Maybe we should´ve flown?

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Thankfully we wake up feeling almost human but weak as kittens. We have just enough energy to drag ourselves onto the bus to Rurrenabaque in the Amazon basin. Apparently it´s a 20hr drive, although it´s only about 200 miles from La Paz on my map...it later becomes clear why it takes so long. We´re assured that the new highway is now open, so we won´t be leaving the city on The World´s Most Dengerous Road (it´s official title after an average of 26 vehicles per year meet a sorry end). No, as it turns out, we´ll just be joining it an hour later as that´s as far as the road has been built...thanks for telling us that bit bus ticket lady. So this blog should also be filed with the warning tag: Look away now mum & dad, and sorry again...love you! x

The road plunges from the heights of La Paz down into the Yungus region...the meeting of the Andes and the jungle. It drops more than 3000mtrs in just 75km of road, which by the way isn´t really ´road´, more gravelly path, about 3mtrs wide, hugging the side of the mountain, with sheer drops of up to a kilometer, and no safety net, and gnarly rocky overhangs making the way ever narrower. And I think to myself, ¨maybe we should´ve flown?¨

When I peer downwards into the jungly expanses far below, I still can´t see the bottom. I know this is probably the most dangerous situation I´ve ever been in, but am feeling strangely calm. Unlike most of my Bolivian neighbours who obviously read more newspapers than I do. To make the nerves jangle even more, as the road is only wide enough for one lane there are turnout ledges for when vehicles meet. Which they do. With great frequency. We constantly come face to face with massive logging company trucks and tankers with ¨Peligroso - Combustible¨ printed on the side...great. We have to inch onto these ledges and sqeeze past each other as our driver keeps one eye on the bus wheels at the edge of the abyss.

We should be freaking out by now but are strangely lucid, as if we´ve already accepted our fate. Luckily our driver is a good one (ie not drunk) and there´s no recklessness, other than being on this bus in the first place, let alone choosing to drive this route every week...I find myself wondering what these guys get paid in danger money and what their life expectancy is.

I think the stunning landscape soothes and distracts with it´s literally Jurassic beauty. Deep green jungle covered mountainside scored with waterfalls, it really is breathtaking.

As darkness approaches and it becomes clear that we´ve still got awhile to go on this road the thought of the 1hr flight again crosses my mind...is ten times the cost of the bus really that much? But we stay on the calm side of the street and try to sleep.

I wake an hour or so later to find that a Bolivian family now lives in my lap. Having reached the bottom of the crazy road, we´re now passing through lowland villages and the bus is doing pick up/drop offs so that all standing room is now also taken. There´s a baby on the floor of the aisle next to me, her mother is curled up half in my footwell, her mother is perched on my armrest and a younger sibling leans on the back of my seat...cosy! As I fitfully doze like this for the next 6 hours I think, maybe we should´ve flown.

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