Charity Ride

First of all, thank you very much to everyone who has donated money to this effort. We have raised much more money than we first expected. Between donations through our website, Facebook, clients on trips and the donation boxes in the offices, we have collected over $1000. In Bolivian terms, that’s over 7000Bs or a whole lot of money.

We have completed the first phase of our donation effort recently. Most Bolivians spend Christmas Eve and Day with their extended families as many of us do in USA also. Because of this, we can't actually do much donating of presents on Christmas day. Instead, this past Saturday, we held a Christmas party in the town of Yolosa and invited all the kids from the lower section of our route. Unfortunately, Leith and I had to work the day of the party, but I was able to enjoy it briefly as our group took a break in Yolosa. The party seemed to be a big success though. A couple days before, two of our office ladies, Paulina and Kayla, used a lot of the donations to buy school supplies and toys for the kids. Then, they made individual packages of a couple notebooks, pencils and pens, sharpeners, erasers, coloring utensils and of course a few toys. At the party all the kids received a package. Zzip The Flying Fox, the zipline company in Yolosa opened up and gave free rides to any of the kids. There was also a clown and many traditional Christmas foods and drink brought by both us and the villagers. Cakes, empanadas, hot chocolate and of course the Christmas classic, Coca-Cola. We also donated all sorts of sports equipment and ball pumps to the local school.

 Before the party though, the other lucky guides who didn't have to work decided to have a bit of fun, by building a dirt jump off the bank and into a deep river swimming hole. While Gabriele's first run didn't look so hot, it looked like everyone was having a ton of fun.

 

We have ended up with a great deal of money and will still be accepting donations until after we complete our challenge. Because of this, we have decided to also build a playground in Yolosa. This playground is something that we can start now and keep adding to in following years. Honestly, this charity ride is sort of an experiment to see how people respond, what we can do for the community and of course, what riding up the World's Most Dangerous Road is actually like. Our ultimate goal is to turn this into an annual event in which many people come out to raise money and take up the challenge of riding up the WMDR in a spirit of community friendship. So far this experience has been a huge success and I think we could definitely turn this into an annual event. In the future though, we are probably going to revolve this ride around Día del Niños (Day of the Children) in April instead of around Christmas time. April tends to have much better weather than December and I think holding the event on Día del Niños would allow more locals to come out in participation. Only a bunch of gringos far from home and thus having nobody to spend Christmas with are able to come out to ride on this special day. There is a pretty solid cycling community in La Paz and I'm sure we can get more people to come out and hopefully more bike companies to jump on the bandwagon to turn this into a big deal every year.

Once again, thank you to everyone who has donated and please spread the word. Also, thank you to everyone at Gravity who helped to make this happen.

If you would like to donate, you can follow this link here: Donate Here.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

Phil

*All photo credits go to my friend and Gravity guide Andy Baker. Keep scrolling down to see more of his photos from the party.

 

 

Scary Santa

 

 

 

 

One of the packages we handed out.

 

 

Cody with the best dead sailor

  

Andy himself, happy he's landing in water.

 

 

 

 

 

Could you even have Christmas with out Coke?

Thanksgiving – Southern Hemisphere Style

I've been pretty sick on and off for about two weeks now, so all things considered, I've decided to swear off street food. Its delicious, cheap and quick, but its not worth laying in bed feeling like death all the time. This also means that life is a bit more expensive, but at least I'm cooking more at home now and eating healthier. The day before Thanksgiving was one of those days in which I woke up, moved to the couch and couldn't move off the couch till I went back to bed at night. Because of this, I wasn't expecting much out of Thanksgiving day, but when I woke up on the 25^th, I felt much better and ready to eat. Some friends invited us over for a Thanksgiving dinner at their house a couple blocks away, so I was ready to feast.

For this Thanksgiving dinner, I went about making the only turkey day dish I know: grandma's pumpkin pie. Of course, I started out by heading off to the grocery store without even looking up the Spanish for the ingredients I would need. I figured I would be able to recognize everything by the picture on the label. Butter, eggs and milk were easy since I buy those all the time. Cinnamon and ginger were also easy since they had titles in both Spanish and English. Nutmeg was impossible, but fortunately, my boss's wife had some to lend me. At first, I couldn't find the key ingredient though, pumpkin, either fresh or canned. Eventually, my Kiwi friend brought me what he said was pumpkin from the fresh produce section. I didn't believe him at first. This vegetable was cut into sections so it didn’t have the distinct pumpkin gourd shape. It was also green with a smooth green outside. I told him it didn't look like any pumpkin I had ever eaten and he said, “what do your pumpkins look like?” I said, “orange and rumply” and he replied that he had never seen a pumpkin like that. It must be a southern hemisphere thing, so I took his word for it, bought it and looked up the word on the label when I got home. He was correct. According to Google translator, zapallo translates to pumpkin. However, if you translate pumpkin into Spanish, it gives you calabaza. Makes me wonder what the difference is. Any way, took it home, steamed the pieces and blended it to produce a pureed greenish mess. Tastes just like pumpkin though. Using the blender for the first time since I moved into this house has also made me realize that I definitely need to be utilizing its ability to make dank smoothies much more often.

With my pumpkin taken care of, there was only one last detail. Mostly out of laziness, I have never bothered to learn how to make the pie crust. I've always just bought one of those frozen store bought crusts. People say they don't taste as good, but I've always thought the pie tastes awesome even with a store bought crust so I just never bothered to go through the hassle and time of making the crust. However, turns out that in Bolivia, one cannot purchase just a pie crust. You can purchase all sorts of pies in the supermarket, but not just a crust. Now is as good a time as any to learn how to make a crust. It turns out that its quite easy. I even experimented with throwing some finely diced almonds into the dough and I think that really ended up taking the pie to a whole new level of goodness. This adventure has also taught me that I need to do some research about baking at high altitudes. The filling never really set as thick as it should have and it took much longer to cook than usual. I have heard that cooks need to use slightly different proportions of liquid to dry ingredients than at normal heights. We'll have to see what the all knowing Google has to say on the subject. Now remember, my pumpkin was a bit greener than I'm used to and it showed in the pie. Usually pumpkin pie has a sort of orangy/brownish tint, but this one instead had a more greenish to brownish tint. Still tasted awesome though and some people at the dinner had never had a pumpkin pie before, so they didn't know the difference and loved it.

Dinner itself was definitely a great experience. Unfortunately, there was not turkey to be had, but we did enjoy a wonderful chicken instead and an amazing stuffing made by our Irish friends. I believe there were five people from the US among the 17 people there total, which was an awesome way to introduce a lot of people to some real USA foods. None of the people present from countries other than the US or our northern neighbor had ever had sweet potatoes with marshmallow melted over the top. My Kiwi roommate especially thought it sounded like the most disgusting thing he had ever heard of when I first told him about the idea earlier in the day. Of course, this kid will eat Vegemite like candy. Once he tried a portion, he absolutely loved it. How could you not like sweet potato and melted marshmallow? On one hand though, the girl who made this specific dish could only find pink and blue two-toned marshmallows at the store so it had a bit different look to it. However, like the green pumpkin, it still tasted like the same great recipe we see every year at most Thanksgiving tables. Overall, definitely an awesome Thanksgiving with a sweet group of friends; many of whom are far from home.

Bolivian Cuisine

     Considering I recently spent two days in bed/on the toilet, this seems like a great time to talk about food. First off, I can't say that Bolivian food is exactly the crème de la crème of ethnic foods. In fact most Bolivian food is pretty bland meat and potatoes fare. Also, my food throughout the day generally depends on whether I'm working or not.

     I have come to enjoy my breakfast here quite a bit. On days I'm working, I have to meet my clients at a cafe downtown at around 7:15am. We don't leave though until 7:30 or 7:45. I usually take this time to duck out real quick and grab a quinoa con leche. This is served from a lady with a cart on the street corner. She already has pitcher of hot milk and quinoa mixed in. She pours this mixture in to a plastic bag, sticks a straw in and ties a knot. If you don't already know, quinoa is a grain similar to rice and is native to this region. You can find it pretty easily in grocery stores at home though too. I realize hot milk with rice in it that you suck through straw may not sound that appetizing, but I assure you its one of my favorite parts of the day. I also grab a couple small empanadas to go with my milk. Empanadas generally come as straight soft bread rolls or with cheese inside. They also occasionally have chicken, beef or pork inside. These ones I get with my quinoa con leche are just straight bread rolls. The quinoa con leche costs 1.50Bs and the empanadas cost .50Bs each meaning that my whole breakfast cost 2.50Bs. Remember, one US Dollar roughly equals seven Bolivianos. Some mornings, if I feel like splurging or if I don't have time to duck out a moment, I'll grab a muffin in the cafe for 8Bs.

     However, on days in which I don't work, I often wake up much later and by 10am or so I generally don't trust milk that has been sitting in the sun all morning. So, instead I go to my own fridge where I grab either milk or yogurt to mix into my cereal. Unfortunately, cereal is not one of the cheapest items in the supermarket. This being said, it is one of the items I'm willing to splurge on. Salteñas are another common breakfast item, but I'm not too into them at the crack of dawn. Salteñas are bulbous shaped pastries with various types of meat stuffed inside. Between their size and the sauce inside, they prove to be extremely difficult to eat neatly. I'm also not generally keen on eating a meat pie early in the morning, but I do enjoy them as a snack later in the day. I haven't quite been able to master the art of eating one, but I think you need to take small nibbles and constantly be sucking out the sauce so that it doesn't dribble down you're fingers.

     Next up there's lunch. During the long days of running down the WMDR, lunch comes anywhere from one to threeish, which means after a small breakfast of two empanadas and milk with rice in it, I'm pretty famished by the time we sit down to lunch. Granted we do provide a few snacks on the ride down, but I always look forward to the all-you-can-eat buffet we provide for lunch at the end (and the free cerveza of course). The buffet itself is always the same. It consists of regular spaghetti, spinach spaghetti, three sauces, a bunch of steamed veggies and a salad bar. Since the buffet lunch is always the same, the staff at La Senda Verde take pity on us poor guias (guides) and give us a plate of the staff lunch. This always includes either pasta or rice (very lightly seasoned), some sort of fried, baked or roasted meat and plantains. I have decided that plantains are only good in very small doses. I get tired of the taste quickly. I also always make sure to stock up on lots of steamed veggies, because its really the only chance I get for veggies, unless I make them at home.

Average lunch of fried chicken chicharron, large white corn kernals, a purple potato, apple juice and picante sauce.

     My off days are really where the dank lunch is to be had though. Lunch is considered the most important part of the day in Bolivia and most people either go home or go to one of many hole-in-the-wall lunch establishments around town. There are easily four or five places within a couple blocks of my house that serve a traditional Bolivian lunch. Its always a flat rate ranging from seven to nine Bolivianos. You walk in, sit down and they automatically bring bread and a bowl of soup out. I think the soup is often corn based, but varies widely in taste and is different everyday. It also usually has a chunk of meat in the center or very small pieces throughout. When you have finished the soup, they usually have a choice of two or three main dishes. One day, the choice was between ground hamburger on rice or diced up sheep heart. I figured, “Well, I know what burger tasted like, so I guess I'll take the sheep heart.” At first, the taste was just weird and then slowly it started to grow on me. I can honestly say I enjoyed it, but I also grew tired of the texture and was unable to finish due to the weird rubbery feeling. While I had mixed emotions, I don't think I'll be ordering it again anytime soon. After the main course, there is usually a small desert of either plantains or bananas in ice cream. This whole three course meal is always guaranteed to be a very filling and only costs about $1.

     My dinners entirely depend on what time I get home from work. Usually, I get done with job stuff around 8pm, though it can vary anywhere from 6:30 to 10. After waking up at 5:45am and working all day, I'm usually in the mood to grab some street food and conk out, ready to wake up at 5:45 the next morning. You could say there is a wide variety of street food here, but in reality it is all some sort of meat with some sort of potato and a chunk of plantain for the end. Closest to my house is a small place that sells, the most generic of street food. This includes hamburgers, hot dogs, salchipapas and lomito sandwiches. Hamburgers and hot dogs should be obvious. They aren't that different here. Salchi is actually hot dogs and papas means potatoes, but salchipapas is a specific dish of basically french fries and cut up hot dogs in a paper cone and a fried plantain at the bottom. Condiments include ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and picante sauce (usually all of the above together). Another two common street items are lomito or choripan sandwiches. Lomito is a thinly sliced piece of beef and choripan is chorizo sausage packed into a patty. Both come out as an extremely greasy piece of meat with bread and all those same condiments. A tad bit of greens and occasionally a slice of tomato. All of these items cost 6Bs or less. My favorite street food place however is a bit more. I generally head over to these guys if I'm feeling pretty hungry and don't want too much greasy digestive tract lubrication. Its on the more expensive side of street food at a flat 19Bs. For just under $3, you get about a ¼ pound of either roasted or fried chicken, rice or noodles (or both mixed together), a ball of buttery mashed potatoes fried sorta like a hush puppy and of course, a chunk of fried plantain.

An uber healthy dinner of a lomito sandwich, salchipapas on the side and of course a fried plantain.

    Common dinner restaurants include the local Chinese place three blocks away, a nearby pizza place/tavern and a highly non-Bolivian English tavern called Oliver's Travels that serves all the best food from home including an amazing chicken, guacamole sandwich. The pizza place is pretty good, but consistently gives me room clearing gas (not a good one for a date). I can also safely say that the Chinese here is most definitely less Chinese than Chinese in the states. Really, some of the time I feel like I'm eating Bolivian food with a Chinese name. To their credit, it is run by a real Chinese guy, but I think I may know more Mandarin than him. The Chinese place is easily the cheapest running about 10Bs per visit, plus a bit more if you get beer. Oliver's should be pretty expensive, but I get a 50% discount being a Gravity guide, so I usually escape for about 30Bs including beer. I still don't get out there that often considering that it is also a 30 minutes walk or short cab ride away.

     Of course, unlike my time in China, I do have a real kitchen here and a grocery store three blocks away, so its quite easy to cook my own food. That being said, I don't that often. Its so easy and cheap to eat out and I am so often getting home too late to feel like making anything. I have made some great pastas, bought meat from the store and even found some real Kraft mac and cheese. I think the ultimate comfort food of mac and cheese really brought me back from the land of the dead after a serious bought with Capac's Revenge (my Incan version of Montezuma's Revenge).

     Disclaimer: If you get grossed out easily, skip this paragraph. You would think that the street food is the most dangerous food I could be eating, but before I got sick, the only food I had was pizza from a downtown chain restaurant called Eli's New York Pizza. On the first day it hit me, I was working, but luckily had a new guide in training and a Bolivian guide with me so they pretty much did a lot of the physical work while I languished in agony from the pains emanating from my stomach. I then proceeded to spend the next two days in bed or running to the toilet every hour or so. The fourth day, I decided that I felt a whole lot better and was definitely ready to go to work, however, my bowels had other plans. Early in the ride, I realized that I really needed to go and go immediately. First, I told the other guides that I would catch up with them in the big town a few stops later and set about trying to find a bathroom. There really aren't many bathrooms along our route. First, I tried the military checkpoint, but their bathrooms were locked and my Spanish didn't seem to be good enough to express the importance of my situation or more likely they just didn't care. So, my next opportunity came up at this small restaurant sitting in the middle of nowhere between the towns of Rinconada and Pongo. The place has a small outhouse about 100 meters from the restaurant itself. This thing has two sides for men and women and each side has three holes in the ground with short concrete walls creating open stalls. Each hole has two blocks to stand on as you squat over the hole. It reminded me a lot of Asia. I raced straight down for el bano, leaving my bike in the doorway so I could keep an eye on it as I did my business. As I'm sitting there squatting and exploding out of my rear this kid rolls up on a BMX and picks up my bike. At first, I'm thinking this kid is about to steal my bike while I sit here incapacitated. Instead though, he just stands there holding my bike and starts talking to me. From my basic understanding of Spanish and the universal look in his eyes of a boy holding a sweet toy, I can tell he's telling me how cool the bike is. Other than that, he just keeps talking and I have no idea what he's saying. I can also say that I wasn't trying in the least to concentrate to pick out any key words. I just couldn't believe that this 12 year old kid is having a conversation with me while I'm squatting over a hole with ungodly sounds escaping and I don't even know what he's saying. I thought I've had some experiences pooping in the woods, but this hands down takes the cake. It even beats the time Ben pooped in a bucket on our porch a couple years back.

     With that, coworkers are home from the road and we're off to grab some salchipapas on the way to the tavern. Yeah french fries and hot dogs!

Salt shaker form of 99% pure MSG in the spice rack at the grocery store.

The World's Most Dangerous Road

After two weeks, I thought I would have been used to the altitude, but I still feel like I'm out of breath constantly. Every so often I have to remind my body to take deeper breaths. Sometimes, especially if I wake up and immediately start doing things, I feel as if my lungs won't expand large enough. La Paz is built in a large valley with the main street running right down the center, which means if I want to get anywhere I always have to walk uphill at least one way, usually both ways. Often I walk about three or four blocks and then suddenly realize that I'm breathing like I'm out for a run.

So, I've taken eight rides down our main trip, the World's Most Dangerous Road. The first three trip were pretty much as a participant. The next two as sort of an assistant and doing many of the jobs that the Bolivian guide usually does. The last two were as a lead guide with another lead guide observing and giving me tips. My final training ride is tomorrow with the owner of the company coming along and if he deems me doing a great job, then I start leading trips on my own.

The Boli's role as a guide is not so much as my assistant, because they have all been here much longer than I and know the road much better, but more as support. They do most the background work while I'm dealing with clients. This included getting bikes ready, taking photos and dealing with maintenance issues. I've really enjoy most of the Boli guys I work with and am happy that this job sort of provides me with some immediate Bolivian friends as opposed to my job in China where it was hard to break out of the ex-pat community.

I begin my average day by walking downstairs to our office at 6:15am to gather my stuff. I grab the list of clients for the day, radios, a camera and my trip bag which has everything I'll need paperwork wise. Then I book it over the workshop two blocks away where I meet the Bolivian guide and driver. We gather the bikes together, grab the rental gear, the vehicle first aid kit, the “oh shit bag,” the tools/spare parts box, the rope rescue bag and the back board. From here we load up the bus and are meeting the clients in a cafe downtown by 7:15. After meet and greet and whatnot we're driving up to La Cumbre which actually means the summit. The drive up is through high Altiplano terrain. I've never been to Scotland, but I have always imagined this is what the Scottish highlands look like. Its like rolling hills of dry grass and rocky pinnacles looming high above. I sometimes imagine William Wallace on the peak of a pinnacle, kilt blowing in wind, standing high above the herds of llama. Of course this is Bolivia and not Scotland. There is much more likely to be a Cholita standing guard over the massive llama herds. (Clarification: In many Latin American countries chola and cholita are derogatory words against women, but in Bolivia, Chola is considered a polite word for indigenous women such as Quechua and Aymara women who still wear the traditional dress. Cholita shows more respect than chola.)

La Cumbre is the pass where we unload the bikes next to a small lake surrounded by high peaks often covered in snow. Here I go over our main safety speech, teach the tourists to respect hydraulic disc brakes and mainly press the point of not acting like an complete idiot. The ride is extremely easy, but has massive consequences of failure. Our largest cause of accidents is always testosterone exceeding ability level. From La Cumbre at 4,700 meters elevation, the ride starts out extremely easy down a long paved road. This is our opportunity to see who can actually ride a bike and who we need to give a good deal of coaching to. This part is also much steeper than the drive up. Instead of rolling grass hills and giant llama herds we instead descend through a steep gorge of large rocky cliffs. After passing through a military drug checkpoint searching for cocaine ingredients, we come to the town of Unduavi. From here we have a 8km climb uphill. We give the clients the option of doing the climb or riding in the bus for it. As far as grade goes, its not very hard. However, we are still at 3,300 meters and the air is very thing. The first hill always makes my lungs feel as they are trapped in a box and can't open large enough. We are also riding downhill bikes with a large amount of suspension and horrible pedaling efficiency. Most of the time I enjoy the uphill climb so I don't make it sound as hard. If I don't feel like climbing one day or its wet out, I make the climb sound absolutely horrible and nobody wants to even try. We give the clients a vote and if at least half the groups wants to do it then we let them try. Otherwise it wouldn't be fair for the most the group to sit on the bus for an hour while a few people try to prove something.

After this climb, we take a right on a gravel road heading downhill. This is the official beginning of the World's Most Dangerous Road. The road really is easy to ride. Its usually wide enough for only one vehicle, but has pull-offs every 25 to 50 meters. However, the cliffs on the side are often as deep as 700 meters straight down. We also pass many crosses and monuments. The attitude generally determines whether I tell more or less horror stories. If the group has a bunch of nervous people then I generally hold off on most the stories until the drive back up. If the group is full of cocky guys then I tell lots of horror stories on the way down. The first monument we come across is a rectangular block with five names on it and a bolt sticking out of the top. The monument commemorates the five Martyrs of Democracy who in 1944 were bound and thrown off the cliff by a military dictatorship in 1944. There also used to be a cross on the monument, but jeep hit it a few years ago and flipped over the edge taking the cross with it. You can still see where the monument has moved a few inches on its base towards the cliff edge.

At one spot a French girl didn't take her sunglasses off as she came through a tunnel and face planted straight into the side wall. She spent two days unconscious in the hospital. Another French girl stopped at cliff edge once, stood there straddling her bike and just lost her balance falling the wrong direction. She fell about 600 meters. The first bicycle death on the road is commemorated by a small simple plaque in Hebrew. An Israeli girl was trying to wipe here goggles of condensation while moving and rode straight off the cliff edge. Another guy was watching a beautiful blue butterfly when we went sailing into the wind with the butterfly. He actually survived with two full arm casts. There is one spot where they just recently built a fence. Last year, a tourist was racing another tourist and took the off camber turn too fast. He completely slid off the cliff. A few months later the owner of another local company was taking pictures of his clients facing the wall side in the exact same spot. He took one too many steps backwards and fell to his death. Near this spot we pass the supposed house of Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, while he was hiding in Bolivia. We also generally point out a large cross the for the worst accident of the road's history. A truck carrying over 100 people in the back fell off the road, while trying to get around a bus coming the other direction. The road got its designation as the World's Most Dangerous Road by the Inter-American Development Bank in 1995 for its average of 200 – 300 deaths per year. In 2006 they opened a new road nearby which has drastically decreased traffic on the old road and thus decreased the death rate. There have 18 deaths on the road since Gravity started running bike trips down the road in the early 90s. The only client that Gravity has ever lost though was an older heart attack victim. All the horror stories above have been from different companies.

As the road descends we slowly see more and more vegetation. Eventually we actually drop into the Amazon Basin. The terrain is more that off alpine jungle at 1,100 meters above sea level. This area is also covered in Cocoa fields. We end our ride at an animal refuge near the town of Yolosa. The refuge, La Sende Verde, keeps animals that have been confiscated from private owners or the black market, but cannot be returned to the wild. These animals include a few species of monkey, parrots, tortoises, snacks, a spectacled bear, a coati and a few others. The coati and the monkeys are absolutely amazing. The coati is related to our racoons, but much much friendlier. He enjoys cuddling with people and will clean you skin by lightly nibbling at it. Many of the monkeys also enjoy being with people and I'm constantly amazed at how human like their interactions seem. They will often grab your hand and try to lead you around to places that they want you to go. They also like to play, wrestle and cuddle. Especially on cold or rainy days the monkeys get very lazy and seek out people to cuddle up with for warmth. Sometimes the squirrel monkeys and capuchins try to crawl inside people's shirts. There is one spider monkey in particular that has come to know me. When I walk in Cacao will often run up to me and give me hug and then grab my hand with either his hand or tail to lead me somewhere. Le Sende Verde is also an eco-resort in order to support the refuge side of business. Here, our clients get a free buffet lunch, a beer, showers and a pool to swim in.

After lunch we hop back onto the bus for a 3½ hour ride back to La Paz on the same road we just came down. I find this part much scarier than riding a bike down, but our drivers have all been driving the road for a very long time and are very careful. I usually tell the clients more history or horror stories as we come back up the road. Then we mostly kick back and relax till La Paz. Upon our return we drop the clients off at their hostels and hotels, take all the gear back to the workshop, head back to the office, pay the driver, split the tips, burn the photo CDs and other general end of trip stuff. Depending on the group and generally how fast our day was, I can be down with all this anywhere in-between 6 and 10pm. Usually I have just enough energy to walk down the street, grab some street food and head to bed. Getting up to do it again the next day at 6am.

Mi Casa y Gnarly Paseos

I've spent the last few days to settling in, figuring out my way around La Paz, getting to know some people and riding. So far I'm pretty happy down here. I live in a nice area of town, but close enough to downtown to walk or take a cheap taxi. I've met some people and some interesting characters. Then of course, there's the riding. The riding is spectacular and awesome and sometimes gnarly.

First of all, let me tell you about where I live. Gravity has two offices. One is a hole in the wall place on the Prado (the main street) for tourists to come for information, to sign up for trips and whatnot. Our back office is really a house in a nice area of town half way up the mountain to the north. The first floor is the office part, the second is two apartments and the third floor is the owner's apartment. I live in one of the two apartments with the other two full time gringo guides. My bedroom is spacious and has big windows that allow lots of sunlight in. One of my windows faces out into the street. Across the street is a small plaza with benches and a statue in the middle. Its a very small plaza tucked back and hidden in this neighborhood so it turns out to be a popular place to come make out on the benches. There are also the occasional prostitutes who hang out on the corner waiting to be picked up by really fancy cars that are obviously from a much nicer area of town. Apparently my window used to have an awesome view of Illimani, a towering peak with glaciers. Now there's a half built five story building right in the way. We have two maids who clean the apartments and the office and general stuff around the house. The older head maid, Dona Rosa, lives in the other apartment with her husband, Don Juan, who also does a lot of odd jobs for the company around the house and the workshop. The workshop is right around the corner and one block away. The space is perfect. There is a huge amount of storage space for bikes, a large room for the mechanics who each have there own personal station and a bike shop attached to the side. Gravity is the South American importer for Kona, Santa Cruz, Titus and a lot of the big component companies plus a lot of smaller companies. This means we get sick deals on pretty much anything we want.

I've met a lot of people and its difficult keeping track of who’s who. First there is Alistair the owner and the other two full time gringo guides. One most rides we have one gringo guide and one Bolivian guide. There is a small army of about 12 Bolivian guides who also work as mechanics in the shop. Most weekdays they work in the shop and then get pulled out to run rides whereas we just ride everyday. Many of them are really good riders and they're all great mechanics. They are all pretty friendly and seem very laid back. Laid back seems to be a very Bolivian attribute. Our drivers are similar. We have one permanent driver who works the most and then we have a few other guys that come in as needed. These guys are smiling, happy and cracking jokes the whole day. Aside from the guys who work in the shop, we also have the maids and all the people in the offices. The office staff is pretty mixed with both Bolivians and gringos. There's also a small number of part time gringo guides who come in whenever they feel like and are needed. Many of them have other jobs in La Paz that keep them busy and they just guide for Gravity for fun. One of them that I rode with the other day runs an NGO dealing with sex trafficked women and their children. I’m sure MTB guiding is nice way to relax. Another really interesting character is Jack, the head brewer at brewery here in town. The brewery is actually part owned by the owner of my company, which means its a great deal for us (really cheap beer!). Jack could be described as an uber-conservative, Texan, mile a minute man who likes to drink, a lot. Aside from that description though, he's a really friendly guy who. I really enjoy hanging out with as long as were not talking politics. He told me that he came to Bolivia when his girlfriend dumped him, his dog died and Obama got elected to office, so he said “I gotta get out of here.”

Lastly for today, I have to talk about the riding here. That is why I'm here after all. I got really lucky. My first ride happened to be our Secret Single Track ride. We have a lot of other rides to offer from just the World's Most Dangerous Road, but the WMDR is easily 90% of our business. I think my pictures on Facebook really speak for them selves about how amazing the landscape is and how gnarly the trails were. Our day started with a drive up to the trails just outside La Paz in a Land Cruiser listening to Rage Against the Machine and general 90s hard rock. For the morning we shuttled the La Paz downhill race course three times. Multiple runs gives the clients time to learn the course and get better at anticipating features and riding more smoothly. The course had some pretty hard sections too. Two of the three clients took diggers right off the bat on the initial drop in and the third client took the easier line around and still walked a bit. I've got a good picture on Facebook of one of our clients launching over his handlebars. There was one turn in particular farther down that I couldn't ever get without dabbing. It was a tight steep off-camber turn around a large rock. After a picnic lunch on a high pass, we spent the whole afternoon descending a long series of trails crossing all sorts of terrain. We started high on a ridge-line flowing over hillocks and dips and then dropped into a rocky trail that actually passed straight through the center of a village. After the village we passed through an incredible landscape of cliff edges and giant sand spires. After wrapping through the spires, we continued down a long ridge-line that got narrower and narrower. Eventually coming off the toe, the got super steep with several options constantly. You could either choose the steeper straighter line down or the route with tight switchbacks and small berms. We took a small break right at the end of the toe, before the ridge just completely dropped away. From this vantage point we could see two old women and a small child walking up the trail, so we waited for them to pass before continuing. These women were dressed in the traditional layered wool ponchos. I can't imagine having to walk up and down this horribly long and steep trail on a daily basis just to go to town from that village that we had passed way back when. I was in shorts and a t-shirt and these women were dressed like it was below freezing out. After a quick chat with the ladies, we dropped the last bit of super tight switchbacks with cliff edges on the sides that were just begging to thrash us. I had to dab on most of the final switchbacks and I'm looking forward to nailing them in the future. I was also terrified on much of the turns due to the consequences of failure and look forward to putting that fear down too. Of course, while riding through the village way back, I smashed my real derailleur, so to fix it, I just took it and the chain off and relied on the power of gravity to ride down. However, this meant that through the switchbacks I couldn't get that oh so important half pedal stroke in. After dropping off the road, we had to ride a mostly dry river bed back to a town near La Paz where we met the Land Cruiser to head back. Sometimes this river bed was just angled enough downhill that I could cruise down without pedaling, but often I had “skateboard” my bike along. The river bed was really cool though, because much of it was caked in magnesium making it look like a bunch of streams of white powder intertwining each other.

This thing is long enough. I'll write more about the WMDR and the city another day. I put up an album of the single track on Facebook and I should be getting some more pictures of Lima, Peru and La Paz up soon.

I'm in Bolivia

Part 1
I write this one from the front of an express bus on a 27 hour journey to La Paz. Its about 9:15pm and dark. This bus is far different from the overnight buses I experienced in China. There, they packed in as many beds as possible and everyone got their coffin to spend the night in. This bus feels like luxury comparatively. There are two decks. The bottom is mostly the cab, crew quarters, los banos and cargo space. The upper deck has rows that look like normal bus seats except bigger, more leg room and they lean most of the way back to laying down position. There is even a padded foldout leg rest thingy. The front of the upper deck has a half-circle table with benches facing a large window stretching across the bus width. That is where I sit now, facing the dark highway, watching traffic go by. There is a Peruvian couple sitting on my left flirting in Spanish and listening to Jack Johnson. Honestly, its a bit scary sitting in front of this window watching scenery come at me through the dark on this narrow mountainous highway. Occasionally I grab the computer as we swing around switchback after switchback.

Lima truly is built in the middle of a desert. I spent a day in a town on the outskirts of Lima called Miraflores in-between arriving Sunday and catching the bus Tuesday. The city is quite a non-photogenic place this time of year. All winter long Lima is covered in this fog that just sort of blankets everything white. It is not the type of fog that you can watch coming in and out, covering and uncovering the world creating epic photographs of clouds moving through objects, but instead gives the whole world a sense of being two dimensional

We began this journey from two-dimensionality at 9am cruising down the coast of Peru with the Pacific ocean crashing upon the beaches to our right. The sand dunes stretched out for miles off to the left. The desert grew as we veered a bit inland and all I could see to either horizon was nothing but sand. Save for the occasional concrete village there really was nothing but sand and rock. Eventually we started into the mountains which could really be better described as giant rocky sand dunes. I noticed many of the villages we passed had walls that seemed to have been built to keep the desert from taking over the village.


Part 2
Okay, I'm now writing this section from my new apartment in La Paz. I've met most of my co-workers, taken a stroll around town and unpacked all my stuff. Bus ride turned out to be 30 hours total, but I rather enjoyed it. The scenery was unbelievable and I have decided that I definitely need to go back and check out the area around Lake Titicaca some more. The other guys here say there is more incredible mountain biking around the lake and up into the Cuzco area. I have quite a headache, but I'm not sure if its from the altitude or if I just didn't drink enough water on the bus ride. Either way, I plan on getting stuff done tomorrow, so it can't stick around. Anyways, I hope to be riding real soon as I sit here and stare at my lovely bike in the corner of my bedroom. I also hope to have facebook albums up soon.
Peace

Even the airports in Florida have hundreds of old people

As many of you know, I'm headed off to La Paz, Bolivia for a while. A few friends suggested I start a blog and I hope this is a better alternative to tagging people in Facebook notes. At the moment I'm actually sitting in the Fort Lauderdale airport on a three hour layover. If everything goes well I'll be in Lima by 10pm tonight. I'm pretty stoked to be heading to South America this time. I'll actually still be in the same time zone as everyone back home in NC or IN. I scored a sweet job guiding awesome mountain bike trips in the Andes near La Paz. I'm planning on sticking around a year or so and seeing what I feel like doing then. You can check out the company I'm working for here: http://gravitybolivia.com/index.php?mod=homeb or just google “World's Most Dangerous Road”. About 90% of our work is guiding tourists down the World's Most Dangerous Road. The “dangerous” part is mostly due to the amount of trucks and buses that have fallen off taking plenty of people with them. Don't worry, biker accidents are way less common. The road itself is a gravel road much like the roads we encounter in Pisgah National Forest. This gravel road has cliffs on the side that drop three thousand vertical feet though. The ride actually starts at about 15,400 and drops 11,800 vertical feet. Sweet! I'm really hoping I enjoy leading more touristy type trips since I've committed to coming to Bolivia and living here for a year. I also hope I get some friends to come visit to either ride the death road or not. We also have a bunch of other trails and rides that we take more experienced riders down.

Plane is loading soon. I hope to have lots of adventures while I'm down in South America and write about them here. Spread the word about the blog.