Blog

At the end of today's death road ride, we had a very cool river crossing, that we all blazed and splashed through at full speed on our bikes. And the fine folks at B-Side were kind enough to capture the whole thing on video. Check it out.

Arguably the most famous, and the most popular, tourist attraction in La Paz these days is the death road bike ride. A 3000m descent, from La Cumbre to Coroico. Downhill almost all the way. And fatally dangerous for much of the distance. Today, Chris and I did the ride, with B-Side Adventures (great company — but horrible web site). And we survived, and loved every minute of it.

For the first time so far on my trip, I went to the cinemas tonight in La Paz, and saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (the third and final instalment in the trilogy). Great movie, and an interesting experience going to the cinemas in Bolivia. They're screening movies until 10pm, but the last decent ones are at 7pm. They have numbered, reserved seating; but when you get inside, you can't see the numbers, so you just sit anywhere (then someone comes and moves you). And they turn the movie off as soon as the credits start rolling, so that you get out of there faster. Crazy place.

I was a bit desperate for lunch today, so I wandered into the first local-looking restaurant that I stumbled across. It was a bit late — about 3pm — and when I asked them what they had on offer, they said that all they could give me was Jolke. I had no idea what Jolke was, but I was starving, so I said bring it on. Big mistake. Disgusting brown soup with horrible meat and various spices. Basically looks and tastes like a bowl of $—%#. Try and keep away from it during your next visit to Bolivia.

Much like its counterpart in Cusco, Loki is the place to stay in La Paz. Slightly overpriced, brimming with luxurious extras — e.g. bar, TV room, free Internet — and strictly gringos only. Definitely the place to go if you want to meet people, and if you want to party all night, every night. Loki La Paz is quite new (the Cusco one is the original and the biggest); but despite not yet being in any of the guidebooks, it's already fully booked out days in advance. It is in itself an attraction of the city.

Today, Chris and I flew back from Rurrenabaque to La Paz, with the affordable and reasonably-safe Transporte Aéreo Militar (TAM), the "military airline" of Bolivia. Slightly cheaper than Amaszonas, and just as efficient. After going through the experience of catching a plane in Bolivia twice now, I feel I should write up some instructions on how it's done, for anyone else who's interested in using Bolivia's fine commercial aviation services.

Today was the last day of our trip to the Madidi jungle, as well as our last day here in Rurrenabaque. After our final jungle romp this morning, and a big hearty lunch, we packed up our stuff and left our jungle campsite. We had to walk back from the campsite to the big river (another stream wade involved), and then it was another three-hour boat ride, back down the river to Rurrenabaque. When we got back, we cleaned ourselves up, relaxed in some hammocks, and then celebrated in the evening, with pizza and cocktails!

We romped through the jungle on our first day here in Madidi. We did it again yesterday. And we had our final romp today. Not much different to the previous days of jungle walking, really: saw a few animals, saw lots of trees and smaller plants, but nothing hugely exciting. After all, jungle is jungle, and there's only so much of it you can see.

We had a fun little session of handicraft-making this afternoon, at our campsite in the jungle. Our guide, Orlando, helped us to fashion some rings, and to create some traditional (looking) necklaces. All we really did was a bit of sanding — the rest was already done for us, or was done after we finished sanding — but it made us feel like intelligent artisans nonetheless. And we got to keep the handicrafts.

Just after lunch this afternoon, and just before our handicraft-making session, our guide Orlando heard the noise of pigs nearby, and quickly gathered us and led us on a sprint through the trees, in the direction of the noise. When we reached the spot, we were just in time to witness about 100 wild pigs running past us in a mad stampede. Fairly common occurrence, apparently — but you still have to be both fast and lucky to actually witness it. Not sure what the pigs were stampeding after, either: maybe someone struck mud?