To the Jungle and Back

Alison, Ben, and I started off our 5 days of fun with a mountain bike trip down what a few years ago was classified as the worlds most dangerous road according to the Inter-American Development Bank. This road had an average of more than 25 vehicles go off of it each year, with 100´s of fatalities annually. Until a few years ago, it was the main road connecting La Paz, to the lowlands. The dirt road is one lane wide for almost the entire way and has a completely sheer drop on the side. Now the road is closed thanks a new 2 lane highway that was finished a few years ago.

A great picture of it can be found here: http://www.trekker.co.il/english/bolivia/b-death-02.htm

Now, mountain biking down it is a must-do activity as almost every tourist here seems to have a shirt that reads "I survived the death road". (Sadly, 2 bikers this year didn´t survive their ride to wear their t-shirts. )

Risk aside, it really was a fun experience. We were with a group of rowdy Brazillians med students. They made the trip fun, I just wouldn´t want to be their patient after they become doctors!

For those of you interested in altitudes we started our ride at 4633 meters (15,200 feet) and ended up at about 1130 meters. The dangerous part of the road was only about 1100 meters of the ride. It was really incredible to start out in an area of only snow and rock and freezing temps and end up in a hot sticky jungle a few hours and only 63 km later.

The next day the 3 of us left La Paz for a 3 day river tour of the jungle. We first had to drive 10 hours (they told us 5) to where we got on this huge motorized canoe with 10 other tourists. We were with some crazy people, a (straight) couple from Seattle who had a construction company catering to gay people, a pot smoking 5th grade teacher from Boston, and a German couple that did so many drugs that even the 5th grade teacher was impressed.

This was an organized tour, and the guides set-up tents for us, cooked our food, the works. It poured all night the first night and the second-rate tents they had just slowed the water down before getting to us. I (Danny) got pretty sick that night too so that added to the misery.

We spent the next day and a half racing down the river (the boat had a 55 hp engine!) and going on guided nature walks. Our guides weren´t too keen on the jungle flora and fauna though. We asked what one common call we kept hearing was and one of our guides said monkey. We asked the other guy and he said tucan (a bird). They warned us about the dangers of the jungle and how easy it is to get lost. One of our guides said there are these goblins that live there that take you captive and have a big party and get you drunk so you get disoriented and can´t hear people shouting to rescue you. One of our guides said he expericed this (seriously!).

We were ready to be done after the 3rd day. The boat dropped us off in the small town of Rurrenabaque. Ben flew out to finish his MCC duties they next day and Alison and I were due to fly day after that. Unfortunately, the weather was bad and the small grass runway was closed for a day. This backed up the flights and Alison and barely made it out after sitting around for a day and a half. There were 50 or so other tourists in our predicament and we all kept cheking in the tiny airlines office in town for news. They would always say check back in an hour. We were losing hope when suddenly they came up these lists of people who were on the 4 flights that were going to get out. We were on one of the lists thank goodness... The other people were stuck there another 2 days at least.

We were happy to be back in La Paz and in our not-so-nice (but we are growing to love) Hotel Happy Days. For our last hurrah in Bolivia we spent 2 days in the pretty town of Sorata. It is situated about 1000 meters lower than La Paz, but right at the foot of 2 of Bolivias highest peaks. We went on a day hike searching for a high alpine lake we read about in a book. They really want tourists to hire a guide so there are no signs to anything and the route to the lake involves navigating a maze of trails across hillsides, rivers, and through tiny villages. When we finally got almost there we decided to turn around due to time and the fact that we were almost out of water. The views were still stunning and I hope to come back to this area some day and explore some of the higher terrain.

Tomorrow we are off to Panama, heat, and thunderstorms. I can´t wait.