Not surviving the road of Death

After 5 days in La Paz I was itching for some adventure. La Paz was fun but with all the Irish and English we were mixing with it may as well have been a bar in Dublin.
I´d booked myself a mountain bike tour on the worlds most dangerous road. No way I was going to rattle my own touring bike to bits only to have it fall apart in the Peruvian mountains. The rest of the lads didn´t want to spend the money and thought the scenery would be worth it so I was on my own.

I booked a company that had decent bikes with good suspension and decent brakes for stopping power. Kitted out with everything bar knee and elbow pads we started out at 9 am with two guides and a group of about 14 of us, a wide mix from fellas my age to ladies who hadn´t done much cycling at all.

From Random phone photos

The first section of the road was mostly asphalt and very cold because of the rain, fog and altitude. On the next section there as an 8km climb so the guide and I pushed on ahead, eventually racing to the top with me beating him by a good 500m, we were having a good laugh. On the next section the road was gravel and we just let the bikes roll down,using the brakes on the corners that had a cliff edge on the outside and letting the bikes drift a bit on the corners with the hillside behind them.

As we descended the temperature became noticeably warmer and the cold fog cleared to show the green valleys. The scenery was impressive to say the least. Some of the small villages would have have been tough to live in, like the Kerry man said "Its a nice view but you can´t eat it", so I found myself wondering how the people living in these low timber houses survived the cold and made a living.

The road itself was crazy, windy bends with no barriers on the outside to stop traffic falling off the cliff, on some sections big rock ledges overhung the road sending waterfalls down the gravel and eating away at what little road there was.

On the next section we went a bit faster, myself, the guide and a friendly Australian called Alex who´d done a bit of dirt bike riding and knew how to handle a bike were having good fun, overtaking, getting good lines and drifting the bikes on the gravel on the bends that didn´t have a cliff on the outside.

All was going well with the cycling till I over cooked it on one corner with the hillside on the outside of the bend and ran out of road. I dunno why but I was reluctant to turn in a bit quicker, I guess all the months with panniers on the front of my bike had programmed me to turn in slow or cause a speed wobble. Anyhow my bike went into a small drainage ditch about a foot deep with 45 degree sides, fine I thought I´ll drop some speed and then try use momentum to get back on the road, only when I did the back wheel lost grip and I went down, knee first then hip and elbow.
It wasn´t that big and impact so I got up and dusted myself off. If it had been on clay at home I´d have been fine. Only the faces on the guys who´d stopped behind me told me a different story. You could see the white of the bone as the skin had been lifted off like peeling an orange, my cycling was finished. I walked to a nearby bridge and lay on the road with my leg elevated to slow the bleeding until the support van arrived. As I lay there I was just thinking feck, hope this hasn´t finished the cycle tour.

The guide gave me some bandages to wrap the knee up and stop the bleeding and loaded me into the hiace van to take me to the hsopital at the end of the road, I lay on the ground with my foot up high to stop the bleeding. 5 minutes down the road the driver came to a sudden stop and blessed himself. I lifted my head up and saw 3 people hauling a rope over the cliff side. I turned out a tourist had gone clean off the cliff, fallen 15 metres along scree and luckily grabbed a tree on the way down to stop him falling another 50m. As I´d lain on the ground Alex the ozzie had said in typical ozzie humour : " at least your didn´t fall off the other side mate", irony not lost on me as we saw the Dutch fella hanging from the rope. I met him later at our hostel and luckily he only had some bruised ribs.
After an hour of bumping along the bad road the van climbed the terraces of Corioco town and reached the hospital. Really it was more of a small clinic, the first thing I noticed was that the floor was dirty, my Mum would have had the mop out pronto if the kitchen at home was that bad. I was on the alert, sitting up on the hospital bed and watching what they were doing, making sure they were using fresh needles. My knee was wide open with a lot of dirt inside from what I´d seen earlier and needed to be cleaned properly else I´d have serious trouble. After they´d anesthetized the knee and cleaned it out I insisted they check the movement of the knee for damage, no point having to x ray it later if it turned out I´d busted something. I told them a bit of a white lie about needing my knee in good order to make the Irish rowing team and they perked up a bit. In fairness they were doing a good job but I thought it would be a good idea to make my injury a bit more than just another foolish tourist accident.
Luckily the movement of the kneecap was ok, not exactly pleasant to look at but it was working. I guess my worst fear was that I´d have a permanent in jury that would stop me doing sport, what ever about the bike tour I´ve a lot of things I want to do in sport after the trip.

From Random phone photos

I got 14 stitches in total making a nice crescent shape round the knee cap and a prescription for a strong course of antibiotics, pain killers anti inflammatories and a drug to protect my stomach. The nurses and doctors did a great job stitching me up and were impressed with my heart rate of 44, considering the altitude.

Later my guide picked me up from the hostel and we went to a hotel where we ate lunch with the rest of the group overlooking the amazing valleys.

From Random phone photos

Later back at the hostel I broke the news to Paul that I was going nowhere for at least a week, I was sorry to be leaving my traveling buddy in the lurch but at least he could cycle on with the English lads for company. Being a gent he offered to stay on in La Paz but given that the hospital had told me to keep the knee straight for 9 days there was no point holding the two of us up. I could always take a bus with the bike and catch up with him later.

My routine here has been somewhat like groundhog day. Breakfast followed by a few games of pool. Check the old email and send a few messages then maybe watch a film or read the paper in the afternoon, amazing how you can fill a day with lazing round. The hostel does great food which is handy as I can´t walk far so I usually eat 2 dinners here and because I can´t drink the bill for the two weeks has been pretty low. I´ve enjoyed meeting new people here, before I´d have dismissed anyone who stayed in the same hostel for a week as wasting good traveling time but you meet some interesting and fun people in a spot like this. Couldn´t have picked a better place to rest up but I´ll be glad to get on the road. Half the stitches due out today so fingers crossed I´ll be able to hit the road soon.

For anyone thinking of doing the death road, make sure you go with a company that provides knee and elbow pads. I´d be in Peru now if I´d had them.