This really is the death road...

We left off at Sucre which is a beautiful colonial town in the centre of Bolivia. I caught up with the salt plains team and we spent three enjoyable nights there, relaxing and enjoying the sights and restaurants. We also visited our travel companion who had been laid up in hospital.

We all moved on at the same time and north is the plan. I decided to travel north east to Santa Cruz which is a booming city of over a million people that has recently experienced phenomenal growth. It is now the second biggest city in Bolivia and at sea level. There are signs of wealth in Santa Cruz and the weather is so much warmer it is like being in a different country. I spent a relaxing few days at a quality hostel with friendly travellers, three tucans, a parrot and a duck for company. The next port of call was La Paz which is the capital of Bolivia. I spent two days exploring after a long bus trip from Santa Cruz. La Paz is at 3700 metres and built in a natural crater. It makes for an incredible sight when you cross the top of the mountains and look down onto this city in a bowl. It was a great experience strolling through the maze of cobblestone streets.

I organized a mountain bike ride down the world's most dangerous road through my hostel. What a day! We quickly ascended in the minibus to 4700 metres and were then told to get out. It was raining and cold. We started riding downhill with mist severely restricting our vision, spray from the wheels hitting our faces, numb hands leaning on the brakes with a psi grip to rival the jaws of a tasmanian devil; then to top it off we started to climb uphill. I was cold, wet, out of breath, and now faced with negotiating 7 kilometres uphill without having worked out the operation of the gears yet. And I was paying to do this! I was very close to calling for a taxi but as my Irish mate can attest, who am I to complain.

The first section of the 70 kilometres is sealed and early in the ride my mate lost control in the wet and ate it right in front of me. After around three hours we arrived at the unpaved section of the death road. It is extremely sheer and dangerous and has crosses marking the many fatalities that have occurred while attempting to navigate this treacherous journey. Having negotiated approximately half of the very dangerous section my Irish mate tangled with a truck at very low speed, lost his balance and went over the side along with his bike. Thankfully in that section of the road he kissed mother earth within a second. I can tell you dear reader, there are literally hundreds of sections of the death road where you would run out of fingers and toes to count with before greeting mother earth, and it would be at 200 kph!

I stayed overnight in Coroico with my Irish mate and a few Aussies from the tour, our stay coinciding with a three day street fiesta for the locals. We witnessed street parades, drinking, dancing in traditional costumes, and more drinking. The Coroico locals were celebrating hard and good for them. A very arduous overnight bus journey followed from Coroico to Rurrenabaque at the foot of the Amazon, however I arrived in company with an Israeli travel companion just in time to link up with my three day Amazon tour in the Bolivian pampas.

The Amazon tour was wonderful and featured long boat rides up the river, jungle camps, hellish swarms of mossies, and some great adventures. We searched for and found an anaconda on day two as well as swimming near rare pink dolphins. On day three we fished piranhas out of the river and saw lots of wonderful wildlife including monkeys, a variety of beautiful birds and huge relatives of the guinea pig on the banks of the river. Our tour guide Jimmy and cook from Indigena tours did a wonderful job and none of us went hungry out in the Amazon.

In summary, Bolivia is a very diverse and rewarding travel destination but some of the commutes can be very gruelling and entail changes in altitude of thousands of metres. It is very tough on the body and sometimes you do not know whether you are Arthur or Martha. But as they say dear reader,............... basically all of you should be here now!

Top 3 Hotels/Restaurants
Residencial Bolivar - Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Hostal Charcas - Sucre, Bolivia
Jungle Bar Moskitto - Rurrenabaque, Bolivia

Top 3 Sights/Activities
Mountain Biking the death road - El Solario tours of La Paz, Bolivia
Rurrenabaque 3 day Pampas tour - Indigena tours of Rurrenabaque, Bolivia
Soccer with 5 year old boy while waiting for the bus
(We played with a squashed plastic coke bottle for a ball, and his face lit up when we graduated to a mini pringles can.)

As I continue my travels, until next time it´s signing off for now.

Tom

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