El Tajaban

February 3rd

Pablo, owner of our Cabin in Creel tells us of the road to "El Tajaban", a little traveled route terminating in the most spectacular view of any canyon in the area. This is a bold claim and requires some serious checking out, especially as the road is only 22kms of "good quality" dirt road and we can leave our things in Cusarare and have the luxury of riding light. He assures us there's just a bit of climbing and after that the road is excellent.

This is Pablo....

Clearly this man is insane and has a hugely over optimistic view of our cycling capabilities.

The small climb turns out to be a 500m gain in altitude covering 5kms of sand and rock taking one and a half hours. We never leave bottom gear! Sue bails out and returns home. I'm made of sterner (read - more stupid) stuff and believe Pablo's assertion that the road is excellent after the climb.

He's soooo wrong. This is without doubt the worst road I've ridden, and I've ridden Bolivian roads!! I fall off a loaded bike all the time - falling off a naked bike is just embarrassing. But, oh, these roads. After 4 hours I've made 16kms (10 miles) fell off twice and finally get my first view of El Tajaban maybe a kilometer across a ravine. I seriously contemplate turning back; even at this point..... I can see the next 6kms of road snaking down, then back up the other side of maybe a 350m chasm. 6kms of road to travel 1km in distance. But I just can't quit. Not now when I'm this close....

The road turns to pumice stone which grips the wheels just fine. Unfortunately it doesn't grip other bits of pumice stone too well, and the whole lot has a tendency to roll and slide. The going gets really steep dropping into the ravine and the bike begins to skid as I lock the back wheel. Then the front locks as well. A quick count of my wheels reveals that's all of them - they're all sliding now, and that's bad! The bike is picking up speed and there's a bend coming up. And after that - a 200m drop!

Fortunately the front wheel hits a rock, which is good as it stops the bike dead. The bad part is that I don't stop with it and fly over the handlebars. I just manage to vault the bars and land on my feet making the hop and skip from a triple jump. Then I'm skiing on a pair of size nine's rapidly trying to find some grip and scrub off speed. I drop and grab handfuls of rock and finally come to a stop, feet dangling over the edge. I just have time to feel my ears throb with the blood pounding; and decide, maybe I'm going to live..... when I see the bike didn't quite come to a stop and is careering over the edge as well. Straight towards me....

Thinking quickly, I don't let go of the rock to stop the bike.... I use my face instead. It hurts! But being smashed in the face has never made me feel so happy! The bike will live too! Visions of it turning from one lovely piece into 50 less lovely, more flat and mangled pieces causes a slight maniacal edge to my hysterical laughter as I drag myself back on to the road. Especially when I realise that could have been me!

This is the kind of incident that makes one take stock, and the rest of the ride is conducted at a more leisurely pace. Especially as the "road" disintegrates further to this....

This is the canyon....

It's nice.... but I really can't agree with Pablo that it's the finest view in all the kingdom and now I have to go back to Creel and kill him.

And that's how I get by for the return 22kms of "excellent" dirt road. Hate and vengeance are powerful drivers....

In total the ride is 44kms of dirt and 10kms of paved road - 34 miles. It takes 8 hours and it's the hardest day's riding I've ever done. I ache all over. Sue wisely decides to "just give me a minute" when I get back to realign my sanity.

I've decide not to kill Pablo.... it's probably bad for the tour, but if you do see this man....

Make sure you don't believe a word he says. And tell him there's a man from Manchester who wants a word with him!