La Paz... Oruro... Hell!!!

Copacabana hadn't lit any fires for Bolivia in me, so I decided to make my way to La Paz.

On leaving the town I stopped at the only petrol station, and happily pulled up to the pump, where I sat for the next 10 minutes being ignored. I finally managed to get the attention of the woman who was pumping local peoples fuel on the other side, and was given a one word reply... "Doble". This means double, ie for me to get fuel I was going to have to pay double the pump price. After being ignored then bad vibed and bribed I had my back up so I told her to shove her fuel and rode off in a huff, to the checkpoint just up the road, where I paid my "leaving town bribe" to the police and asked them where the next petrol station was. They said 20 minutes away, I decided that I would have just enough fuel to get there.

About 40 minutes later I was on reserve and about 3 minutes from running out of fuel. The view of the lake was spectacular as I wound through hills that revealed it's crystal blue waters all around, though I couldn't enjoy it, I was riding the clutch on downhills and kicking myself for not filling up before. Finally I saw a town appear before me, only it was separated by a big stretch of water, I arrived on the opposite side and caught the most rickety ferry boat I have ever seen to the other side, where I managed to buy some fuel from a woman with a bucket for 3 times the pump price!!!

From there I rode towards La Paz, as I left the region of Titicaca the countryside and the houses and communities became increasingly barren and dilapidated. It was such a contrast to the Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, there seemed to be little pride in making one's house look "nice". As I got closer to La Paz I was suprised to see the roads become worse and houses uglier. Then I hit La Paz.

It was HELL: the smog billowing from every car and truck (the likes of which I've never seen (and I've ridden through Mumbai and New Delhi in India), black acrid evil smoke), the dust from unfinished roads, the constant angry cacaphony of useless horns blaring, the drivers themselves actually ramming my bike, cutting me off, the lack of any street signage causing me to ride blindly, then the bumper to bumper traffic which at one stage meant that it took me half an hour to move 100 meters!!! I was lost, steaming hot, deaf from horns, coughing up my lungs from smog and dust, being rammed from lane to lane, I was about to give up and sit on the road side and cry; then finally I saw a sign that seemed to be lit by a bright and unearthly beam of sunlight... it said "Oruro". I pulled over and checked my lonely planet, and YES this was the next big town down the road, and YES if I road non stop I could make it by night fall. Goodbye and good riddance La Paz.

Unfortunately this was not the happy ending I was hoping for, I will now list the reasons:

The road from La Paz to Oruro is the worst I have experienced yet, the whole length (300+ km) is rutted, ie the wheels of vehicles have worn grooves into the asphalt, such that the surface is perilous to ride across (ie for overtaking).

The government is also making a new road next to this old one, which will be great in the future, though while I was riding, it meant that due to the cross wind I was constantly being sand blasted while sucking up dust.

The Bolivian truck and bus drivers are also the worst that I have ever experienced, and that's including India!! I was constantly harassed, I have never felt before as though the drivers were actually, on purpose, doing their best to kill me. Their tactics were many, one was to swerve out to cut me off when I was overtaking, even though the vehicle they intended to overtake was 2 km ahead and going 3 kmh slower than them. At other times they would speed up as I was overtaking then slow back down when I had passed (this type of driver one experiences the world over, and while riding I formed the theory that this type of person doesn't learn this behaviour but are genetically pre-determined to be an ASSHOLE, and that even their ancestors were playing this stupid ego game with horse and bloody carts!), this especially sucked because my bike was running underpower because of the altitude. Yet the best and worst was when I was behind a truck loaded with unsecured bricks while travelling at a ridiculous speed, which hit a bump sending one of the bricks flying at me at 90 kmh, missing me by 2 meters and almost causing me to slide out as I dodged the debris (if it fell one second later it would have hit me directly).

When one stops for fuel, the locals who I have determined, range from plain unfriendly to down right vindictive (I still haven't decided if Costa Rica was worse, will get back on that), will fill one from the bowser opposite to where one pulls up, so that one cannot see the pump price and they can decide by how much they will rip one off. Also as pedestrians they seem to want to be hit, it's either impatience or contempt, I can't work out which.

Just to guarantee the worst riding experience, the government or locals feel it necessary to ensure that some mangy, inbred, starved and crazy dog is sitting by the side of the road at every 5 to 10 kilometers with a look in its eye like "I am ready to die by running in front of that 2 wheeled machine just to know that it will crash and maim the human who controls it!".

SO.... I finally somehow made Oruro alive by evening, and discovered a rather ugly town, in which I proceeded to get lost for the next hour, was misdirected by the locals, then got caught in a traffic jam with smog belching horn screeching taxis and vans, before finding my way to the bus station where I paid a ridiculous price (about $40U.S. (this is meant to be the cheapest country in South America)) for an average hotel, then I had a steak which tasted like leather for dinner at the only restaurant which didn't only do roasted chicken and cold chips, and finally I had a luke warm shower and fell asleep on a mattress which had a 20 degree slope from left to right.

As I was falling asleep I went through the pro's and con's and determined that Bolivia gets a big 1 out of 10 from me. The 1 being for the fact that it is a small country and thus I should be able to get the HELL out of it in a couple of days. I had heard good things about Sucre, but this would add a day or 2 so I decided to head for Potosi the next day...