Choosing the oldest, dodgiest looking bus around, Harry & I headed out along the most dangerous road in Bolivia, from La Paz north to Beni province in the bolivian jungle.
It´s called this because of the sheer drop down from the single track road to the river 500m below, the frequent landslides, the many blind corners and the fact that most of the big trucks travelling that way to or from Brazil are overloaded with people and wood. During the time I was up there, 2 of these trucks crashed off the road killing 40 people, probably due to driver fatigue.
Actually it didn´t seem so bad at the time, in fact it was quite pleasant driving through waterfalls and mud, past the overloaded trucks, and admiring the views straight down to the river below. At least we had good weather, I wouldn´t want to travel that road in fog or rain.
On the second day of this journey however, we arrived at a huge traffic jam of trucks, jeeps and buses, caused by the collapse of the road ahead. Our driver happily ignored the queue and drove past everyone else, right up to the edge of the big hole where once there was a road.
It was quite an impresive sight, hundreds of people lined either side of the hole heading almost straight down to the river, and everyone was watching a group of 5 men with shovels trying to dig a track around the side of it! It was dangerous work since there will still loads of huge rocks falling down from the hillside above and the workers had to keep running for cover. But they seemed to enjoy it, the crowd shouted whenever something big fell and everyone laughed if a rock landed a bit close by! It was a good day to be macho, and it wasn´t long before the jeep drivers were revving up to be the first across the dodgy track! They started going for it before the workers had finished so they had to run out of the way to let the jeeps past. They made it ok, so a huge petrol tanker decided to follow them!!!!!!
It must have been empty since it made it across - but only just, the back wheel slipped over the edge and everyone held their breath! So with all this success, the crowd started encouraging their drivers to get going and our bus was first in line. Us passengers decided to follow on foot, though that was exciting enough dodging the stones that were still falling from above.
Our driver was quite pleased with the successful crossing so drove extra fast the rest of the way. So all in all, we made quick time to Rurrenabaque, only 22 hours (the timetabled journey time is 18 hours but sometimes it takes over 30!)
Rurrenabaque is a great place, a small town at the edge of the jungle, where the people are very relaxed and easy going, mainly due to the hot climate. I ended up camping at a french-swiss campsite/mini-zoo underneath a tree belonging to 3 monkeys, 2 parrots and a sloath. This wasn´t so sensible ´cos they woke me up early every morning with all their noise.
The Pampas are similar to the Savannah of Africa, with rivers and swamps crammed full of crocodiles, piranas, snakes, capybares (huge dosile rodents), ostriches, monkeys, and loads of birds such as storks, kingfishers and birds of paradise. The strangest creatures however, are the pink freshwater dolphins! (no, I am not joking!)
Other fun times included catching baby crocodiles and piranas, and roasting a small cow for dinner.
