seekingmygreaterperhaps

The Death Road is an out of commission road that used to be a two way, very dangerous, road that winds through some jungly/mountainy region of Bolivia. Cars and buses used to fall off the edge resulting in casulaties, which is how it got its nickname. Nowadays, it is a thrill seekers day trip, with mountain bike companies offering tours down the Death Road. It’s gravel, there are no guard rails, and it is tight and wind-y.

The bike company (I went with Barracuda Biking) gives you a full kit, which includes a hardcore helmet. The day starts with biking down a paved 22 kms to get used to the bike. We weaved through some really beautiful views, and I was channeling my inner biker. I was so excited !

Then we arrived on the actual Death Road/ al Camino de la Muerte, and the game changed. It is a horrible road. It is not just gravel, it’s huge rocks and even when it is dry like how it was when I rode it, your back wheel can and does spin out.

Ah, so exciting! Above I am smiling with the Death Road behind me, and ready to face to 30+ km downhill mountain bike ride ahead! I get all geared up and ready to go, and 10 seconds after I mount my bike, I wipe out… hard on the gravel. I don’t exactly know what happened because it happened fast and I fell hard. Because we were all starting in a group, I think the person behind me got too close and tapped my back tire and I lost control. I don’t think I flipped over the bike, but the next thing I knew, I was ass up on the ground. I knew my elbow was hurt because I was holding it to me. I stretched it out and it didn’t feel broken (I remember what a broken elbow feels like) but it did hurt. My knee hurt and my (new… sigh) leggings had a hole in them. My ankle must have gotten hit by the pedal and that hurt too.

My guide immediately helped me, and I started crying. I was so scared. This happened maybe 10 seconds after I got on the bike. I could still see the freaking van. My guide told me I had 2 options. I could ride in the van following the group until the van can’t go anymore because an avalanche had wiped out the road and try to ride again after that point. Or I could get back on my bike and keep going.

Well, I am stubborn, and I didn’t want to fail at this because we had JUST started. So I got back on my bike. I was shaking and crying until the first rest stop, but I didn’t fall once people were not surrounding me, so I decided to keep going.

I rode with the group, and the entire path is downhill (except for maybe 30 seconds at the very end) but I was very shaken, so I essentially pressed my brakes the entire time.

I’m glad we made 11 stops during the ride. Because the road is so dangerous you have to constantly be looking at where you are biking. Without those stops, I would have missed all of the beautiful scenery we were biking through!

I wish I could say I enjoyed this day. I really wanted to. But the truth is, I was miserable. Every bump hurt my elbow, and I had to squeeze my right handle brakes for the back brakes (the ones you use primarily especially if you don’t want to flip over the handlebars while going downhill), and I was fatigued. My right elbow was hurt, and every squeeze of the brake sent pain shooting up my arm. With how scared I was, I was on the brake constantly.

My anxiety was spiked all day after I fell, and I had to take deep breaths constantly. Good thing I have all that counselor training. My entire body was tense for about 4 hours that we rode down the road. I hurt so badly, but I didn’t want to ruin the fun for anyone else, so I sucked it up.

At the end, the tour fed us a delicous meal, there was a place to jump into the pool, and I could shower. I knew when I couldn’t use my right arm to wash my hair I was in a little bit of trouble.

A bumpy and not quick at all 3 hour ride back to La Paz, I made it to my hostel and decided to try and sleep off the pain, and I would be good as new if not a little sore tomorrow.

After a panicked phone call to our HR person to ensure my health insurance covered me for an emergency room visit in Bolivia (it does, thank God), I took myself to the hospital. I didn’t think my elbow was broken, but when I woke up… it didn’t feel better, and my arm was swollen. I got x-rays done and it showed that neither my elbow nor wrist were broken, just a bad sprain. They wrapped me up, gave me a sling and a painkiller prescription along with a shot in the butt and I was on my way.

As I sit here writing this over 2 weeks later, I am out of the sling, but I still can’t extend my arm all the way without pain. I’m still suffering from an acute injury, and when I was traveling I didn’t exactly rest, so I am hoping that with a bit of stretching and rest in the coming weeks that I’ll be back to new in no time.

Do I regret going down the Death Road? Jury is out.

But I definitely realize that my prefrontal cortex is fully developed because I am at the ripe age of 30, and everyone else I was biking with was ~24/25. Maybe that should’ve been my clue.

Thanks for sticking with me. You may have noticed I had a GoPro on my helmet in some of my pictures! I just bought a used GoPro from a friend of mine, and this trip was the first time I got to use it! That being said… I don’t know how to use a GoPro. So please enjoy this video I put together where you can’t really see the scenery at all, so instead I collected my many musings from my journey.