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Bob and Nicks excellent adventures
Been a while so here goes.
Finally escaped from s*** hole uyuni after spending 2 days to long there and got an overnighter to LaPaz where were found a hostel right in the centre of the Witches Market. The whole place smells like a mixture of s***, coca leaves and dead animals, which is hardly supprising as you can walk through s*** whilst purchasing coca and all manner of dead things, the most popular being died Llama foetuses in various stages of development. The market is acctually an awsome place, and even I enjoyed an afternoon of shopping for precious things.
Anyway a couple of days spent in La Paz and its time to go to the Jungle Via the most dangerous road in the world. Its a mountain road 40Km long, unpaved, only 3 Meters wide with 1km drops to the left and decends about 3Km. Anual fatalities are in the 100's and in the 3 weeks before we had to use it, 3 trucks had slipped off, their batterered remains still visable. Well we had the choice, get the bus, get a taxi or ride a bike. Biking down this crazy road is acctually quite a popular activity with stupid gringos and so far only 5 gringos have managed to gimp it and drive off the edge to their certain death, so we joined up with a tour company, hired some fat full sus awsome Kona bikes, got up real early and feeling pretty nervous as we didnt much feel like dying, set off.
It started pretty smoothly as the company dropped us off a further 20Km short of the Death Road to let us get to know the bikes. 15km was pure steep down hill and paved so without the fear of death it was possable to get some massive speed up. After this their was a 5km flat/up hill section which because of the altitude proved too hard for most.. It was pretty satisfying overtakeing all the fat f***s on the up hills that thought they were quick.(Male competitivness surfacing)
Anyway an hour or so in and we hit the death road. To begin with me and nick hung at the back with the girls to get a feel of the sand/dust/rock surface and not wanting to gimp it to early. IT was pretty funny when some guy we had aleady highighted as a tosser gimped it on about the 2nd corner.. Luckily for him he didnt drop off the edge. Yourl have to check the photos out to get a feeling of the drops, it was a case of dont look down. After a while we got pissed off being stuck behind the girls and moved up the group getting faster and faster. By far the most scarey moment was a point where i was leading a group of riders and I caught up with a fat ass Lorry. I could see no way of over taking this thing so for a coulpe of mins was tailing this Lorry down the hill. All of a sudden one of the guides flys past me on the inside of the Lorry (cliff side) and waves me on through. I can see a slight left turn coming up so get my head down and peddle like a c*** to make it throught the 1m gap whilst its still there. Just as im getting toward the front the gap begins to close and I just nip past but knowing Nick is right behind me I am sure he wont have made it. I wacked on my brakes and looked behind and to my absolute supprise hes made it aswell....It was a bit tight for my liking so he must have been f***in close to being wiped. Anyway, with the guide nailing on in front and feeling the adrenalin from the neer miss we belt down this section, undertake a bus on a corner, another close shave for nick and just about keep up wth the crazy gizza up untll the next stop. The rest of the road we take more gently and all in all it was an awssssssssome day.
Only 2 days after we ride a bus full of Bolivians goes off the edge with 30 fatalities.....Only in Bolivia wold they keep a road like this open.
Next day and we do an over nighter into the Amazon Basin. We do a 3 day tour by boat down a river completely over run by crocs. On the second day our guide takes us Anaconda hunting which results in him begin bitten by a semi poisones Python! He doesnt seem to fazed by bite marks along hs finger and blood all over his hand, just dipps it into the muddy water and continues the Anaconda hunt. His method is to wade through snake infested water with a stick trying to disterb the snakes... rather him than me. Us gringos stay a safe distance on the bank. Even that wasnt too safe as i nearly tread on asnake in the long grass which bolts so fast i didnt even see it go. Eventually though our man comes up trumps and grabs himself an Anoconda which people tease for a while before he puts it back in the swamp.
Later that day its time to swim with the pink dolphins back in our river. f*** that! Not for me, but nick did manage to get into the murky water for 30 seconds or so. Apparently when the dolphins are around you dont have to worry about the crocs...They are lurkin about 10 meters away.. just around the corner and probably hiding under water aswell. The water is also teeming with pihranas and one of the guys who spends the most time in the water gets nibbles by something..i repeat.. f*** that!! There is no way i was ever going to swim in water completely full of s*** that can kill you with no visability!! Later only about 10 mins up steam we fish for pihranas. You stick your bit of bait in and it gets ripped around in seconds and every now and then our of the murky depths you pull our some evil looking f***in pirahana! f*** getting in that for a leasurly swim, i am bad enough walking through sea weed.
That night our chef cooks us up our tasty pirahana...lots of bones but aint so bad.
Anyway, We get out the stinkin jungle by plane back to LaPaz. Risking it on the deathroad followed by a 17hr bumpy bus ride once is enough for us and 50 mins later we are back in Lapaz.
Now neer the Bolivia/Peru Boarder...Heading to Peru today to go see stinkin Machu Pichu!
A few new photos uploaded for your viewing pleasure....
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