Comment by lukan
12 days ago
"Is it relatively safe?"
I have not been to Bolivia myself, but this question is always relative.
It depends what you count as save and where do you want to go, but also on your experience.
"for intense adventure and lifelong memories. Yungas death road on a rented bike is another very memorable experience"
Parent seems to have a higher risk tolerance.
Also it matters a lot, if you can speak spanish and can act like a local. But if you look and act like a helpless gringo tourist, then you will likely get robbed or worse on the first day.
But I know people who hitchhiked there without serious trouble as white gringos. So the answer is probably, it depends.
I have more than a year of cumulative backpacking experience all around the world when its just you, guide book ie Lonely planet and a loose plan for maybe next 2-4 days, mostly India but also other places. I don't know if that makes me one with 'higher risk tolerance', definitely higher than 0 to actually experience anything interesting. But I do some more intense sports like climbing or paragliding where some risk is unavoidable and you do your best to minimize your exposure to it, and this mindset then permeates rest of your persona.
As for Bolivia, what parent described sounds like some extreme case of 'I walk randomly into favela with gold chain around the neck and rolex watches and shit happened' kind of foolish beginner behavior. Backpacking gives you some instincts what not to do. Did I feel safe in Bolivia in those few places we've done? Absolutely. Is the whole country completely safe in any situation? Most probably not, or it wasn't in 2018, no idea about current affairs. Btw neither me nor my fiancee/wife speak spanish, you can get by with 20 words if you have to.
I've gone to Iran in cca 2015 (Mont Damavand, a bit of culture), an amazing experience and one of my best. Wouldn't go there currently, not because common people got bad (no, they were amazing and everybody spoke english well) but politics made it unsafe.
"I don't know if that makes me one with 'higher risk tolerance'"
Compared to an average human, I would say yes.
And yes, speaking the local language is not a must, I also got by in poor and potential dangerous places by communicating with hand and feat. Eye contact.
The way one treats the people matters. Do they perceive you as a arrogant, bored rich westener who has come to visit the poor people zoo? That might end bad. But showing genuine interest yields different results.
Death road on a mountain bike isn’t all that dangerous. It got its name because it used to be the only route to and from Brasil. So you would get 2 way traffic of like box trucks on a smallish dirt road with a sheer cliff drop off on one side and a mountain on the other. Lots of them went off the cliff.
Now you can book a tour and they provide nice bikes and follow the group in a minivan. There is still some cars and such but it is mostly locals or tour groups. They built a modern highway so that route isn’t used for trucks anymore.
It is super beautiful and not really dangerous unless you want it to be. Totally worth it.
It only takes one mistake to fall off, it could be mechanical failure, hole in the ground after rain, someone in front of you stopping / looking back which cause them to drift (that what happened to me had to break hard and fell) I saw a video from helmet go pro of some girl hanging on shrubs on her life Nevertheless 40 km downhill with beautiful scenery would do it again :)
One mistake won't cause you to fall of unless you put yourself in a position where one mistake would lead to this: aka riding right next to the edge.
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