometer stretch of highway wide enough for one car, which descends from La Paz, at an altitude of 4600 meters into the jungle, ending at around 1000 meters. Along the entire road, one side is sheer cliff, about a 200 to 400 meter drop into the rainforest. At various points, waterfalls splash onto the road, adding an extra factor to the already horrible conditions. There are only certain points at which two cars can pass each other, and so when two meet, the one going down is forced to back up to one of these points, and then pull its wheels halfway off the cliff so that the other car can pass. Fortunately, I went on a bicycle (I swear it was a lot safer), but at various points the guide would stop us to talk about accidents that had happened in various locations. At one point, we passed a village, famous only because it has 23 buildings, and every single one of them is a trout restaurant. Later, we passed a stone which commemorated an election that took place during the dictatorship in Bolivia, only because the opposition party had all been pushed off the cliff at that point when the military government realized that they couldn´t possibly win democratically. Oddly enough, the road ends in a small, one horse town called Yolosa, where we rested for a few hours and then took off back up the hill to Coroico (in a taxi).

Santa Cruz

Just when I thought I had seen all that I could from Bolivian soccer, I went to an Aurora Wilstermann Clasico (those are the two Cochabamba teams) this past Sunday, and with five minutes left to go in the game, one of the Aurora players got a red card. When he refused to leave the field, two riot policemen arrived to escort him off. Almost immediately, the entire Aurora bench emptied and the entire team proceeded to fight a force of about twenty five riot police. The Aurora goalie made a pit stop at the corner to pull out the corner flag to use as a weapon. Finally, the police used their mace, and the Aurora team dispersed. What surprised me most, however, was that the referees continued the game afterwards as if nothing had happened, not throwing out or suspending anyone. Aurora ended up winning the game.

Two weekends ago, I was in Santa Cruz visiting the Jesuit Missions. In addition to seeing five churches in a Barroque style, we managed to run into a six and a half foot rattlesnake, two tarantulas, and a sloth. The churches were some of the most beautiful that I have ever seen, ornately decorated on the inside with gold plating. It was interesting to drive through the countryside, however, because there are Menonites (I think thats how you spell it) who are and have been living amongst the Bolivians.

In other news, I want to thank James Bond for his shout out to Bolivia.