Jonesin for a Ride!

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What is interesting about La Paz is the poorer people live in the higher elevations looking down at the city, and the more well to do live at the bottom. As we head up the hill, it gets poorer and poorer, and it is apparent that my bike gets slower and slower. It is carbureted, and not a very powerful bike anyways, and at his altitude it should be re-jetted, so I’m basically maxed out at 31 mph spitting and puttering up the hill as Tom just zooms around.

At the top of the pass it is 41 degrees and we are in some clouds as we descend on the other side. As it clears we are treated with some spectacular views of the road ahead and the Andes. This mountain range is HUGE. The valleys are steep and you can see for miles ahead the road winding downward.

As we descend, I would like to open it up a bit, but you never know about these roads. Corners can be littered with debris or not be paved – warning signs for construction is very limited, at times, just rocks in the road indicating construction ahead. And the construction zones are very loose on the controls and the drivers pass in these parts – crazy.

We finally approach our turn off for the Death Road and make out exit off the pavement. You can see the road snake down before you and the climate starts to change to warmer temps and jungle like vegetation.. Since the new road was completed in 2006, the heavy traffic that use to be on this road isn’t the same, Now a days it is mostly mountain bikers and their tour buses. We do encounter traffic as we head down, but very little. We soon realize by the angry gesture from the drivers that we need to drive on the left on this stretch of road. The uphill drivers have the inside track.

The views are spectacular as you constantly snake along and hug the steep mountain side. The road literally drops off on the outside on a lot of the stretches, but the road is in very good condition and is about 1 ½ lanes wide most of the time. When oncoming traffic appears, just slow down even more or stop to let them pass.. Tom and I trade off taking leads as we stop to take pictures. Most of the time Tom is way ahead of me as he is more proficient on the dirt.

At about the 2/3rds point I came across Tom pulled over on the side with his helmet off. He says he is having trouble with his bike. He tells me that he hade a recall notice for the fuel pump, but the dealer indicated that it would take 30 days just to get the part, so the cleaned it for him and said that he would probably make it to Santiago Chili without any issues.. Well his bike wasn’t running all the time. It would sputter and “run out of gas”, but since it was downhill, he could coast.

Then it fired up again and ran fine so he continued ahead of me. As we neared the bottom of this road near a river, Tom is off on the side again and his bike is dead – it doesn’t want to fire up. So we make the decision to tow him with the KLR the last few miles to a little village where we will try to find a spot to store it , then continue on to the town where we were going to stay the night and call the BMW dealer to pick it up!

When we reached the bridge at the bottom, we reach a small village were zipline.com is located. There we find Goose, the owner of the company and he speaks very good English. He offers up his office to store tom’s bike, the only thing is that there is about a two foot drop right as you enter. With some extra people and a few blocks of wood, we squeezed his bike in there.

We then loaded up the KLR with Driving and me on the back with all our gear and headed to the town up the road with the nice hotels. Little did we realize that the KLR’s shocks and suspension couldn’t handle all that weight – we were rubbing the rear fender on the tire. So off I went and then next cab I hitched a ride (this road is actual quite busy here).

We checked in, cleaned up and then headed to the main square in town. It is quite a nice town in the mountains. We ate some Italian at the main square and went back to the hotel as we agreed to be at the bike at 8:00 am to help get it out of the room.

At *:00 a.m.the next morning we hailed a cab for Tom and we headed back to where is bike was stored. With three of us, we were able to lift it back out of the room, load it in the back of a truck and by 9:00 a.m. we were heading back to La Paz on the new paved road.

This new road is spectacular. It snakes and climbs and snakes and climbs up the other side of the canyon of the death road. These mountains are just enormous. You look up and you see the road about 1 mile above you on the mountain side.

By 12:00 p.m.. we were back at the BMW dealer to off load Tom’s bike. Work gets done slow here and we had to push and give idea’s on how to help to get Tom’s bike fixed. The problem is we need to get a pump here is a few days. Wallace, one of the employees there, said he will call a shop in Argentina and another local mechanic to see if they have a part, so he suggested we go to lunch and come back at 2:30.

We had a pleasant lunch down the street and at 2:30 we return. Wallace was nowhere to be found as he went to lunch and the few people around were clueless to what we were talking about. At 4:00, Wallace returns and said he hasn’t had the calls yet because Carlos has to do it. ??? By this time a storm was brewing not only inside the dealership with Tom and mine frustration, but outside as well with the weather – it got dark and started to hail. An hail, and hail, and hail – a good half hour this went on. The street was about 4 to 6 inches thick of hail. We were watching the starom from inside the dealership when we started to hear some big thumps on the rood. First a part of the ceiling in the show room came down. I though it was just a water leak and the drywall fell off. Then a few more “Bangs” and more pieces fell – I looked at Tom and said we need to get our of here, this roof is caving in from the weight of the hail!.. More loud noises as Tom and I bolted out the door, and we turn around and witness the roof cave in partial. We were taking some pictures out side of the damage and the hail was coming down harder and hitting us. We heard the window next to us shattered and we thought this thing is going to completely cave in, and ran across the street for cover and get out of the cold weather.

Running across the street we approach the building and both Tom and I slip backwards from the hail on the tiled sidewalk and fall flat on our asses. We get up laughing wonder what else cane possible go wrong now as we took cover across the street inside the building.

At this time we realize that the dealership has bigger problems now and we are going to have to do the leg work to get the part.

T e continued….

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