The Cordillera Real

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The Cordillera Real is a mountain range that sits between the high lands and the jungles of Bolivia. It is only 40 km across but drops from 6000 m to nearly sea level in the jungles. We decided to take one of the famous treks here known as “El Choro” trek. Again we just packed our bags and off we go. No more donkeys, guides and cooks. We started off at 4900 m in a near white out blizzard and walked a very old Inca route that dropped down to 1300 m near the jungle. Most interesting point about this trek is some great unrestored ruins and Inca steps. The change in weather from the altitude difference also left something to the imagination. Really pretty walk but very hard as a lot of the down was on steps, which seem to hurt more then just straight down. We ran into some pretty remote communities with some really friendly kids.

We had to return to La Paz along the world’s most dangerous road, and yes it really was that dangerous. Precipitous drop offs caused by waterfalls falling directly onto the road, landslides and simply cut directly into the mountain sides. This is one of the main routes from the highlands down into the jungle and was thus very busy with busses, trucks, cars and the nutty tourist doing the “Lonely Planet says do the bike ride as it is so cool” … NOT… When we were driving back up there were at least 300 people doing this stupid bikeride. As you can guess we have decided to spend our money going to the jungle instead…

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Photos

The start
Well it was a little cold at 4700m and nearly a white out.

Campsite 1
After walking through a near blizzard and then torrential rain, we ended up camping here for the night.

The steps of doom
Up up up we go. These are some original Inca steps. We are 2 days from the nearest road.

Real ruins
After Machu Picchu we thought we would not get to see ruins that have not bee restored, but here we are.

The children
Well when you run into such cute children, what more can you do but take a picture.

Timeout
After descending nearly 3000m and hitting some heat it was very nice to chill out and have a swim here in a jungle river.

Worlds most dangerous road
Well just to finish it all off we have to travel back on the “Worlds most dangerous road” which most people try to cycle down. This is a small section and deep in the background you can see more of it.