Brisbane to Barcelona: La Paz to Rurrenabaque

29 April - 2 May 2011

We started our trip to Rurrenabaque by cycling down the world´s most dangerous road (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yungas_Road). Kitty still isn’t sure how Lawrie convinced her that riding a bike down a road that’s only 3m wide with a 1000m drop on on side and cliff on the other was a good idea but at 7am on Friday 29 we met the biking guides from El Solario for breakfast and briefing. We had a 45 minute ride up to La Cumbre (4700m) where we got on our bikes and started the ride down. Lawrie had a great time while Kitty was just concentrating on not falling off! We had a short stop at Undavi at the end of the paved section of road where we paid entry to the Yungas Road. Lawrie had noticed a problem with his front tyre which he asked the guides to fix and we got back on the bus for the 9km of uphill section. When we reached the start of the unpaved ‘Death Road’, Lawrie realised that his tyre still hadn’t been fixed and he had to make a big fuss for the guides actually to do anything about it. Because of this and the guides’ attitude in general , we definitely woul d not recommend the company we went with.

Kitty geared up for the ride

The paved road to Undavi

Lawrie had a really great time racing down the road and Kitty again was just concentrating on not falling off! The scenery was amazing but we didn’t really have a lot of time to appreciate it. We had a nice lunch and swim at the end of the ride and caught a taxi with three others up to Coroico where we spent the night.

Lawrie geared up

Start of the 'Death Road'

Waterfall

Road

The Yungas are really beautiful

Scary...

The next day we met up with the three others, Ronet and Scott from South Africa and Mike from the USA, for breakfast and to catch our transport to the start point of our boat ride to Rurrenabaque. Unfortunately, there were blockades and roadworks between La Paz and Coroico so our private jeep at 8am turned into a local bus at 11am but it was ok because we just sat around and drank coffee and played hackey sack until our guide from Deep Rainforest showed up on the bus. We caught the bus to Caranavi, where we took a taxi to just outside of Guanay where we finally (5 hours late) got on the boat. We travelled for about an hour until we got to our campsite for the night. We had dinner and went on a nightwalk, which was nice but we didn’t really see anything.

Hackeysack!

That night it rained and because our tents hadn’t been set up properly, our stuff and us got wet, which we weren’t very happy about considering that they’d been running the tour for 10 years. Later when we asked the guide about the tents, he said it was because the previous travellers hadn’t looked after them properly – which is pathetic because it’s the company’s job to look after its own gear. After breakfast we went on another walk where we swam in a waterfall, which was nice. We had lunch when we returned and Kitty got served chicken (as a vegetarian) despite the cook asking the night before and Kitty saying that she didn’t eat chicken. There was no apology and Kitty got cold rice and salad for lunch, which one of the other staff ate half of. So there we were, cold and hungry, getting back on the boat for a 4 hour ride in the rain.

Waterfall

View of the river from our campsite

We were meant to camp on the banks of the river the next night but the tents were too wet to withstand another night of rain so we stayed at a homestead (with buildings) a little outside of Madidi National Park. They had recently caught a giant catfish from the river, which Lawrie thought was really cool and Kitty thought was kinda gross.