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Published: August 6th 2007
The bus ride to La Paz from Copacabana is quite an experience. Half way through the journey everyone has to leave the bus to get a boat across a narrow straight of Lake Titicaca while the bus gets on its own boat. The buses boat however isn’t very stable at all and more than once we watched as it tipped all over the place threatening to shed its load and all our stuff with it! Once on the other side however we jumped back on and carried on our merry way. The approach to La Paz is equally as unforgettable; the bus rises over a lip of a canyon revealing an incredible view of the city sprawled all over the floor and rising up the sides, with the snow capped peak of Illimani dominating the background.
The city is pretty small and doesn’t have any major sights so we spent a couple of days exploring the many markets and soaking up the lively street life, we also used it as an excuse to pick up some small souvenirs and clothes as it’s all so cheap. We also booked ourselves on a bike trip from the city, which would be the
first part of our journey to Rurrenabaque, a gateway to the Bolivian Amazon.
We booked our bike trip with Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking from La Cumbre to Coroico down ‘the world’s most dangerous road’ a popular trip with many operators but we’d been recommended the company by fellow travellers and it’s the only one mentioned in the guidebook. We met in a café at 7 in the morning and grabbed some breakfast, were introduced to our guides, who looked and acted like hardcore bikers, then shepherded aboard a small mini bus for the 20 minute ride to La Cumbre, 4760m above sea level. Once off the coach we were given our safety equipment, although Faye and I had declined a jacket and trousers as we both had our own and it saved us a few bucks not hiring them. We were also assigned a bike set up to our height, which we provided when we booked. We were given the obligatory safety talk and coached on where to position the pedals for safe cornering and then had to make an offering to mother earth. This consisted of sprinkling some 98% alcohol on the ground and then taking a swig,
it tasted pretty much like battery acid and I’m not convinced getting wasted is such a great idea but hey, ‘when in Rome’!
We soon got going down the first section of the road which was sealed with tarmac. This was great fun as you’re able to just fly down without worrying too much about stability; it really is incredible how much speed you can build up on a bike. We were overtaking lorries and other groups without too much worries, but as is always the case, good things always end and there are a few uphill sections at the end to contend with, which although not too steep, due to the altitude you got breathless really quickly and Faye and I, like most people jumped off and walked up (the altitude was my excuse anyway).
After the tarmac section you start down a rocky dirt road, dubbed ‘the worlds most dangerous road’ as 80-120 people used to die on it every year. It’s easy to see why the death toll is so high, the road is extremely narrow in some places, has hundreds of blind corners, waterfalls running over it and to top it off a drop
of several hundred meters down one side. Thankfully a new tarmac road has been built which bypasses the road so now most traffic doesn’t use it, I’m not sure how this has affected the stats, but I’m guessing the road no longer gets such a frightening accolade as it’s almost solely used by bikers like us.
The road starts at 3150m and descends through quite lush vegetation and in our case a whole lot of clouds. Sadly this obscured the view so we couldn’t fully appreciate just how far the drop is down the side of the road but it was kinda cool to cycle through the mist not really knowing what was coming up next. We stopped regularly, for snacks and photo opportunities and then moved on. After one of the water falls I happened to be behind one of the guides and in the process of trying to keep up was going too fast, hit some loose gravel and braked too hard which all accumulated in me going arse over tit and wiping out, thankfully into the rocks at the side of the road and not over the edge. I got up pretty quickly and brushed myself
Spider Monkey.
Surely it's not time to get up already?off, it didn’t hurt too bad probably because I was still all fired up on adrenaline, but when I looked down I noticed I’d shredded the elbow of my Gore-Tex jacket. Arghhh now that was painful, I saved 2 whole dollars not hiring one of theirs and just destroyed $200 worth of mine. Next time someone offers something for hire, I’m just going to get it, there’s probably a reason they’re hiring them out. It turned out after I removed the jacket that I had injured myself after all, my elbow was pretty ruined and bloody, but it would wait till the bottom so it could be cleaned properly, don’t want to get an infection to top it all off.
Once at the bottom (1100m) we arrived at a small animal sanctuary called La Sende Verde, where we were given our survivors (but only just) t-shirt and a free lunch. Faye and I were the only riders not planning on going back to La Paz as we were going to carry on to Rurrenabaque by bus in the morning and as it was possible to spend the night here, we opted to stay and enjoy the rest of the
afternoon and next morning playing with the monkeys and trying to get some photos. One of the monkeys took a real shine to me, which was all good fun till it peed on me while trying to eat dinner. Eurghhhh.
The next day we left around 3pm (4pm South American time) on a typically uncomfortable local bus to Rurrenabaque. We’d been told this could take anything from 14 to 20 hours for this trip so I’d not been looking forward to it at all, as it turned out the scenery we drove through was pretty spectacular, and after a few stoppages due to landslides and picking up passengers from other buses with breakdowns we arrived at 8.30 in the morning, 16.5 hours not too bad, still I wouldn’t want to do it again. We spent the rest of our day looking round the small town, booked a 3 day Pampas tour starting the next morning and a return flight to La Paz when we return from the tour.
Pampas tour
We started the tour early, by throwing our stuff on the top of a 4x4 and jumping in the back, we were joined by 6 others and
Turtle.
Just kicking back sunning itself. met our guide, Jaki who we soon nicknamed Jackie Chan, due to a vague resemblance (you had to squint real hard) and the fact that he always wore a bandana which made him look bad-ass cool. Sadly he also spoke no English whatsoever but Bolivian Spanish is really slow and it’s quite easy to get the general idea of what he was going on about. We drove for 3 hours along some terrible dirt tracks before stopping for dinner at a small village and then jumping on a long boat a few more minutes just outside the village to get to our lodge. We rode the boat for about an hour and a half, along the way spotting various wildlife including turtles, birds (hundreds of), the odd glimpse of a pink river dolphin and some monkeys (howler and squirrel). The lodge we arrived at was basic but pretty well set up with some awesome hammocks for some serious chilling. We were told to relax for a bit before dinner, after which we’d go looking for some alligators, the perfect time to try out the hammocks.
We were given some long sleeved shirts at dinner and told to wear a
hat, long trousers and smother ourselves with insect repellent before we came out at night. We all did as we were told and jumped in the boat, soon realising why we were taking all the precautions. As soon as you turned on your torch the first thing you noticed were the swarms of mosquitoes all over you, it was better to leave them turned off and pretend they weren’t there! We spent about half an hour fruitlessly cruising about trying to see anything when Jaki pulled the boat to the shore, marched us all out through some forest in the pitch black and then told us to wait for 10 minutes, he’d be right back. A very short while later he returned holding a small baby alligator he’d found, and after giving us some explanations and allowing us a touch he gently returned it to the water and we watched it quickly swim off. Pretty cool, but I’d much rather see a huge monster one from the ‘safety’ of the boat, but then these things are never guaranteed. We returned afterwards to the lodge for some more relaxing till bedtime.
The next morning we were woken quite early for
breakfast, and discovered loads of Capuchin and Squirrel monkeys running and jumping through the trees around the lodge, especially near the kitchen area much to the chefs annoyance. After breakfast we were told again to wear all our mosquito precautions and put on a pair of wellington boots as we were going to try and find some Anacondas in the pampas. Faye and I spent ages trying to find some boots which didn’t have any holes or splits in them and in the end perseverance paid off, even though they were too big and in Faye’s case two left feet.
We cruised along the river for fifteen minutes or so and then pulled over to the bank and all jumped off. We walked for a short distance into the pampas and I quickly got mud all up the back of my jeans, how annoying… only then did I look up and see Jaki up to his chest in dirty brown water. Hang on, why on earth are we wearing these boots? We all soon joined him, with minimal complaints thinking that at least if we spot an Anaconda it’ll all be worth it. We all trudged around the pampas
Squirrel Monkey
Unbelievebly cute... for about two hours finding nothing, the novelty soon wore off and I’m sure the cursing and shouting when we regularly fell over and the singing to keep us occupied really didn’t help the serpent spotting. We were eventually led back to the boat where Jaki, told us to give him half an hour before disappearing back into the pampas. Here we go again! He returned about 10 minutes later holding about a 2 meter long anaconda… really goes to show how good we are at scaring the things off. After some explanations we were all allowed a hold and things really got exciting as when one of our group handed it back to Jaki he let go of the head too early and it quickly flipped around and sank it’s fangs into his finger. Thankfully the guy had the sense to grab the head again so Faye could quickly tend to Jaki’s finger which was now gushing blood everywhere. It’s a good job we weren’t looking for any venomous snakes as we’d be screwed if it was left up to us to try and find our way back to the lodge with the boat! After all the excitement was
Squirrel Monkey
Unbelievebly cute... over we watched the snake disappear into the bushes and continued back to the lodge for some lunch.
In the afternoon we went fishing for some piranhas, Jaki cut up some meat into small cubes as and when we needed it and we all threw our lines into the water. I quickly caught a fish I assumed was a piranha and proudly showed Jaki, only to be told it wasn’t a piranha it was a sardine, I’m not sure that one translated quite as well into English from Spanish as it certainly didn’t look like any sardine I’d ever seen, still at least it was a fish. After a couple of hours no one was having any luck apart from Faye who caught a catfish and me as I’d caught 3 more ‘sardines’. Thankfully Faye then pulled one into boat just as we were deciding whether to give up or not proving that there was at least some swimming round under the murky water. It was really cool to see the object of so many people’s nightmares flapping about helplessly with its big menacing teeth. This was the only fish we kept and after dinner it was brought out,
cleaned and fried up so we could have a taste, Faye was also given its bottom jaw lined with razor sharp teeth as a souvenir, it was actually really tasty and it’s easy to see why it’s a staple part of some peoples diet here in the Amazon. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing before going to bed.
The next morning after breakfast we were told to bring our swimming stuff as we were going to try and find some dolphins and go swimming in the river. We were in the boat for quite a while but thankfully we kept stopping to spot various other wildlife before getting to an area where there were supposed to be lots of dolphins. It didn’t take long till we saw some surfacing, although they’re very shy and only ever popped up briefly, it also didn’t help that the river was almost black so you could never predict where or when one would show itself. We were all craning our heads round and round eagerly trying to take photos but mostly just getting shots of disturbed water as by the time the shutter went off they’d submerged again. It was really
Big Alligator
Lurking, waiting for the unsuspecting tourist. strange to see something you think exclusively lives in the ocean swimming round in an environment like this. After a short while the boat was tied up to some reeds and we were told we could go swimming. Only a few of us actually got in and the water wasn’t particularly warm but it was quite exhilarating swimming in murky water that you watched a piranha get pulled out of the day before. We also had some dolphins swimming around us but they never came too close. After pulling ourselves out and drying off it was back to the lodge for some lunch, our final meal before heading back to Rurrenabaque.
Although at times uncomfortable, (I probably had well over 50 insect bites, mostly on my legs), this tour was excellent and I’d definitely do it again. Most of the time you see the same species of birds and wildlife over and over again but every now and then you get that sudden thrill of setting eyes on something new for the first time and I’m glad I took along a pair of binoculars as it made it much easier to actually see the details of the animals we
were looking at. I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in seeing a small part of what the Amazon really has to offer.
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Mum W
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You must be mad
Fantastic descriptive writing Michael and the photos are brillant. But you are both quite mad.