Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Back in Nz
Most of the group arrived back in NZ at 4am this morning. Andrew and Morwen are exploring the Salar, with Hazel staying in South America for another five months. The routes home for both groups were long, the Jungle group having a bizarre stopover in Arica. We were herded off the plane in the blazing midday sun to stand in a stationary queue for 20 minutes, go through immigration, get our bagage xray checked and then sent straight back on the plane. I guess it keeps people in a job. The next stop was Irequiqa and then onto Santiago. The view of the desert, ruggered coastline and then the magestic Andes was great - that is until we started to descend to Santiago when the smog obliterated everything. As we had checked into Chile at Arica, it meant that we were able to go into the terminal and catch up with the Salar group including Hazel. It was great to see them again and catch up with their experiences in the Salar and Chile. All too soon we had to board our flight back to NZ and our first view of rain for a while. The weather we had on the trip was quite remarkable.
My views on the Zongo road follow and hopefully some pictures
We had a great last day on the bikes, with a descent of around 4000m from Chacaltaya to the end of the Zongo road.
Chacaltaya in it's heyday used to be the highest skifield in the world. This was back in the 80s as there was clearly an absence of snow if we could mountain bike down the road from the main buildings. The views of Hyuana Potosi and the surrounding mountains were stunning.
We then blasted down the road to the turnoff to the Zongo turnoff. Here we were back on the jeep for the road to the head of the Zongo valley. The switchbacks began in earnest with altitude being lost very quickly. The road surface was pretty loose in the inside of the corners which made for some hairy moments at times. Add the big drop on one side and it certainly got the adrenalin flowing. The Zongo has about 8 dams in it and provides most of the electricity for La Paz. The engineering feats were certainly impressive. The ride was one great big downhill blast with very little traffic. We had lunch at the local football field where a tournament was taking place over the Holiday weekend (the Monday was May day, kinda like our Labour day). The Bolivians certainly know how to organise a knees up, with pop music blasting out during the game, an early conclusion so that the partying can begin and then a live band to sernade the crowd when they are enjoying the local brew.
After lunch we had the chance to bag a chicken as we passed through a couple of villages. Alas our aim was out so no one had to part with the 3 Bs compensation fee. All too soon the road ended and we celebrated in style with Bill letting off a round (or 2) of fireworks. I think he was a bit miffed that the dynamite hadn't gone off in the Jungle. Boys will be boys...we then had a dip in the river which was clear for once rather than the murky gunge that usually passes for a river in Bolivia.
The Zongo valley was certainly beautiful and we got to experience it on the jeep ride back up.I appreciated this as had been too busy concentrating on riding on the way down. Being fourth or fifth rider in the bunch was certainly interesting as you were essentially trusting the person in front as the view of the road was sketchy due to the dust cloud being wiped up by those in front. It was also great to see a prosperous valley - the power scheme provides the villagers with a good job, and also helps with the local infrastructure.
Then an attempt at washing clothes and out for a very western last meal at Ram jam. I was looking forward to the taxi rides but they were pretty much nonevents as the city had emptied out due to the long weekend.
Over the next couple of days I hope to download some more photos. These will be interspersed with the text of the previous posts (as above). If you want to look at the posts in April then click on the link on the left of the blog "April archive" and they should come up.
My views on the Zongo road follow and hopefully some pictures
We had a great last day on the bikes, with a descent of around 4000m from Chacaltaya to the end of the Zongo road.
Chacaltaya in it's heyday used to be the highest skifield in the world. This was back in the 80s as there was clearly an absence of snow if we could mountain bike down the road from the main buildings. The views of Hyuana Potosi and the surrounding mountains were stunning.
We then blasted down the road to the turnoff to the Zongo turnoff. Here we were back on the jeep for the road to the head of the Zongo valley. The switchbacks began in earnest with altitude being lost very quickly. The road surface was pretty loose in the inside of the corners which made for some hairy moments at times. Add the big drop on one side and it certainly got the adrenalin flowing. The Zongo has about 8 dams in it and provides most of the electricity for La Paz. The engineering feats were certainly impressive. The ride was one great big downhill blast with very little traffic. We had lunch at the local football field where a tournament was taking place over the Holiday weekend (the Monday was May day, kinda like our Labour day). The Bolivians certainly know how to organise a knees up, with pop music blasting out during the game, an early conclusion so that the partying can begin and then a live band to sernade the crowd when they are enjoying the local brew.
After lunch we had the chance to bag a chicken as we passed through a couple of villages. Alas our aim was out so no one had to part with the 3 Bs compensation fee. All too soon the road ended and we celebrated in style with Bill letting off a round (or 2) of fireworks. I think he was a bit miffed that the dynamite hadn't gone off in the Jungle. Boys will be boys...we then had a dip in the river which was clear for once rather than the murky gunge that usually passes for a river in Bolivia.
The Zongo valley was certainly beautiful and we got to experience it on the jeep ride back up.I appreciated this as had been too busy concentrating on riding on the way down. Being fourth or fifth rider in the bunch was certainly interesting as you were essentially trusting the person in front as the view of the road was sketchy due to the dust cloud being wiped up by those in front. It was also great to see a prosperous valley - the power scheme provides the villagers with a good job, and also helps with the local infrastructure.
Then an attempt at washing clothes and out for a very western last meal at Ram jam. I was looking forward to the taxi rides but they were pretty much nonevents as the city had emptied out due to the long weekend.
Over the next couple of days I hope to download some more photos. These will be interspersed with the text of the previous posts (as above). If you want to look at the posts in April then click on the link on the left of the blog "April archive" and they should come up.
# posted by Greg @ 7:49 PM 
