You’re on a mountain bike, rocketing down from a thin-aired pass high in the Andes when you see it. Where the valley floor broadens, a mountainside rises like a wall for a near vertical mile into a savage cluster of 17,000-foot, shark-tooth summits—and carved up its face is a trail. You stop and stare. It is a horrible, magnificent etching, cutting back and forth upon itself up the impossible. It is actually an old mule trail that reaches a high cirque where residents chip ice from a glacier to haul down to the nearest market, but all that matters to you then is that it has to be ridden.
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Muscling your way up the mountainside with a bike on your back, gravity viciously pulls on your plodding body. The trail beneath your feet, though, is the sweetest slice of plummeting, hairpin-switchbacking, mountain-biking nirvana imaginable.
This is Bolivia, the mountain biking paradise of the Americas—except that mountain bikers don’t know about it yet. Which makes it one of the world’s hottest yet most undiscovered singletrack destinations.
The country’s rugged, mountainous terrain has historically attracted outlaws (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), revolutionaries (Che Guevara), drug barons and Nazis. Now, that same terrain makes it an adventure seeker’s paradise. Add a rich history of Incan and pre-Incan trail building, and a present-day rural population that uses footpaths as its primary arteries for travel, and you have an unending web of frontier-style singletrack.
Riders in Bolivia can try their hand at cliffside jungle, scree slopes from 18,000-foot peaks, and steep footpaths winding into mountain hamlets. The ultimate ride is Takesi Trail, which features negotiating a bike-on-back hike over a scenic 15,000-foot pass, then a 9,000-foot descent down an Incan trail that plummets through prehistoric villages and ends in steaming green cloudforest.
This tour is strictly for expert riders, but those with less experience seeking a mellower trip (mellow being a relative term here) can take a different tour along Bolivia’s extensive network of four-wheel-drive roads.
Bolivia is poor and largely undeveloped. Although economic conditions are improving, expect very simple accommodations, ranging from basic hotels to camping. Most outfitters rent bikes and camping gear if you decide not to bring your own. If you choose to go for the 54,000 feet of descent, you’ll be exposed to some of the most remote and radical trail there is.
KE ADVENTURE TRAVEL, USA and UK
KE has been running adventure trips for more than 26 years. There is a 16 person maximum on mountain bike trips.
KE is the one of the world's leading independent adventure holiday travel specialist, with 26 years experience of operating small group trekking, climbing, family, cycling and school adventure holidays. Challenging climbs and endless descents make the perfect cycling holiday. While in mountain biking and cycling holidays we have 30 "epic rides" such as Lhasa to Kathmandu in the Himalaya and Lake Titicaca to Machu Picchu in the Andes.
KE Adventure Travel
32 Lake Road, Keswick
Cumbria, England
CA12 5DQ
Telephone: + 44(0)17687 73966
USA/Canada Toll Free: 1 888 630 4415
Brochure Line (UK only): 017687 71700
Fax: +44(0)17687 74693
Email: info@keadventure.com
Web: http://www.keadventure.com/