It became easier to breathe as we met invigoratingly warm air from the canyons below. At the next stop I shed my jacket and welcomed the rush of sultry air, warm blood and coursing adrenaline. My arms flushed red, my goggles fogged with patchy breaths, and my skin buzzed with shivering excitement. Again I greeted the road, sinking into the bike frame and trusting my tires, which hadn’t yet spun me into the abyss. I carved myself into the side of the mountain at each curve, then soared out of hairpins like a pinball released from a spring. At each moment I felt like I was both flying and grounded, relieved and expectant. This isn’t so bad, I thought.
First I heard it: a deafening crack! and metal grinding rock.
Then I felt it: the twisting bike frame violently wrenched away.
And then…freefall.
At least I was still breathing. I lay supine, staring at the unblemished sky like a kid lying in a field of grass. I didn’t feel like I was hurt. But then again, I didn’t really feel much of anything.
After an indefinite number of seconds, I gingerly unbuckled my helmet. I lifted my head, which felt heavier than a cannonball, and then I felt everything: stinging cuts all along my limbs, head pounding furious discomfort. I winced away the pain and dragged myself up into a sitting position, so as to assess my final resting place.
I was still on the road, only about twenty yards from where it happened, whatever “it” was. My bike had also managed to stay on the road. Barely. It was poised at the outer edge, teasing the cliff. The back tire looked like a pack of starving lions had attacked it in a Discovery channel featurette. As I pondered the tire, I heard the skid of another, behind me, and then the crunch of feet on gravel. I craned around to see who it was, ignoring my protesting muscles.
It was Cesar.
“¿Que pasó?” he shouted as he tossed his bike aside: What happened?
Still trying to ascertain that myself, I gave him a blank stare, which he took to mean that I didn’t speak Spanish. At this he sighed, pulled down his shades to look at my shocked expression, and then silently walked over to assess the damage—on the bike, that is. I continued to sit in the dirt while he clicked his tongue at the back wheel, as if the bike were a teenager that had taken the keys to the family car without asking. While he looked at the rubber, I looked down at my limbs, which I gratefully determined weren’t disfigured.
“You need a new tire,” he said with a thick accent.
After giving him the same blank stare, I started to laugh. “Obviamente.”
This was the only time I ever saw Cesar surprised—his dark brown eyes narrowed a second—and then his face transformed. The edges of his spiky black mustache turned upwards, and though a black kerchief covered his mouth, I could tell he was smiling. He walked over and extended his hand. Grasping my pale hand in his, he pulled me up.
“I’ll just get you a new one,” he continued happily in Spanish. “The bus will bring one.”
We sat by the side of the road, waiting for the tour bus to amble down the curves behind us. I told him I didn’t particularly want a new tire, that I’d rather walk than get acquainted with the ground like that again, thank you very much. He nodded his head appreciatively, but noted that walking would take much longer than necessary. When he switched the tire, it was with an ease that revealed years of expertise. I bet he could do it blindfolded and upside-down. Perhaps I could ride on his shoulders…
As he handed me the fixed bike, I hesitated. “I’ll be right behind you,” he reassured me.
“I’m not worried about in front and behind, Cesar. It’s the up and down I’m worried about.”
He laughed jubilantly and extended the bike again. I grabbed the handle and turned back to face the road. It stretched before me in false innocence, a relatively wide stretch. I realized with a sinking feeling that had I fallen on a slimmer section, I would be permanently married to the valley floor right now. I was very lucky. I probably wouldn’t be that lucky again.
By the end I wasn’t faring well. My back was aching from leaning over my handle-bars and my fingers could barely grasp the brakes anymore, their muscles shaking from fatigue. I had a cramp in my left calf. And my right one. Clumps of hard dirt leapt from my tires as I sped down, gashing my shins; my elbows were assaulted by the sting of liberated dust and stones. This road was beating the shit out of me, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get to the end of it. I had reached that critical point where terror surrenders to exhaustion.
I’d learn later that this section of road is one of the most perilous for bikers—despite being one of the widest and flattest sections. Many who make it this far succumb to either growing fatigue or overblown cockiness, which tend to cause trouble whenever a biker is “tested” by the road. Messing up at this stage must be very disappointing. Think of all the valiant (though admittedly masochistic) road-bike warriors who have battled the steepest, rockiest, most perilous passages of the World’s Most Dangerous Road only to crash on leveling slopes mere minutes from their destination. That’s what we in California call a Major Bummer. And all it takes is one small problem: a misjudged corner, an unseen water slick, or gradually drifting towards the center of the road.
That last mistake can bring a biker forehead to bumper with an oncoming driver. This isn’t the best of situations, as Bolivian drivers can’t always be inconvenienced by silly rules such as Don’t Drink and Drive or Keep You Eyes on the Road. They’d much rather multi-task, be it by napping or sipping rum. Seriously. I once had a fascinating conversation with a Bolivian about the dangers of strapping extra tanks of gas to the hoods of cars. While he admitted that it makes minor collisions rival dynamite-embellished blockbuster crashes, he also noted that it’s helpful if one can’t find a gas station. Needless to say, I now have a near-religious awe of the ability of Bolivian drivers to be blasé. And to make things a little more interesting, drivers on the World’s Most Dangerous Road drive on the opposite side from any other road in Bolivia. At least, they’re supposed to. Apparently not everyone got that memo.
Rocketing down the road, I was struggling to gain my focus back when a massive truck swung around a corner ahead. For the record, he hadn’t got the memo. I skidded to a halt by the road’s edge, hands cramping from braking. I paused in my panicked pile of dust as the vehicle continued to bumble along, taking the entirety of the road. The driver looked a deep shade of bored. I scooted as close to the cliff as I could muster, the truck’s hood passing within inches of me. I gave an incredulous, how-rude-of-you-to-nearly-cost-me-my-life look to the driver, which he returned with an I-might-as-well-be-comatose zombie stare. The massive truck bed went past, contents strapped precariously together with ropes and blue tarp. I continued to watch agape, even after the truck passed us. As it turned the next corner, one of the wheels bumped off the edge for a moment or two, before finding its place on the brink again.
“Traffic picks up on the flats!” Cesar informed me. “Bigger cars!” I half expected him to wink at me. Oh, to hell with fatigue. I fixed a newly determined glance ahead, hoping that my concentration would last longer this time, since I seemed to be the only one who had any. But there’d be no need: I could already see our destination.
I stood, stooped under the shower head, warm water running down my back (I didn’t even know Bolivia had heated showers!), the smell of roasting meat buoyed towards me with the happy chatter of survivors. We had made it. From mists and rivulets through the waterfalls, all the way to our last river crossing and now, to warm showers. As soon as we were dressed again, we did what any group of people who have skirted death would: we feasted.
We ate platefuls of buffet food: bread, pasta, chorizo, juice. And we lounged in hammocks, listening to the chirping of the rainforest, gorged on sausage grease and relief. Afterwards, we piled back on the bus and headed to a shack down the road to buy rum and coke, which to our giddy delight came premixed in liter-sized bottles. I headed to the back of the bus with my loot: a liter of the rum-coke mixture in each arm, a giant bag of
chips sitting at the crease of my right elbow. Cesar came and sat across the aisle from me, watched me uncap the first bottle. I took a lengthy swig and then passed it to him, and as he took it a knowing smirk tilted his mustache. Before the liquor even set in, I was drunk. Drunk on oxygen and carbonated soda. As the bus rolled forward, my abs tightened and my breath quickened with the realization that we were finally heading home.
I barely registered that the driver had made the U-turn, I was so engrossed in recounting the tire incident to the back three rows. When the laughter subsided, I gazed out the front window, and heads began to turn. We were now facing the World’s Most Dangerous Road from the other direction. Our giggles gave way to a somber reverence, spreading through the bus like darkness encroaching on a twilight sky. And then, much to our collective dismay, the bus set off into the maturing dusk and began the long drive up Death Road.
We wound our way up the mountain in lingering twilight, exhausted heads leaning on windowsills, watching the blur of green foliage play along the right-side windows. I tried to guess how far up we had gone by inspecting the vegetation, which thinned as we climbed. I was sitting on the mountainside of the bus, next to a young woman who sat meditatively at our window, which was filled with the gray of passing rock. It was hard to tell if she was lost in thought or actually unconscious. I was drunk and exhausted, but couldn’t conceive of sleeping, and so I turned back to the cliff-side windows and watched Cesar watch the road.
He couldn’t have been older than thirty. I wondered if he had a wife and kids. How much did they worry when he went to work? The thought of these hypothetical family members made me anxious with worry and exasperation. Cesar, you idiot! I wanted to shout, Do you know how lucky you are to still be alive, after all the times you’ve come down this mountain?!
He must have sensed my silent tantrum because he turned around to look at me. I searched his eyes for any indication of fear, of pain, of guilt. I only saw a kind confusion, which turned my exasperation to compassion. And so I asked him.
“Oh sure, it’s dangerous,” he said matter-of-factly.
No duh, I thought. “What I mean, Cesar, is…have you seen anyone, you know…” my voice trailed off lamely as I gazed back out at the cliff.
“Oh. Yeah, it happens,” he whispered secretively, though he knew I was the only one fluent enough to understand him. After a beat, he seemed to deem me trustworthy and continued: “The worst was a couple of years ago. It was the Sixth of August, but so many people wanted to do the ride that we said, ‘O.K., we’ll work the holiday.’” A flash of regret passed his eyes, and he furrowed those characteristically sharp Bolivian brows.
This didn’t seem like such a big deal to me. For our independence day, we keep a lot of businesses running. If we didn’t, where on earth would we get all our last-minute BBQ supplies and frustratingly small fire crackers? But then again, Bolivians tend to take their holidays very seriously. (I remembered election day, when motorized transport was illegal, and you weren’t allowed to walk in groups of more than two people.)
“It was somewhat risky,” Cesar continued, “you know, because everyone takes the holiday and so there wouldn’t be a rescue team ready were something to happen to—”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “Rescue teams don’t work on holidays?”
“Well, for this road, it doesn’t really matter. It wouldn’t—”
“Rescue teams don’t work on holidays?!” I interrupted again. A couple of weary heads turned, but none registered comprehension.
“It’s not like the States, where you can have a helicopter come air-lift you out. You fall, it’s the end.” I gave him a defeated look. “Let me explain,” he said, “there are two types of cliff here. There’s the kind where you die quickly after you fall…”
I had a flash-back to those skyscraper-high precipices. My voice cracked like a fourteen-year-old boy’s when I asked about the second kind.
“Those are the ones where you die slowly.” He nodded with finality.
I would never let Dave talk me into doing anything again. Ever.
“So we took a group down. They were really excited. Everyone always is. I was guiding the back of the group—I’m always in the back with the slower ones.” He smiled at me, which probably meant I was one of the ‘slower ones.’ “There were two women at the tail end, friends, I think. We were really far behind. The others must have been down the road, waiting for us.” He sighed. “I was right behind them when it happened. They went to turn a corner, too close to each other—less than the bus length we tell you to leave between bikes—so when the micro came around the corner…” His eyes were unfocused, and I realized that he was picturing what happened: “From where I was, I could see the driver was asleep. Maybe he was drunk, or maybe he closed his eyes for a second, I don’t know. Then—” He raised his left hand in a fist, and struck it with his right palm, “the bus hit, one woman, then the other. They crumpled onto the front of the bus, which woke up the driver. He slammed on the brakes while still on the turn and the back tires skidded, swung the back of the bus over the edge…then the cabin pitched sideways and they all went over…then down…hitting trees as they went…” His eyes widened.
Oh God. “Cesar,” I said as calmly as I could. His eyes came into focus and he looked up.
“You know how I said there were two kinds of cliff?” He whispered grimly.
I nodded reluctantly.
“This was the second kind.”
I closed my eyes. I opened them when I felt Cesar’s patient gaze. He continued the story: “I got the others. We could hear survivors, but there were so many trees, we didn’t know if we could get down in time. We took machetes from the bus and started to cut towards the voices, but it took a long time. When we got there, most had gone quiet. Many were crushed underneath the bus, which we couldn’t lift, but the two women were still alive. We had to carry them up, and they were in bad condition, one had her feet ripped off at the ankles—”
He saw my hands fly to my face in horror and stopped immediately, meeting my terrified expression with a worried one. “Oh no, Sabine, I’m sorry…”
Oh my God.
“I’m sorry.”
“Jesus Christ, Cesar!”
It came out in English, and suddenly I felt the entire bus looking at me, choking the atmosphere with attention. As I tore my gaze away from Cesar to face the inquisitive expressions, I let the horror slide off my face like silk.
“He says he can do a double back-flip on a mountain-bike,” I huffed, raising my eyebrows skeptically.
The words settled on their drunken audience, and then the emotional charge of the moment evaporated. Within moments, everyone was involved in a fervent discussion of the physics of mountain-bike tricks. Dozing passengers woke up, and bottles were passed once again. By the time I looked back at Cesar, he was staring out the window again.
Things had started to get out of control. For one thing, the door of the bus was open, and people were leaning out of it, laughing maniacally as the gravel whooshed underneath. The bus’ drunken occupants were bouncing around the cabin with their cameras out, making faces by the windows. I felt a potent mixture of intoxication, exhilaration and concern, at least until the whole circus finally came to a halt.
We were looking across an expansive ravine at a section of road dubbed Postcard Corner: a sharp turn rimmed by a perfectly vertical drop, straight as if drawn with a ruler from its cusp, which kissed the air with tantalizing innocence.
“Get out! We’re documenting this for posterity!” yelled our Canadian drill sergeant.
One by one, people started to hop off the bus. I watched my fellow riders march out to the edge, posing for their camera shot.
“Do you want me to take your picture?” Cesar asked me, the first words he’d spoken since my lie twenty minutes earlier. Bloody hell, I thought, I’ve come this far. I handed him my camera wordlessly.
I walked out with a young woman from our group whom I had
befriended with nervous chatter at 7:30 that morning. She had been with me for more emotional turmoil in the last eight hours than some of my friends of eight years. We walked out to the corner, arms clasped around each other, until we were only a couple feet from the edge. My stomach tightened as the security of the ground seemed to shrink away. I did not look down. We held our free arms out in triumph. I grinned stupidly, and the moment was gone. We were standing there for perhaps three seconds.
Gratefully, we scuttled back to the safety of the bus. I sidled in next to Cesar in the door frame, and he passed me my camera without taking his eyes off the corner. “Cesar,” I whispered, as a young Brit in blue shorts and a grey Liverpool sweatshirt strode out for his photo, “This is fucking nuts.” Cesar said nothing. He watched the kid, who was jumping up and down at the cliff edge. The bouncing made me nauseous with worry, so I turned to Cesar again.
“What were their names?” I asked, “The names of the women?”
“Try and get me mid-air!” shouted the Brit to his friend with the camera. Cesar watched stone-faced, not responding. I realized I had crossed a line, and immediately regretted the question. Shamefully, I turned away, back to watch the Brit, who had inched over and was now sitting on the ledge, dangling his feet off the thousand-foot drop. “Look!” he cackled, “Doesn’t it look like I’m about to fall?” He swung his legs.
“Sorry Sabine,” Cesar’s voice moved through the air thick and smooth, like a spoon cutting into cold whipping cream, “I can’t remember their names.”
“Look at me!” leered the kid, “I’m gonna fall!” He put the back of his hand to his forehead dramatically, “I’m gonna die!”
The Best Travel Writing 2011 Page 28