Relaxing in Coroico in the Hotel sent from Heaven.

The hotel we picked in Coroico had a pool and an amazing view of the mountain scenery that we had just spent the last 6 hours cycling down. Of course it was dark by the time we’d settled in and actually left our room to have a look. Still, there was always tomorrow, we decided to spend the day here and wander around the town for a bit, take in some Bolivian village atmosphere and chill out some, allow our bones to stop aching.

After a blissful nights rest we had breakfast at the local café and caught up on some travel admin, posted some postcards from the tiny post office, bought onward bound bus tickets for the next day and did a little blog writing. Mostly though we took advantage of the hot sunshine, something the high altitude places we’d just come from didn’t offer a great deal of. Amanda spent about four hours entrenched in her hammock by the pool, occasionally surfacing to have a dip to cool her off.



That was about it for Coroico, it really was quite a small place. We spent our second night there in quite a seedy little café type place, waiting patiently for the local ‘cinema’ to play Spiderman 2. When the locals did actually stop talking for 2 minutes, the film seemed OK. But we were happy just to chill and rest our mountain bike weary selves!

The open, rocky, sweaty, cramped road ahead.

Up early the following morning and feeling much better for a rest by the pool we trooped out to the main square to be picked up by a local open backed truck. This would take us to the bus stop at the bottom of the hill, a good fifteen minutes away. As the local truck method seemed to be the only way to get to this bus stop we were not the only travellers on it, in fact, they had to put on two trucks to meet the demand from the twenty or so other people waiting. We seemed to be emptying Coroico that morning, never mind, a new load of bikers would be arriving soon.

After waiting with these other travellers on the main road out of Coroico for 5 hours, watching 7 full bus loads pass us by, clutching our pre-paid tickets we exhausted all international card games, braved the worst toilets in the history of man and ate the road side shop dry, praying to be on the bus to Rurrenabaque. We really shouldn’t have prayed that loud. When the bus finally arrived it was quite happy to take us all, and our luggage even though it too was full to bursting already. The combined rucksacks of over twenty travellers as well as the packs of twenty or so local women, their kids, gap-toothed husbands, goats, smelly feet… and the ubiquitous guitars of half a dozen Israeli guys were all squeezed into a normal sized bus. One for the Guinness Book of Records I think. I managed to make sure that our bags were in the isle right next to our seats where we could keep an eye on them. Others were not so lucky. If the bus turned over on one of the many treacherous roads ahead, we surely would not have survived. I have NEVER seen anything like it. We had heard from the grape vine what this bus trip would be like, that this journey was only to be taken for the sheer story value…..one to tell friends back home, one for the grandchildren. Now we knew why!

Only 14 hours to go on the bus from hell.

A woman behind me took her shoes off about four hours in to the trip, then propped them up on my rucksack, right next to my nose. The smell woke me up, I had to physically move them away from me.They seriously made me feel sick.

It was on this bus that we met Camille and Emily, an Australian and English girl respectively. They came looking for a bag of chips with us during our half hour dinner stop. We set about walking along the row of roadside fry-up places, obviously cooking a main fare of fried chicken and chips. When we asked for just chips they looked at us in horror and told us to bugger off. This was repeated several times. We could see the chips, but the idea of letting us buy it separate to the chicken seemed to put them into convulsions… at last, after speaking to the manager of the 6th place we asked, we were, grudgingly, allowed to purchase some chips without the addition of fried chicken on the condition that we didn’t tell anybody where we’d got it from and that we paid a bit more for the privilege.. The chips were cold and greasy, but tasted like victory.

The rest of the journey went slowly and painfully. It was dark at least and we couldn’t see the massive, certain death drops we were swingling round, driven by a guy who hadn’t had a rest for a good 12 hours of concentration. There really wasn’t enough room to swing a cat on the bus, I’m sure some local brought a cat on board. Amanda spent some time listening to the Hitchhikers Guide on the MP3 player (thanks Andy) and I tried to get some shuteye, but was thwarted once again by the lady behind me and her toxic, fetid feet.

Welcome to Rurrenabaque..the edge of the Amazon.

Eventually, after possibly the worst bus ride either of us has ever had to endure, we arrived in Rurrenabaque. Once a little village, snug between the Rio Beni and the Amazon rainforest, “Rurre” has grown with the influx of tourism. There are now a throng of hotels and hostels, café’s and tour agencies, all squeezed into the two main streets. The markets still happen on the waterfront, mostly selling old clothes donated by the US, brand names and huge t-shirts. I found a Saville Row shirt, bought it and wore it to destruction while tramping through a swamp looking for anaconda. Only the main street is paved, mostly with the same dirt that comes in with the trucks, when it rains heavily you either wear flip-flops or ruin your shoes, though there is a good trade in cheap trainers on the local stalls. This is where people get kitted out in throwaway clothes to take to the pampas and jungle. For Bolivia, this is nature central. Almost everybody comes here to take guided tours, and we were no exception. After a couple of hours we managed to find the right hotel, coincidentally the same one that Camille and Emily were staying in. It was off out soon after though. Greasy chips alone cannot keep us intrepid travellers happy, we needed breakfast.

It normally takes us a good half an hour to find somewhere to eat. We visit every restaurant and café in town, weigh up price, quality, service and overall atmosphere then inevitably choose the cheapest. Things were a little different here. There were two main cafes in town, opposite each other on the main crossroads. We chose one and had an insanely huge and cheap breakfast of toast and eggs, pancakes and fruit with all the trimmings. We were to return here every morning for the same thing. That’s customer loyalty for you. We applied similar criterion to the search for a tour agency, even going to the tourist information for advice. Eventually we went with the advice of Camille and Emily who had one recommended to them, Anaconda tours. They didn’t give away free t-shirts (my main criteria for a tour agency) but they looked pretty good. We booked our jungle tour for the next day, visited most of the second hand clothes stores in town and bought ourselves some crappy clothes we could ruin on our expedition. I got a pair of combat trousers that I refused to throw afterwards. I’ve cut them down to shorts now and look forward to getting years of wear out of them. The Saville Row shirt has long gone though.

Gut rot saves the weary.

That night I came down with a severe case of gut rot. Partly from the bus ride, partly from the bad chips. Come the morning I was in a bad enough state to have to tell Emily and Camille to go ahead without us. Our trip would have to wait till the next day. We went to the agency and, finding that the jungle group for tomorrow consisted of about fifteen Israeli’s travelling together we switched to the pampas tour. We’d have time for the jungle after. I spent most of that day in bed, only surfacing to go to a funky hostel/café/restaurant/cinema/bar on the edge of town owned by an English ex-pat and her local fella. We saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, followed later by Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai. A very good night. We also found a great bar during their night long happy hour. I was still a little under the weather so we didn’t make a night of it, but vowed to return to drink the place dry later. Bolivia is cheap, very cheap. Enough that we were beginning to worry less about the budget and start to let our hair down. That extra cocktail is, after all only 50p. We could tell… Rurrenabaque was going to be fun.