Bocas del Toro- the beach at last!!

Before we left for our travels I was very excited about seeing South America and returning to Central America; I thought we'd mainly be on beaches and in lovely warm weather-perfect. I obviously hadn't really thought it through and was a bit miffed when half way through the trip we'd only spent 1 month on beaches and in warm weather. We have basically been cold for about 4 months..so imagine our excitement about getting to an island off Panama for a few days..there was definitely going to be a beach there!! And it was HOT!

Bocas del Toro is an archipelago off the Panama Caribbean coast full of tiny picture perfect islands with white sanded beaches and pristine jungle behind. It is beautiful. We stayed on the main island, Isla Colon about a 40 minute boat trip away from the mainland. The town has a very slow paced atmosphere with little coffee shops, bakeries and lots of yummy seafood restaurants. We visited a lovely beach on this island called Bocas del Draco where we spotted literally hundreds of huge starfish! One day we got a 10minute water taxi over to a nearby island, Isla Bastimentos and spent the day on Red Frog Beach, a pretty much inhabited white sanded gorgeous beach with apparently a large number of poisonous red frogs, however we didn't see one. Our favourite beach was Wizard Beach, although the water was too rough to swim in, it was great watching the surfers attempt to stay upright! It was so good to be on a beach again, and such amazing beaches too!! They rivaled the Brazilian beaches we had spent a month on all that time ago!! We spent about 4 days on the islands and loved it so much, looking forward to months of beaches ahead of us!! No more cold!!

Panama City

It seems the famous Canal isn't all Panama City has to offer! We stayed in the city for 3 days and had a really good time exploring the sights. We stayed in the old part called Casco Viejo, the historic center of Panama City. The narrow bricked streets and the colourful buildings here make this part of town absolutely beautiful- really old colonial style houses with wrought-iron balconies spilling over with bright tropical plants, many lovely old churches and ruins of the past. It was so nice to wonder around and learn about the history of Panama through the buildings and see the presidents house too!

One morning we visited the Parque Natural Metropolitano, a 265-hectare tropical forest, just minutes from the city. Most of the park is dry lowland Pacific forest, now rare in Central America because of deforestation, and it’s home to about 45 species of mammals, 36 species of reptiles, and 14 species of amphibians. Of course we saw very little of this! We went on a short 2 hour hike and saw a family of little turtles and a raccoon. Oh and LOTS of mosquito's. We walked up to a mirador with amazing views over the city and the canal.

The city has so many different parts to it, there is the old part with it's beautiful colonial buildings then there is the shiny new banking district consisting of huge sky scrapers- it has a dense skyline, including mostly apartment buildings, but office complexes and hotels as well. There is also the Amador Causeway, which is a roadway and walking path that stretches from the mainland to four small islands in the Panama Bay. It was actually constructed from rock that was removed from the construction of the Panama Canal and overlooks the entrance to the canal so you can watch the ships enter. The roadway is lined with palm trees and ends up the at Balboa Yacht Club where the rich of Panama come and play. We walked along the Causeway and watched the sun go down over the city skyline and spotted lots of huge pelicans fishing for their supper!

Panama - There's a Canal Here Apparently

So, we are now in Panama. A long way from Bolivia. How did this happen? Well, our original plan was to get to Panama by land and sea. We were going to travel up the Western side of South America, through Peru and Equador, and then get a boat from Colombia. We were hoping to arrive in Panama around mid June.

Due to us not quite realising how big South America actually is (particularly Argentina - it's massive!) we found ourselves in La Paz, Bolivia on June 22nd. For the geographically challenged - that is roughly 1500 miles away from Panama City. Getting there by mid June seemed unlikely. It was time to get a flight.

4 flights to be exact. A direct flight was ridiculously expensive, and way way out of our budget range, so we went with the classic La Paz (Bolivia) - Lima (Peru) - San Salvador (El Salvador) - San Jose (Costa Rica) - Panama City (Panama), route. After much sleeping in airports we eventually arrived at our destination, and booked into a hostel in the middle of Casco Viejo - a very picturesque, slightly run-down part of the city. We were in Central America!

Now, Panama is famous for two things: Panama hats, and some kind of canal thingy. We reasoned that if we managed to experience both of these things in just one day, then we'd be winning as far as cultural experiences go. So, after a day of catching up on sleep, we made our way 10 miles west of the city, to the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal ...



At Miraflores there is a great viewing deck 5 stories above the locks, giving visitors an unobstructed view of boats passing through. Whilst this is going on, a semi-comprehensible man shouts facts at you through a megaphone. Here are some of his best:

- The canal is 80km long, and over 14,000 ships pass through each year.
- Ships pay according to weight, with the average cost currently at $30,000.
- The amounts paid seem like a lot, but the alternative (2 weeks of dangerous travel circumnavigating Cape Horn) would run much higher in crew and fuel costs.
- The least paid was 36 cents in 1928 by Richard Halliburton. He swam through.
- 3 sets of locks are needed to raise each ship 85ft through the canal, and a further 3 are needed to lower it back to sea level. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans are around the same height, but the canal passes over hills requiring these locks.
- Due to the locks, it takes over 8 hours for a single ship to pass through. - A new $5 billion project has just been launched to widen and deepen the canal, more than doubling the size of ship that can use it. This work is due to be completed in 2015.

OK that's more than enough facts. Seeing the ships go though was great to watch, despite it being a very slow process. We were there for two hours and only saw 3 ships pass by!

However, we failed to see any Panama hats at Miraflores, so we hurried back to Casco Viejo to complete our tasks for the day. We saw disappointingly few people wearing them (and no Panamanians) but fortunately we found some in a shop under the sign "Please Don't Take Pictures With The Hats". The following pictures therefore were taken surreptitiously behind a bookcase:

PS. "Panamanian" is now my favourite word.

Bolivian WWF

On our last day in Bolivia, before our scheduled flight to Panama, we decided to do something typically Bolivian and go and see the wrestling. Yes the wrestling. Apparently it's all the rage in El Alto, one of the poorer suburbs of La Paz.

On the day in question we were both severely hungover, and it was touch and go whether we would make it to the "arena" at all. Fortunately we purchased tourist tickets (at around double the rate of normal tickets) which entitled us to minibus transfer to/from our hostel, as well as a free snack, souvenir, and one free use of the toilet. The minibus transfer was essential as we did not possess enough working brain cells to get there independently.

We arrived to find the venue unheated and freezing cold (naturally). We were ushered to our front row seats, and presented with our snack and souvenir - some disgusting bright orange wotsit type things, and a 3mm high representation of a Bolivian woman in traditional dress (called a Cholita).

We were significantly more impressed with our free gifts however, than with the quality of the next 2 hours of "wrestling" that we were forced to witness. The first battle was between a man crammed into a cheap looking skeleton costume, verses another man in an extremely tight spandex number. The "fighting" took the form of scripted, rehearsed and incredibly poorly executed wrestling moves of the type seen in late 1980s WWF bouts, except without the talent, athleticism or personality. The Bolivian crowd, consisting mainly of fanatical middle aged woman - and some slightly less fanatical children - absolutely loved it. The ringside tourists, including us, didn't.

The next fight wasn't much better, but it did include a "bad guy" who everyone booed and threw whatever food they could at him (namely, the disgusting bright orange wotsit type things). Once everyone had run out of ammunition, the fight was equally appalling, and lasted a very long half hour.

We prayed the third fight would be an improvement. It wasn't, and we began to lose the will to live. Liz passed out on my shoulder for most of the fight, and I began to curse the fact that we had to wait until the bitter end to get the minibus back. After the third epic battle had finally ended, it was time for the interval. We had sat there, unpleasantly hung over, for 2 hours of a truly awful spectacle ... and we were only half way through.

We made a decision - if the next fight wasn't any good, we'd eschew our lift home and try and make our own way back. The extra expense and brain ache would be infinitely better than sitting through another 2 hours of that rubbish.

The contenders for the next battle marched out to their signature theme tunes. We were primed and ready to sneak out. Then something strange and wonderful happened. One of the wrestlers appeared to be a woman. A woman in traditional dress ... a Cholita! Once in the ring she began to beat her (male) opponent really quite viciously, and with more gusto than any of the previous combatants. It was still a rehearsed fight, but this one was far better acted and much more entertaining than the preceding three. We decided to postpone our leaving time by a bit longer.

Then, suddenly, after the Cholita had thrown her opponent out of the ring - a man in a wolf suit leapt from under the canvas, grabbed the man, and dragged him back under. Without an opponent, the Cholita turned her attention on the ref. She threw him against the ropes, hit him in the face, clotheslined him, picked him up, chucked him violently to the floor - all the usual tricks. This continued for a few minutes until her original oppenent crawled out from under the canvas with all his clothes ripped. The man in the wolf suit then emerged, and started swinging at everything in sight. The three "humans" all clubbed together to try and beat this wolf-man up, but failed miserably at each turn. As a last resort, the ref "found" some wooden crates that they proceded to throw at the wolf-man, and some rope that they briefly managed to tie him up with. The wolf-man escaped from these traps then used the crates to batter his assailants with. He "knocked-out" the Cholita and the ref with tremendous blows to the head with the crates (which actually shattered on impact) then suplexed the Cholita's original opponent, pinning to the canvas in the process. The stadium announcer heralded the wolf-man as victor and he left to a chorus of boos, stopping only to scare some middle-aged fanatics in the front row. Stage hands then appeared to drag the "unconscious" bodies of the other 3 out.

It was one of the most bizzare half hours of my life.

The last two fights followed the same theme without ever reaching the surreal heights of that one. There was a Cholita vs. Big Old Fat Woman fight which was entertaining, and a 2-on-2 male battle to finish it off. We also heard rumours of an appearance by a dwarf, which sadly failed to materialise. In total we spent 4 hours in the cold of the arena; two in pain and boredom, one-and-a-half having fun, and thirty minutes in complete culture shock. All in all - worth it.

Zongo Valley Disaster!

We had a few more days in La Paz after flying back from Rurrenbaque so after much deliberation and debate we decided to partake in another bike ride. The reasons behind the decision were basically that we had such a great day on the Worlds Most Dangerous Road bike ride and everything went so well (i.e we didn't die and I didn't fall off or break the bike) that we thought the bike ride curse of the past had been lifted and we would have successful bike rides from now on. So we signed up for the Zongo Valley bike ride.

The Zongo Valley is a beautiful green valley about an hour outside of La Paz, it's hard to imagine beautiful scenery so close to such a crazy, dirty, busy city like La Paz, but it is out there..and its amazing. The valley is flanked by the Cordillera Real mountain range comprised of 50 snow capped mountains which make the scene even more spectacular. The highest is Mount Illimani at 6,438m and can be seen in all its glory on any clear day from La Paz. Huayana Potosi is 6,012m and is pretty spectacular too. The third big one is Chacaltaya, a glacerial mountain at 5,421m. Chacaltaya serves as Bolivia's only ski resort and boasts to be the world's highest lift-served ski area. Our bike ride started at the top of Chacaltaya!

We were taken up to about 5,000m of the mountain and then walked up to the top. It was the hardest 400m walk of my life! It was really hard to breathe and it was sooo cold!! I was so happy to reach the top but also felt awful, it was the coldest I have ever been- I couldn't feel my hands or feet..I wanted to cry I was so cold! But we'd made it to 5,421m- the highest we've ever been..so we were pretty happy and the views of the mountains around us were fantastic. I quickly got back down to 5,000m though and added about 2 more layers of clothing. So this is where the bike ride began-really high up! The first 5 minutes were great, we raced down steep gravel track full of switch backs, on the side of the mountain. I was so pleased..it was all going well so far. But then I started to feel sick, really sick. I kept going, thinking it would pass, but I felt weak and light headed and I had to stop. Unfortunately it seemed I had a small case of altitude sickness..how annoying!! I was so upset! My bike was packed up onto the safety van following us and I got in, feeling awful. Things started to look up though when our guide got out an oxygen tank and a mask for me- amazing! So I sat in the back of the van, following Chris and the others cycle along, breathing in the best oxygen I had inhaled for about a month-given that we were rarely below 3,000m in Bolivia! I felt much better very quickly and wanted to get out and cycle again, although I could really appreciate the amazing views of Huayana Potosi from the comfort of the van..it was spectacular!

I was fully recovered and ready to get back on my bike after about half an hour, this section of the ride was the most technical apparently- it consisted of a number of switch backs very close to one another on a dust track. I started well and was feeling confident. Chris and the guys (there were only 5 of us, 3 of which were professionals!) went on and I continued at a steady pace behind for about 20 minutes when disaster struck. I am still not entirely sure what happened but I think I hit a rock and jammed on the breaks too hard and flew right over the handlebars onto the dirt track a meter or so in front. I fell on my head and hit my knee really badly in the fall too so I couldn't get up or move. So I just lay there in tears and waited for help. Help came quickly- the safety van had caught up with me and the driver helped me into the van. We caught up with the boys and Chris was horrified to see me in such a state..and back in the van! I was in a lot of shock and so disappointed that the ride went so badly! Why did we think a bike ride was a good idea??!!

Luckily nothing was broken, just a few cuts and graises..and I had a very nice ride in the van through the Zongo Valley- luckily the scenery was fab so it really wasn't that bad! Chris had a great ride, it worked out quite well as he could ride as fast as he wanted and not worry about me behind him! Once we reached the bottom of the valley we all had a well deserved beer and a great picnic.

As always with us, the drama doesn't end there. We had given some clothing in to a tailors the day before to be fixed, as it's so cheap in Bolivia we thought we'd do it before we left for Panama on the Monday. On the Friday night, we suddenly realised that we wouldn't be around the Saturday to pick up the clothes as we had booked this bike ride all day..and the tailor would be shut on the Sunday, and we were leaving the country first thing Monday morning! Nightmare! It was looking highly likely that we'd never see our clothes again. VERY upsetting. We got up early on the Saturday before the bike ride to leave a note on the tailors door (in our broken Spanish!) to please stay open until 8pm when we would be arriving back from the bike ride. We hoped and prayed all day that he would. So after the disastrous bike ride we had to rush back to La Paz as quick as possible to get our clothes, unfortunately it was a very slow 3 hour journey back exactly the way we (well, Chris) had ridden. It was quite a tense bus journey back to say the least.

We finally arrived back in La Paz at around 7pm and Chris ran as quickly as possible to the tailors (I just hobbled to the hostel and waited for his return). I was so nervous waiting for him to come back, would he return with or without our clothes? After about 20 minutes Chris arrived back with all our fully mended clothes!! Amazing! We were very lucky! A good end to a nightmare day..we had a great night out in La Paz to celebrate! We've since decided to climb no more mountains and get on no more bikes.

Chile Con Carne!

I can actually confirm that getting to Rurrenbaque was the worst night of my life. The bus made me ill. Well it probably wasn´t the bus but I blame the bus..unfortunately after the terrible bus journey I did become ill with a fever and a stomach illness and was bed ridden for 3 days...RUBBISH!! That damn bus. I decided we were definitely flying back to La Paz..never again would I travel on that road.

Anyway, after 3 days of bed and being looked after very well by Chris I finally made it out of the room and we booked a 3 day tour into the amazon jungle..the reason we were here!! Very exciting! The most exciting part however was booking the flight back to La Paz for when the trip was finished!! YES!! We definitely weren´t getting back on that bus (I had a lot of persuading `Mr Budget`Chris on this one-luckily I won!).

The 3 day trip was absolutely fantastic- we were taken by boat into the jungle and we stayed in wooden huts right by the river. After our trip to the Brazilian Pantanal Chris and I thought we`d seen some quite big alligators, however I have never seen anything as big as the gators on the river bed as we entered the amazon basin. They were HUGE!! Very scary looking indeed!! And an unlikely friend of the giant alligators were hundreds of turtles! They were chilling out right next to the crocs, it was great to see so many, they seem to enjoy sitting right on top of each other even though there was plenty of room on the bank! A very funny sight! We also spotted lots of Cabybara´s, the worlds largest rodents...they are so cute though!! The first boat ride in was made complete when we encountered a massive group of capuchin monkeys in the trees! There were so many of them..they are so cute!! The day ended watching sunset over the pampas with a beer- perfect.

The next day started very early with a trip out to watch sunrise over the pampas... unfortunately it was cloudy and a complete waste of time!! The rest of day was a success though!! After yummy pancakes for breakfast we fitted ourselves with wellington boots(?!) and set out in the boat again. Our guide then explained to us that this morning we would be walking through marshes and wetland searching for anacondas and cobras. OH MY GOD. This seemed to worry me far more than anyone else, and I was actually quite glad of the giant wellys I had on my feet, praying perhaps they would protect me from these potentially life threatening snakes we were looking for! It was a tough 2 hour struggle over the pampas swamps in the sweltering heat when finally our guide found a cobra. Everyone was really quite excited about this development...but I ran a mile. To be fair I was quite happy that we had at least found something as the hike was really hard (especially as I hadn´t really eaten anything for about 5 days due to my illness..my energy levels were LOW) but I was absolutely terrified at this huge snake our guide was playing with in his hands!! Unfortunately (?) we found no anacondas but we were blessed (?) to see another 3 cobras on the way back! So quite a successful morning! Sort of.

The afternoon activity was much more to my liking...swimming with dolphins!! And not just your standard dolphins...pink amazonian dolphins!! We`d seen a group of these on our boat trip the day before and couldn´t believe it..they are actually pink! And its crazy that they live in this murky jungle river. They have very different noses to normal dolphins too..very odd looking...but very cute!! So we played with them in the water... (with huge alligators looking on from the river banks!) they were actually much more interested in an empty water bottle than us but they got pretty close which was cool. We had a really good group of people of our trip which made it so much fun- an English girl, a German girl, a Dutch couple and a Canadian couple. We had a great evening attempting to play as many drinking games as we could remember after far too many beers!

The next morning I was pretty excited about..pirahna fishing! Again! I thought I could show my new friends my expert skills in catching pirahnas! Hehe!! And Chris was quite happy to have another go..as he did so badly the first time!! So off we went fishing again, and the unthinkable happened...Chris caught the first fish!! Hehehe! Now it wasn´t a pirahna..but it was big and edible! Then, true to form, I caught a big fat pirahna! Success again! I do love fishing.
The boat ride back back was full of monkeys, cabybara´s, huge aligators, amazing birds, pink dolphins and more, and we were quite sad to be leaving the jungle after such a good 3 days! We met some great people and saw so many animals!!


We got back to Rurrenbaque that evening and flew back to La Paz the following day. The plane to La Paz was so exciting...it was the smallest plane I`d ever been in, the runway was actually just a random field and the views over the jungle and then the Andes were fantastic..and I was so happy we were not getting back on that bus!

The World's Worst Bus Journey

Every traveller in South America it seems, has a Bolivian bus horror story. Here's ours:

The story begins in La Paz, before the whole "World's Most Dangerous Road" experience (see below). We were asking in the La Paz tourist office where we could buy tickets from Coroico (the town at the end of The Death Road) to Rurrenabaque. "No need to buy tickets here in La Paz," they said. "It's much easier to get them when you get to Coroico."

Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking our Death Road tour operator backed up these claims. They said our best bet was to buy the tickets at La Sende Verde, the animal sanctuary at the end of the bike ride. So, ignoring the myriad of signs proclaiming "Buy tickets to Rurrenabaque here!" we went and did "The World's Most Dangerous Road" ticketless.

We arrived at La Sende Verde exhausted, exhilarated and extremely happy that we were still alive. We spent a happy hour or so playing with (and occasionally being urinated on by) the animals before inquiring once more about the tickets.

Unfortunately, the man we asked - despite working in a wonderful and charitable place - turned out to be a terrible terrible person. He spoke in an angry German/Danish accent that made him sound like a slightly scandinavian Hitler at a recruitment rally: "No! I have tickets, but you cannot have zem as you are not guests here!" Apparently you have to stay the night in order to qualify for bus ticket purchasing privileges. He went on to tell us that we could get tickets easily in Coroico where we actually were going to stay.

We got a taxi to Coroico and were dropped off outside the ticket office at 5.35pm. It was shut. The old lady who ran the shop next door told us that it had just closed. Great. She then told us it opened at 7 in the next morning, but not to get our hopes up as you need to book the bus a day in advance. Even better. We checked into a slightly-better-than-the-usual-cheapo-hostal to cheer ourselves up.

As we had limited time in Bolivia, I thought I'd get up early the next morning and "sprint" the 2 miles to the ticket office just in case. I got there at 7.10am. It was shut. An old man walking past informed me that it opened at 8.30. "No it opens at 9!" shouted a woman selling oranges across the street. A straw pole of the local residents provided a range of opening times from "I thought it was open now," to "It's closed all day." I decided to go back to bed and return at a safe 9.30.

9.30 came and miraculously it was open. Even more miraculously there were tickets available on a bus that afternoon. We were given seat numbers 48 and 49, plus a detailed description of the bus that was to take us including vehicle type, registration, colour and even the driver's name. We were told to return at 1pm to take a take to a place called Yolosita where the bus would pick us up at around 2.

We dutifully got the taxi and arrived at Yolosita - a dusty road junction with the following features:
- 3 shacks selling very good cheap empanadas, and very bad cheap oranges
- A huge number of biting insects
- The worst public toilets known to man (they weren't even free, you had to pay for them)

2 o'clock came and went with no sign of any kind of bus. We were then joined by a few other travelers also looking to get to Rurrenabaque (they had been told the bus would arrive at 2.30 or 3). We all waited together at the side of the road occasionally getting covered in dust by enormous passing trucks.

After another hour buses started to arrive. As each bus passed one of our group would jump up, flag the bus down, and wave a ticket at it. Time after time they wouldn't take us - even if the bus company was the same as that quoted on the ticket and the bus was going to Rurrenabaque, as it often was.

Eventually, after nearly 3 hours, a bus arrived that reluctantly decided to take us. We all lined up to show our tickets. They took everyone except the two of us. Apparently the bus didn't have seats 48 and 49 on it so we couldn't get on. I produced my trump card - the description of the bus we were supposed to get. This backfired - it definitely wasn't our bus, and even though they had spaces, we had to wait for the next one. "It'll be here in 30 minutes," we were assured.

An hour later a bus turned up claiming to be the last one going to Rurrenabaque that day. We produced our tickets. They wouldn't take us - we had tickets with a different company. However, the kind driver said we could get this bus, so long as we paid the fare again in full. We declined his generous offer and decided to return to Coroico. We flagged down the first available transport on the road back and clambered inside.

"Hi guys, I zought you vere going to Rurre ..." Oh god - it was the German/Danish man, "What's ze problem?" We explained what the problem was. "Oh don't vorry, ve passed a bus on ze way. It'll be here. 30 minutes." We explained that we'd rather cut our losses and return to Coroico. "No, no. It'll be here. Just vait." He then instructed the driver to stop for us to get out. We had no choice. We unloaded our bags. "Hey don't vorry. I'm just a nice guy, trying to help as much as I can."

An hour later it was dark and no bus had come. Fortunately we hitched a lift on the back of a pickup and managed to get back to Coroico. The bus ticket office was of course closed by then so we couldn't get tickets for the next day. We upgraded our room in the hostal.

The next morning I went back to the ticket office at 9.30. Apparently what happened to us the previous day had never happened before in the whole history of that ticket office. This did not make me feel any better. They did however agree to change our tickets for no extra charge. We were initially given seats 32 and 33, but after a quick call to the office in La Paz, they changed them to seats 48 and 49 again.

We returned to Yolosita to sit by the side of the road once more and get covered in dust. Once again other tourists arrived after an hour or so hoping to get on the same bus. 3 hours passed full of buses that wouldn't take us. Then - joy of joys - a bus accepted us. We had a anxious few minutes walking down the aisle wondering if the seat numbers would go high enough. They did - just. We had the last two seats, right at the back, on the left hand side. As we were later to discover, these were the worst seats on the bus.


I think that now a road has been built that bypasses the "World's Most Dangerous Road", this road can claim the title. Think very narrow road, very steep cliff off to one side, and lots of traffic. We were on the left so had a prime view of how close the bus' wheels were to the side. In a word - very. There were numerous long delays as Mexican standoffs between vehicles formed and grew snake-like along the road. We could see the cars and trucks backed up for miles along the bends of the mountain.

Although terrifying, these delays were actually afforded some welcome respite for us. This was because the road was incredibly bumpy. I mean incredibly bumpy. The bus had no suspension whatsoever, and we were at the back so felt the full force of every tiny pothole. We were quite literally lifted clean out of our seats by a bump every 60 seconds. The bus ride lasted 16 hours. A calculator tells me that this means we were lifted clean (and painfully) out of our seats a total of 960 times over the course of the journey. Sleep was impossible. Annoying as most of the journey took place during the night.

Liz had the worst of it. Having taken a sleeping pill, she both couldn't sleep and was desperately tired. Occasionally she would pass out, only have her head thrown sickeningly against the window (or sometimes my head) by a jolt from the bus. She also developed a fever over the course of the journey, which reached its peak with 7 hours of the bus ride left to go, and lasted for the next 3 days. We were even considering getting off the bus at one point, but with no major conurbations between Coroico and Rurrenabaque, we would literally have been getting off a bus in the midst of dense jungle in the middle of the night.

A disaster at every point in its conception and execution, this was indeed the worst bus journey ever. And we've had some seriously bad ones on this trip. It did however end eventually, thank the Lord. Once in Rurre, we checked into a room with a private bathroom (a hitherto unheard of luxury) and spent the next 3 days recovering - and in my case eating lots of pizza. We decided to get a flight back.

The World's Most Dangerous Road

Parents. I can feel your hearts sinking already at the title of this post not to mention the picture accompanying it. Particularly Liz's parents. Why would I (one who has been entrusted with the safety of their daughter) allow her to travel on something called "The World's Most Dangerous Road" on any form of transport ... let alone ... by bicycle?

Let me say first that this was not an easy decision! When I orginally heard about "The Death Road" (as it's also know) I thought - no way. When Liz asked why not, I said: "What's the point? We can cycle whenever we want. Why should we needlessly risk our lives cycling on the world's most dangerous road?" Case closed. Or so we thought.

It came to pass that later on our travels we met up with a couple of English lads called Adam and Tom. They had been to La Paz, they had done "The Death Road", and they said it was one of the best experiences they had had in South America. They also said that most fatalities on the road were due to motor vehicles falling off the side when trying to pass each other. Since the road rarely gets over 6 metres wide, and most of the time the drop is over 100 metres with no safety barriers - this used to happen a lot. Apparently there used to be a big accident once every week on average, often involving large unwieldy vehicles - such as busses packed with people. Hence there used to be a large number of fatalities per week, and hence the road earnt the title "World's Most Dangerous". Bike fatalities, we were told, were few and far between.



Adam and Tom went on to say that the number of vehicles on the road had now decreased significantly since a bypass had been opened. Apparently there was no safer time to cycle "The Death Road". In the face of this argument, it would have been rude not to give it a try! We booked with an agency called "Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking" because they were twice as expensive as anyone else (and so we assumed would be safer) and boasted a record of only one death in thirteen years. Presumably that meant they were due a couple ...

On the day in question we got up early and were driven to a height of 4600m, where we were introduced to our bikes. We were instructed to "bless" them by pouring an 80% ethanol solution onto the tyres, and then we had to take a (small) swig ourselves. It was vile. After this we cycled around a bit on the flat, getting used to our bikes and trying (unsuccessfully) to dispel the jitters and thoughts of imminent death. It was then time to start going downhill.

The first part was a steep but safe asphalted section on which we were permitted to get up some serious speed. We're talking, too fast for peddling, crouched low to the handlebars to reduce air-resistance, kind of speed. Great fun.



This lasted 45 minutes or so, then unfortunately we hit gravel. Even more unfortunately this gravel went uphill instead of down. The next 20 minutes were a kind of thigh-burning, lung-popping, high-altitude, cycle hell. At the end of it we were told we'd gained just 10 metres in vertical height. For anyone thinking of trying to ride a heavy downhill bike uphill at altitudes of 3500m plus, I'd recommend a head doctor.

Anyway, after this it was time for the main event ... that really dangerous road thingy. After cycling along it for a couple of minutes we realised a few things:

1) It´s really narrow. Around 6 metres. That sounds wide enough, but believe me it isn't when there's a 100m drop on one side.
2) There's a 100m drop on one side. This is pretty much constant throughout the first 3 hours of cycling on the road and is frankly terrifying.
3) It is on a badly maintained gravel track. You have to stick to one of the vehicle tracks in the road or risk sliding all over the place on the loose stones. These tracks are 30cm wide at best.
4) Downhill traffic (including bicycles) has to travel on the left hand side all of the time. This is the side nearest the drop. The reason for this is that in Bolivia the driver's side is on the left, so if downhill traffic also drives on the left, then the downhill driver has a better view of his outside wheels whenever there's a passing situation. This doesn't matter for bikes of course, except that they have to cycle on the left nearest the drop as well, to reduce the chances of a truck in the face when going round blind corners.



The upshot of all this was that we were cycling in a very narrow vehicle track never more than a metre or so from a huge drop. If we left this vehicle track at any point then there was a good chance the bike would slide out of control. Dangerous then.

Fortunately the road wasn't very steep, meaning we could go as fast or as slow as we wanted. We went for the slow option. If we weren't on the world's most dangerous road, it would have been embarrassingly slow. Occasionally one of us would get a bit more confident, or the road would get a touch less dangerous, and we'd speed up. Sooner or later however, we'd notice the deadly drop just inches from our tyres and return to our snail's pace.

The dangerous bit of the road was long (around 4 hours of riding), spectacularly beautiful and a whole lot of fun. It was also mercifully devoid of incident, barring a small spill from Liz when she hit a large rock. In any case, we both reached the bottom intact and survived! And we've both got a T-shirt to prove it ...

PS. The road finished at a wonderful riverside animal sanctuary called La Senda Verde, that cares for injured and/or mistreated animals. On show were dogs, turtles, parrots, maccaws and some very friendly monkeys. One particular female spider monkey climbed all over my arms, head and shoulders, before clinging to my leg and relieving herself. According to one of the carers this meant she liked me. Lovely.