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Published: July 26th 2008
One night back at ¨home¨at Arthys in La Paz. I realised at one point that even the name is familiar and comforting, as Dad´s name is Arthur, and is called Arthy by some people.) A good vego feed at the local Govindas restaurant and then it was off with Laurence and Phillipe for the Choro Trek the next morning.
It cost us a few dollars each to catch a taxi out to the trail head, about half an hour out of La Paz, up in the mountains. The 3 day trek is one of the best I have done in South America. It links the dramatic Andes ranges with the cloud forest and subtropical Yungas below, following an Inca trail and going through several small villages whose only access road is the walking trail itself. I love the name, cloud forest, which I think just means high altitude rainforest, but I have always pictured it as a forest of clouds which it pretty much is. Because of its high altitude, it is also one of the most fragile and endangered ecosystems in the world, especially with climate change, so it felt special to be walking through.
As I mentioned,
the trek started up in the mountains. A bit of a climb till nearly 5000 meters above sea level, and then it was down hill all the way baby, to almost sea level... with lots of up hills thrown in. It was pretty damn hard on the knees and I now know why people use trekking poles. I think I want some! Is this yet another sign of getting old?
Most people choose to start the trail at the top and work their way down as it is easier though in hindsight, maybe it would have been easier on the knees to go the other way. Right near the beginning of the trek though, a woman dressed in traditional Aymara costume carrying the typical load of goods wrapped up in a blanket over her shoulder and wearing only flimsy slippers came walking UP, with two kids in tow. I felt like a big wuss with my expensive hiking boots and fitted padded suspended women's backpack. Guess walking poles would have added to the contrast even more.
It was great to hang out with Laurence and Phillipe again. They also met two other really nice French friends on the
trail, so we all walked together and talked Franglish and Spanglish. We have plenty of people to stay with in France now. Maybe Europe will have to be our next destination... the two other guys we met are travelling around documenting different education systems around the world, so that was pretty interesting to hear about. I love the idea of creating a good excuse to travel, not just to travel for travel´s sake like we are doing. It starts to feel very self indulgent and even hedonistic after a while.
At the end of the hike, we stayed in a small town called Coricoco, camping in the yard of a semi fancy hostel that had a swimming pool. I do not know how excited they were to see 6 smelly hikers strip down to their underwear and dive in to the pool, but we did not care.
Oh, and you might remember me writing about the death road and how much I wanted to avoid it... well, at the end of the hike, we had to go up a bit of it. I was scared, but we decided it would be ok, and that the hike would be
worth it. We payed extra to get a private car with a sensible driver, and we are still alive.
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