The McKenzie Brother Travel Log (Part 1)

October 10 - 22, 2004

Day 34

On one of our first real gringo trail tours we take a ferry to Isla de la Sol. Beautiful day but we have not eaten in about 24 hours but that is not much of a problem as we are pleasantly distracted by some songs from home... Pink Floyd and Jane's Addiction cure all ailments on this day. We strike up a conversation with the guitar wielding maestro sitting next to us. We can tell this guy is of a different sort, at first I thought he was French. We hike the island with the guitar player, Daryl, but I am not able to appreciate the splendor of this beautiful place, I've got high altitude sickness pretty bad and we run out of water right off the bat exasperating the A.S.. Not to mention that the heat and sun was really oppressive for this snow loving canuck. Spent most of the time doing a dead man's march and staring at the feet walking ahead of me. Met a couple from Red Deer... didn't like the guy too much could have been the A.S. or maybe they way the treated the locals. Dinner at a gringo bar is good but takes for ever. At least the beer comes quick.

Day 35

Uhhhh...* Sun-brunt and still suffering from AS can't even stand up properly... listing from side to side. Spend most of the day in bed.

Day 37

Short bus ride to La Paz. Saw a dead dog on the road, made me start thinking about life. Wanted to walk out onto the Altiplano pitch a tent and just cool my heels for a few years. On the ferry ride a couple of pendejos start making fun a of a couple of gringos... would have pushed the jerk in the river buy the cop with the assault rifle makes me think twice. Arrive at Daryl's hotel and decide it looks like a decent place to stay... smells like piss though. Go out for a few beers and a lot of conversation.

Day 38

Went to see the Gravity Tours office today, was everything we feared it would be from what Daryl had told us. Shiny plastic office dominated by a huge desk littered with colourful flyers. Seated behind this monstrosity is a overly friendly Pom. We express doubt. The Pom cranks it up a notch... verbal engine revs like crazy and and spreads his grin even wider, until I am sure that his head is going to break in two under the stress. Still we are not committing so he breaks out the fotos. We see a bunch of smiling fat yanks wearing "hit-me" vests ridding down a gravel road that looks as dangerous as my driveway in Canada. We flee. Go looking for bikes to rent or buy... no luck but we have a line on a place that will sell us some cheap bikes tomorrow.

Day 39

We find what should be dubbed Bike Street, it seems that every store here sells bikes. Smells like piss. In typical Bolivian manner, the stores don't just sell bikes one sells bikes and potties, another home ovens and bikes, even saw a formal wear and bike shop. We get two bikes for about $35 each. Feeling pretty good we ride our bikes back to the hostel and set about readying them for the ride to Corioco. Remove a lot of junk. Mine had one sticker that said "made in Japan" and another that said "Made in USA". I think the Chinese might have a bit of an inferiority complex. We go down to the plaza to meet some Swedes that we met in Copa. Dave decides that it will be a good idea to take his bike. I, for one, have had enough city riding for one day. The plaza is crowded and Dave nearly runs over a kid... swerves and heads down a flight of stairs. Looks ok until his handle bars come loose. He some how manages to avoid doing a face plant and nearly takes out some old ladies sitting on the steps. Not even drunk yet and he has almost maimed 5 people in the last 2 minutes. Not bad even for Dave. Smells like piss here too. Luckily the Swedes arrive promptly. We head for dinner. This is the first real time that we get to hear the whole of Daryl's philosophy. Most of what he has to say I agree with. Some of the ideas are a little too pessimistic for me. I can see that the Swede next to me is of the same opinion. Want to say something... try to sound intelligent (partially because I want to catch the attention of the goddess sitting across from Daryl). It comes out all wrong though. Daryl and the Swede take up the conversation where they left off. Dave disappears.

Day 40

Abruptly woken from a rather nice pleasant dream by loud knocking on my door. I let it go on for a minute hoping Dave will answer it. No luck it doesen't stop. Open my eyes to see that Dave has not made it home yet. I crawl out of bed, and make way over to the door. Let in a crack of light and am instantly blinded. When my vision finally becomes accustomed to the morning light, I see Daryl and a local smiling at me. I had forgotten that Dave had met a shoe shine boy in the park and offered to sell him his bike. The guy is all decked out in his best clothes, a far cry from the urban guerrilla uniform that they where when they are on the job. Still unable to think very clearly I crawl back into bed as they begin the convoluted process of haggling. Can't quite follow all of it but I can see that he does not want to pay the price we are asking. He points to my bike and asks what the price is for that one. Daryl says that it is not for sale. Suddenly the guy is intensely interested in the bike (which is exactly the same except for the fact that I have removed the ugly stickers). In the end my bike is sold for 50 Bol. more than I paid for it. We head out to buy retrieve the guitars and come a cross Dave in the entryway (it's 10am). He says he does not feel up to the hike. He does look pretty haggard. The guitar shop turns out to be a lot more populated this time... it is cool to see how each guy does a particular part of the instrument. Play some songs and get a few pictures with the guys. Later we buy another bike from the same shop and exchange Dave's bike for another as it had some defects that were beyond repair. Spend the rest of the day letting Daryl beat me at Chess.

Day 41

Couple games of chess to start off the day (I let Daryl win again). Back to the bike shop to complain about some bad parts on both of our bikes. Impromptu jam session in the lobby is taken out in to the street and becomes a full day of busking. We seem to be a hit, so much so that the crowd actually spills out into the street and starts to block traffic. Policia come and tell us to stop but we play stupid and they just watch with everyone else. Our song list is pretty short but they don't seem to mind as Hotel California and La Bamba are requested as soon as we finish playing them. In the end we make about 80 Bol (AMER $ 10). More than some people here can make in a week or two. Celebrate with pizza.

Day 42

Back to the bike shop again to get some bugs tweaked. The shop owner is starting to get uneasy when ever he sees us coming. We decide that we had such as good time busking that we will try our hand at street food. Buy a tonne of supplies and a electic stove with them money that we made the day before. My old restraunt days come back to haunt me (When I was young they would call me double ohh ohhh ohhhhhh licensed to spill). Immediatly the hotel room is blanlketed in all sorts of ingredients. The worst was the powdered milk, packaged at sea level it becomes preasurized time bomb waiting for a fool like me to open it at 4000m above sea level. Every thing is white with milk powder, especially me. Pancakes are to good to sell we eat them as fast as we can cook them. Same goes for the pizza. Dave and I let Daryl beat us a few more times at Chess.

Day 43

We decide that it would be a good idea to take the bikes for a test drive before taking them down "the world's most dangerous road". Almost immediatly I loose Dave and Daryl... bike hard for half an hour trying to catch up. I give up on them and decide to go at my own pace. Ask directions, seems as though I missed a turn have to go back up hill. Nice area... almost doesn't smell like piss. I have only gone about 200m up hill when I see my two compadres. We make it down to lower La paz in now time, very posh. It must be almnost 800m closer to sea level here, can feel a definite temperature change. Don't know how Daryl can be still wereing all that fleece. We start climbing and almost immediatly my chain breaks. We try to Mcguyver it with a nail but it only last for 300m before breaking again. Happen to be beside the only Sushi restraunt I have seen in South America. We decide to eat. Now this might be what you call adventure gastronomic tourism. Here we are 4000m meters above sea level and about as far inland as you can get on this continent and we are going to eat sushi. A couple cups of Saki wash away any aprehension. We are loud and having a good time... you can tell by the looks we are getting from the other patrons. They are obviuosly very wealthy and dress to show it. We on the other hand have not changed clothes in a week nor showered more than a handfull of times in as much time. Still the food is great and we are in good spirits. Later we find a local bike shop (closed of course). Dave and I make camp as Daryl heads back up into La Paz to see if he can have any better luck there. He gets back about ten minutes after the shop owner has arrived and installed a new chain. We remove it and fix my old one with Daryl's new chain tool. On the road again, but not for long. We get back to the main road and this time it is Dave's chain that breaks (impossibly in two places). We go in this manner having the chains break every Km or so. Each time the chain is repaired it gets a little shorter. Have to climb a bloody mountain while Daryl watches from his moto beseaching us to go faster. Finally we get to the offical Valle de la Luna where you have to pay 15 Bol to get in. Looks just like the last 10 Km. We make enough of an nucance out of our selves that they let us in for 5 bol instead of 45. We have obviously done this the wrong way because we find ourselves sneaking OUT the back door of the park. Wander into town where everyone is drunk because the local futbol team has just won a match. We share some beers and then move deeper into town. Find a wedding... more beer of course. We are standing behind the band when a agrument breaks out between a trumpet player and a cymbol player. Slowly all the trumpets sputter and stop... then the trombones and other brass... the drummer continues unaware that he is the only one playing anymore. They take the scuffle outside. We move on. Get rained on on the ride back to town.

Day 44

Spend a good deal of time at the bike shop argueing with the owner. He says he has not had any problems before. I try to demonstrate how my brakes don't work and the handle comes of in my hand... End up buying new chains and brake handles for both bikes.

Day 45

                       Cheaply made bike
                      soars off the cliff
                      freely back to china

So the bike trip was a bit of a bust... or cheap Chinese "mountain bikes" couldn't really stand up to the rigours of the road. In fact we didn't even make it to the hard part of the road... Dave had a blow out on his rear tire that was too big to patch, after only ten KM, so we striped the tire from the bike and he rode sole on the rim for another ten Km. Quite a feat in the driving rain and zero visibility! Shortly After that my bike started to fall apart as well, mostly do to the vibrations, first the back derailleur went suicidal and latched onto a spoke at 20km/h bringing me to a dead stop and nearly throwing me head first over a 1000m drop. After a brief appraisal we decided it would be safest to remove and part that wasn't necessary for coasting down hill... good bye chain, gears, loads of wire whose purpose we can't figure out, brakes that didn't work any way and after a few more Km my back tire as well. We must have been quite a sight as we pedal/push through the drug check points ... I think we have been under a daily quota of giving the locals a chance to say "look at the stupid gringos" so we are making up for our short-fall in force today.

Did I mention the driving rain and zero visibility? Yes? Well I forgot to tell you about fuckwad Boliviano Drivers who think it is a good idea driving in these conditions without headlights at breakneck speed. It is because of these fuckers that the road is dangerous, without them (and good bikes) the ride would have been quite stress-less. Anyways after another 5 km my bike gave out altogether had to push it down hill as well as up.

I think I had some I idea of being able to repair my bike because I persisted in pushing my bike downhill for a few km. But hope faded as the sun set. Decided to return the favour and throw my bike over that 1000m drop as it had tried to do to me. Another 5Km and Dave decided that was best for his bike as well though it still could be used for going down hill if you didn't mind that it had no brakes.

So here we are, in the middle of the night, soaked to the bone, going slightly mad and on foot 40km from anywhere on the so called world's most dangerous road. This is when it started to snow. We walked a for a few more km trying to hitch a ride to Corioco but people would only slow down long enough to see what the fuck two crazy gringo were doing in the middle of nowhere at this time of night and then give us a little wave and a big smile and continue on. Finally a combi stopped and offered us a ride back to La Paz for Ten Bol. each. Alas we gave up our folly filled quest for Corioco and headed for the comforts of a warm shower (which we had to pay extra for) and a bottle of whiskey. Tomorrow we will try again.

Day 46

After our failed first attempt we deemed it necessary to try again (this time braving the gringo hoards). It seems that sucess is relatively easy given quality canadian made bikes and guides to hold your hand... Find Daryl waiting for us at the hostel they take us to.