Stumble in the Jungle

Sorry for the double-whammy but there is a bus strike in la Paz, so we are stuck here and bored. Hope you enjoy our walk on the wild side, or just flicking through the photos.

The World's Most Dangerous Road runs from La Paz towards the rainforest and is so named due to its accident rate. The road meanders up the side of the mountains, with a drop approaching 1000m in places. The worst single road accident in history occured here, when a truck carrying 100 people plunged over the edge. Not really our cup of tea!

We had three options: to do what everybody does - ride Death Road to Coroico with one of the many tour companies (we had already done a much higher, better and more interesting ride); catch the bus (err, see above); or do the El Choro trek, a three day walk from the mountains near La Paz, down into Coroico.

Ken and Kate had opted for the trek, and since we kept bumping into them we decided to listen to fate. Hence we found ourselves in a minibus at nearly 5000m, tyres spinning on fresh snow with an ominous lack of land disappearing into thick fog immediately to our right. We chose the safe route, right? The guide and driver's mate climbed onto the roof, we sat at the back; everybody jumped up and down and the van eventually lurched to the the trailhead.

We set off downhill, our guide, Guzmann, carrying a rucksack as big as him, his wife, the porter, walking in a skirt, flat shoes and carrying all our food and cooking stuff wrapped in a blanket on her back but tied around her neck. The Latin Americans make a mockery of us, with our fancy waterproofs and hiking boots. Wooly jumpers and sandals are the way forward! The trek was great, so many different ecosystems from snowy mountain to lush rainforest and everything in between, including quite a lot of rain (as the name suggests really). We camped at tiny villages (one consisted of one house), setting up our tents in thatched huts for extra weather protection. The lifestyle of the local people resembled an Oxfam poster, but don't mistake poverty for misery.

Finishing the trek in a tiny village, we needed to get to the weekend playground of the rich for La Paz; Coroico. The hour's journey was spent stood up in the back of a truck watching birds of prey swoop over our heads as we climbed the mountain to the resort. This is a good way to travel!

Coroico is a hilltop village with views towards the mountains, which change gradually from mountains to snow. They very thoughtfully provide hotels with swimming pools, looking out over this vista. There is just something about Bolivia which encourages doing very little, and three days later that is what we had done. Our hotel even had a restaurant and bar, so sometimes the pool is as far as we made it. Have we mentioned how hard travelling is?

An 18 hour bus ride would take us to the Amazon basin and Rurrenabaque. Considering we had done a three day trek to avoid the road of death, it's fair to say the bus journey was a little upsetting. I think the road was a little wider and the drops not quite as great, but there was still enough evidence that the driver making a little mistake would be very bad news: twisted metal corpses at the bottom of the valley every now and then. The bus was the most cramped we have been on yet and we had to go through two army check points and be searched, including a three in the morning stop when everybody was asleep. They were checking for anything that could be used in the production of cocaine; toilet paper was illegal, coca leaves were absolutely fine though! We decided to fly back.

If we were going to go into the jungle we thought it would be nice to support an ecotourism project. Luckily, Rurrenabaque was full of these, they all say so on their signs. The interpretations were varied though, with the worst being:

"What do you do to make it ecotourism?"

"We have marital beds."

There are a few responsible companies though and Madidi Travel were one of these; it is run by the woman who campaigned to have Madidi made into a National Park. A piece of advice we were given before leaving: "Don't walk to your cabin on your own as a jaguar might stalk you." Righto.

A two hour boat ride took us to the Serere Reserve, an area of lakes, jungle and primary rainforest. It was beautiful but nature is bloody noisy! The main lodge was surrounded by pigs and lizards and a couple of spider monkeys came over to play most days. We spent our time trekking through the rainforest, ducking under the webs of hand-sized spiders, marvelling at the assortment of insects, swatting mosquitos, tracking jaguars (it's better this way round), canoeing on the lakes, searching for caiman (similar to alligators) and fishing for piranhas. Very tasty they were too! We were regailed by Rosa's stories of the obstacles she faced trying to establish the national park; EU red tape has nothing on Bolivian bureaucracy. Her previous lodge (her home too) was burned down under government orders and the park now suffers from heavy timber extraction. She set up Serere as a private reserve in the hope of actually conserving some of the rainforest.

Warm, wet and smelling particularly bad, we headed back to Rurrenabaque to languish in the hammocks as we waited for our flight. An hour in a Bolivian military transport (the plane said FAB on the side) and here we are back in La Paz, stuck!

There would be more monkey photos but they are inconsiderate. Rather than strike a pose and hold it for the camera they just insist on swinging around instead. Weirdos! You'll just have to make do with insects and flowers, they're better posers.

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