Bolivia
Sep 20, 09:41 AM
Where do I start? Well, our crew consisted of some of the most bad ass mountain bikers and cinematographers in the world like Cedric Gracia, Robbie Bourdon, Dave Watson, and behind the camera Axle, Jorli Ricker, Nato Nash, Lucas Cane, and making sure we don’t die safety guy Dem whitley. Coming into this trip I didn’t really know what to expect except that we would be in a third world country with some serious political termoil and we would be at altitudes up to 18,000 feet. No problem, right?
After the hell drive to LAX it was time to start the journey to Bolivia with layovers in Costa Rica and Peru… 36 hours later we pulled into La Paz aeropuerto. We were greeted by our guide Allister who runs Gravity Assisted Tours, probably the best guide company down there. It was the middle of the night when we showed up but we still saw some of the sweet desolate landscape, some fine cuisine like rat on a stick (or dog). I even caught a glimpse of the Bolivian air force… yea it was dark but I think it was a big sling shot with these little guys lining up to get launched into orbit.
The airport is on this plateau a little out of town so we drove for a while then we came to the edge of a cliff. It turns out the town of La Paz is in this giant crater surrounded by mountains on all sides, so we dropped into the vert ramp to town. We pulled up to a building that looked like a prison that turned out to be a really nice hotel. Whoo hoo at least our hotel is nice. The next morning we woke up to a whole new world than we had entered the night before: A bustling city, people going this way and that it was pretty cool. We went on a little tour, had some bomb pizza and tried to get acclimated to the altitude. Later that evening we put our bikes together and got ready for what awaited us the next day.
Day two started out very early hopping into the specially equipped land cruisers. I noticed it didn’t take much to start breathing hard. Once the bikes and supplyies were all loaded up we started the trek up into the mountains. After about a two hour drive through a whole lotta nothing we ended up on the top of a mountain overlooking a small village. We ended up riding one of the sickest trails ever that day, switch backs through cactus with sheer cliffs on either side of you. Ultra steep drop-ins with ten foot tall ruts dug in by hundred’s of years of people using this trail to hike to the river that we would end up at. Everyone was so stoked on the day everyone was happy and healthy. No one knew what lay ahead, no one was prepared either.
The third day of the trip started early once again with our breakfast being prepared by our own personal chefs, not because were ballers but the fact that it was the only way to ensure our food would be prepared in a sanitary fashion. Even through all our efforts to avoid bacteria and disease.(Brush your teeth with bottled water, don’t open your eye’s or mouth in the shower, wash your hand’s all the time,etc.) we were still inevitably doomed. That day Jorli went out to shoot Cedric and Watson on the trail we had rode the day before and that is when it happened…
The first one to go down would be Jorli with giardia (if you dont know what that is basically you puke and shit your brains out till you pass out from the pain of all your muscles cramping). That was pretty scary figuring we were so careful with everything. Later that day when Robbie and I were building a jump at 17,000 feet he fell over and just laid there, after about an hour we figured we should see if he was still alive. Robbie would be the next to go down.
The Crew was still keepin her pinned and the next day gave us new hope that it would just be the two guy’s that got sick. We scoped new lines and scouted new territory and everyone was feeling good. The mountains were awesome, we found amazing potential for great lines, we were stoked. Later that night we had a big dinner and talked about the new zones. Everyone was laughing and having a great time except Watson, “What’s wrong buddy?” someone asked, Watson looked up at us and his face was pale white. We all knew he was going down. We were getting worried now. Would we all have the same fate?
The riding was so good and our guide was so eager to show us what bolivia had to offer. Cedric and I had an epic day shredding the terrain we had scoped the prior day. We also hit the canyon gap Robbie and I built a few days before. We had a full on day big air and high speed rippin, we had a blast and got some rad shots for New World Disorder as well. We all came home with smiles on our faces but in the back our heads we were all wondering who’s next to go? Well, our questions were answered when Nate turned a lovely shade of green. Damn! It was like clock work, everyday someone would get sick. Now we were getting scared. The riding was so good, but why does this shit have to happen, we wondered . A couple days passed and I was feeling good then all of a sudden during dinner I felt my stomach tell me that my number was up. Let the puking begin. I was lucky though, I didn’t really have the shits as bad as some of the other guys but I did project vomit like a scene from the poltergeist. Whoo Hooo! Can you say fun?
The following days had fun times in store for both Cedric and safety guy Dem altho they had pretty mild forms of the bug. What none of us could believe was that our head cinematographer Axle never showed a sign of anything considered sick. The only thing about Axle that was sick was his shots he got of us rippin the high altitude terrain. Axle was given the name poppa roach because you just cant kill him.
We all ended up getting better and finished the trip strong. We had a pretty wicked urban session on the second to last day which had the locals freaking out. They just could not believe we were stupid enough to jump our bike’s off the stairs and walls in town, they also thought we looked funny in our outfits. Before we new it we had to catch a 6 am flight back home. We said our goodbyes to all the friends we had made over the two weeks and our rad guide Allister gave us a ride to the aeropuerto. 36 hours later I was walking into an In & Out burger in LA. I swear a burger never tasted so good.
Bolivia had it’s ups and downs. Was it worth it? Yes. Would I go back? Probably. Was it an amazing life experience that resulted in some of the most amazing mountain biking ever caught on film…definitely. All in all the trip was a little hard on every one but the result was worth it. We met plenty of amazing people along the way. The culture was so interesting and there was a story behind everything from the towering statue of Jesus overlooking the valley containing the world’s most dangerous road (that’s the real name of the road) to the trails we were racing down. Bolivia is a great place with great people, some good, some bad, but all different. I feel so lucky to have been included on this trip. It’s left me with a new appreciation for where I live and what I have (not to mention a good In & Out Burger).