Last blog I left you off in Rurrenabaque, Bolivia. We were about to head to Coroico to enjoy that beautiful Andes city AND ride down the most DANGEROUS ROAD IN THE WORLD, also known as Bolivia´s famous Death Road. But, unbeknownst to us at the time...we were set to be on a real adventure..before ever reaching the Death Road. We got on a bus that was going to Coroico. At 7 pm, the bus suddenly stopped. The driver told us there was some kind of demonstration and we would have to stop there and sleep in the bus that night. Other buses and trucks were coming up to this point and also had to stop. After all, some people had cut down trees and they were now laying across the road! In the morning we learned that this demonstration could last three to five days!!!! We were parked in the road where there was one (not so nice) outhouse and a couple little shops that sold soda, crackers, cookies, etc. I certainly did not want to stay there! Josué and I were the only tourists on the bus. We decided to walk to the next town, about 5 miles away. It was raining lightly, the dirt road was now muddy and slippery, and we were carrying heavy packs and the guitar. We passed the groups of people in the road where they congregated at the places where trees had been dropped to stop traffic. But at this point, we didn´t know what the demonstration was about. When we reached the town of Caranavi, a taxi driver told us that he couldn´t take us the rest of the way to Coroico...he could just take us as far as the next blockade (about 3 miles). As the taxi crossed the bridge and approached the blockade where many people were milling around, we were shocked to see a bunch of them running toward us. Suddenly, eight men were attacking our taxi...rocking it back and forth. They hauled the driver out of the car and started beating him with sticks and whips and rocks! Well, I was scared! We jumped out of the taxi, not knowing quite what to do. A well-dressed Bolivian man told us to come with him. We ran....and I unfortunately left my beautiful guitar in the taxi, along with the walking stick Mario had made me on our jungle tour! But the guitar is not worth my getting hurt! The Bolivian man took us under his wing and told us to walk fast past the blockade, without looking or speaking to anyone. He found a truck full of indigenous people in the back..the kind of truck made of wooden slats so you can´t see into it very well. He told the people to let us get up in the truck with them. Some said no. He said we were in danger and we were tourists so please let us up and they did. Within a minute, four Israelis also jumped up on the truck and we were off. A little way down the road, the truck was stopped and someone yelled, Are there any people from the United States on that truck? The people told me to duck down so they couldn´t see my red hair and said no. And they let the truck go. When we got to the next blockade, we found out that there were no more taxis going between the blockades because people were starting to get violent..obviously they were angry that the taxi drivers were helping people travel down the road. So we had to walk VERY FAST with our packs about 20 miles to get to a town in another province that was not involved in the strike. And we found out what the strike was about. The government had announced that they were going to build a large citrus factory in one city. Another city was angry because the wanted the citrus factory! So they blocked the road (there´s only one) between the two cities, exactly where we were headed! We finally made it to Coroico, dead tired and hurting. We were rewarded by staying at a hotel another tourist had suggested...it was on the top of a smaller mountain, but this mountain was nestled within the Andes...with mountains surrounding the town that were 6,000 meters high! The views, the smell of jasmine, the colonial town of Coroico...it was all so beautiful. Again, a room was just $11 USD. Private cabins at the very top of the property were about $35 USD!
The next day we chose to go back to La Paz via the Death Road. There is no longer public transportation on that road as the government has fixed most of it and there is now a super highway from Coroico to La Paz (about 2 hours). So we had to get a taxi driver to take us. I think that the road will be closed to all traffic very soon, so we were glad to get a 50 mile glimpse of it. It´s hard to explain, but some parts of the road are only 6 feet wide. So in the past, when two vehicles met that had to pass, one of the vehicles had to back up to a wider spot so they could do it. Again, no railings and when it rained chunks of the road would just disintegrate and fall. Though I remember riding in a bus near Banos, Ecuador on a road just as bad years ago (Ecuador has also upgraded all of its old roads), Wikipedia and all other sources said this road in Bolivia is the worst. Unfortunately, two-dimensional photographs don´t quite show you what we were seeing from the car. There is now the extreme sport of bicycling down the road which many tourists are foolish enough to do. With the roads twists and turns and slippery mud, you can go off the edge in a heartbeat...and many have! Riding in a taxi was scary enough for me! Our taxi almost hit one poor biker. Her riding tour group had been told to always ride on the right, so when they were going down fast, they would be on the mountain side. Unfortunately, the traffic on that road drives on the left side by law. So..imagine, she was coming down on the right and we were going up on the left and we got to the same 90· curve at the same time. Well she saw us, panicked, lost control of her bike and fell off, bringing the bike with her. Luckily for her, she slid toward the mountain instead of away from it. A 4-foot slide toward the edge would have been the END of her! So we did the Death Road. But wait ´till you read the next blog, about the Andes roads in Peru! I think Wikipedia and the rest need to designate a new road the Death Road. More about that later.
We got back to La Paz and our same hotel in the Witch´s Market (the hotel was holding all of our stuff while we went to the jungle) and we felt the altitude slightly. We were both fine with the altitude during the entire trip although we noted it when we walked fast. I had decided to look for musical instruments and I wanted to replace the guitar I had lost in the taxi at the demonstration. We found a wonderful music store and I got a great deal on a guitar, a zampoña (pan flutes), and a quena (another type of flute). They also had a new percussion instrument I had not seen before, and since I hope to continue playing percussion with the bands in San Juan del Sur, I got that too. Josué also bought a guitar...they are so cheap here! We ran into some tourists that Josué had met (Cedric from Germany and Alisa from Chicago) while he was in Uyuni and I was on the salt flats tour and enjoyed llama curry that night with them in an Indian restaurant they found. We were fortunate to be able to enjoy some Afro-Bolivian music at another restaurant they knew about, and finally after midnight, we went to a disco that played LATIN MUSIC!! Hooray! We have been going out to the peñas too, these are like restaurant-coffee houses where they have folkloric dancing and singing shows. They are wonderful...colorful and happy with Andes music and extravagant costumes. The next night Josué and I went dancing to another disco that was fun too! Hooray...good dancing two nights in a row!
We spent a couple more days in La Paz doing this and that. I want to report that I used Bolivia´s socialized medicine system to have a minor eye operation and was very pleased! Apparently a month earlier I had had an eye infection that I didn´t know about or ignored and suddenly an abscess grew on my eye! As it was getting bigger and it was pretty painful, I went to the EYE hospital. That´s right...they have a public hospital that is only for eyes. To make a long story short, the doctor (a woman about 25 years old) told me they had to rem ove it and I went and had a 30-minute operation. I won´t go into details about the operation and how anesthetics like novacaine and the like don´t work very well on redheads and make a big difference if they are not working during an operation), but let´s just say she did the operation and it seems that I´m fine now! Tourists and Bolivians are treated and charged alike. I paid $1.50 USD for the doctor consultation and a whopping $5.50 USD for the operation!!! Except for the waiting, which was about two and a half hours (I´ve waited just as long for a doctor in the U.S. when I had an appointment!), everything went OK. As soon as the Doc gave me the OK (I had to go back for a follow-up), we headed for Lake Titicaca.
We took the bus from La Paz to a town called Copacabana, which is a lovely little pueblo nestled in the mountains overlooking the lake. We immediately signed up for the ferry to Lake Titicaca early the next morning. (Josué only had a 30-day visa in Bolivia, and we had already been there for 28 days, so we had to leave the country. I was given a 5-year visa, but I had to pay $135.00 USD for it- Josué´s was FREE.) We went to Isla del Sol, where the Inca civilization began. I even got to touch the SACRED ROCK of the Inca´s, where the sun god first appeared. We had a good group on the ferry and became acquainted with a couple from Buenos Aires, a woman from China, and another woman from France named Corine (you´ll hear more about her later). We walked from one end of the island to the other (8 kilometers) in the heat of the day, at about 3800 meters in the hot, hot sun. Even though we were approximately 12,467 feet high, it was HOT! It was a lovely walk, where we got to see the famous Lake Titicaca (highest navigable lake in the world) from all sorts of vistas. A vivid blue, the lake provies a sharp contrast to the mountains, especially the ones that are snow-capped. We spent the whole day hiking, looking at the Inca ruins, talking with our new friends, sharing maté tea, and having a wonderful time.
We got back to Copacabana in the early evening and were out of cash. Unfortunately for us, there were no ATMs in the city and the banks were closed. But we had to eat dinner!!! Was there a restaurant in town that took credit cards? Only one, one of the better ones in town. That´s OK! We already had our bus tickets for that night, so we just needed to eat. We walked in and said YES, they DID take credit cards, but their chef never showed up and right now they only had drinks. When would the chef be coming, we asked. In about an hour….it´s happy hour. Why don´t you wait and have drinks? No problem we said. After about 3 capirinhas each (Brazilian drink….rum, lime juice, sugar and soda)and 3 hours later, and still no chef, we noticed that they were making ice cream crepes for people. We´ll take two of those ice cream crepes, thanks, we said. Just after eating those, the chef showed up and we ordered chicken soup for dinner. What a strange last dinner in Bolivia! It was all good though.
That night we hopped onto an overnight bus to go to Cusco and then Machu Picchu, which had recently re-opened after the horrible flooding in February at the beginning of our trip. Peru….here we come….AGAIN!!!!! To see photos for this section, click HERE.
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