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Last time I wrote I was in La Paz, having just comne back from Chile and planning to go on a trek. The trek ended up being one day delayed because Rebecca got a biot ill, but the next day she was fit for fight again as we left on our trek at 8 am. I actually ended up being surprised about how hard the trek was, it turned out to be the hardest on my trip so far and this time I got plenty of sore leg muscles. At least this time we were properly aclimatized to the height and got no altitude problems aside from becomming a bit winded. Our trek started out with a drive one hour to a top near La Paz where we went as high as the car could take us before it got stuck in the snow! We then pushed the car free so that it could go back to La Paz before continuing the last 100 m to the top through a snow storm! At the top at 4850 m above sea level we found an ancient Inca road which went down into the valley on the other side. We then went on a long descent down the ancient trade rute, which was buit by the Incas to bring fruits and coca leaves from the valleys (the Yungas) up to the Altiplano and on to cusco. The first day we went down 2050 m, making it my longest one day descent ever, and since we needed clothes for all themperatures I was carrying about 20kg of luggage so it was quite hard on the knees. However it was amazing to see how we could start in a snow storm and end up in the beginnings of the jungle. The next two days we went on average 1400 m more down but since there were also some clibs these days that probably meant we walked more like another 2400 height meters. The trek ended down at 1300 m above sea level in the buttom of the valley sorrounded by banana palms and jungle vegetation. If we had know how hard the trek was we would probably have done it in 4 days instead of 3, bith to relax a bit more but also to have more time to take in the amazing plant life around us. However, it was still an amazing experience to see the great vararity of landscapes that can exist within such a small area simply because of variation of altitude. Our guide was also great at introducing us to the area because he was one of the few hundred people who had been born in the valley and his parents were still living in the area which was rapidly becomming depopulated as all the young went to seek their fortune in the naerby capital. One of the villages we went through was now occupied by only one family. Our guide had also brought his ten year old son along who did the trek for the first time because he was on summer holliday. We were very impressed that he did the whole trek without any complaints, not many Danish ten year olds would have done that.
It was clear that the trail must have been very important in its prime because altough there were places today where it shrunk to being just a small almost invisible track there were also places where its old size was visible and it was more than 3 m wide, paved and closed in by stone dikes at both sides and on the steepest mountain sides walls had been build up for over 10 m in order to carry one half of the path while the other half was carved into the cliff face. When we started up in the snow storm there were really some stretches that resembled some scenes from the Lord of the Rings movie. Altogether we liked the trek a lot even though the weather was a bit challenging. The snow storm we had begun in on the first day changed into rain as we descended and continued until after lunch the first day. The rains then picked up again at night and lasted until evening the seconmd day after which we finally had dry eather for the rest of the trip, however by then two thirds of our clothes and other belongings were soaked because rain covers and one layer of plastic bags had not been enough to keep them dry in the cionstant downpour. When we finally came down the hostel we stayed at did not do laundry the first day we were there and the next they did it too late for the sun to dry the clothes before they finally dried half way on the third day before the clouds came out and we had to return to La Paz could finally finish drying them at night in La Paz. However by then some of the clothes had been continously wet for more than four days and we wonder wether we will ever get the mouldy smell out of them. Luckily we did not bring most of our nicer clothes on the trek.
The day we came down from the trek Rebecca stayed in Coroico, an idyllic town in the valleys near the end of the trek, while I returned to La Paz to go bicycling the next day. The bicycle trip also did the descent from 4750 m, nearly where the trek had started, to the valley bottom at 1300 m, but this time by the old car road, which untill 3 years ago was the oly way from La Paz to Coroico and the northern jungle beyond. Back when it was used for traffic this road earned itself the desciption "the most dangerous road in the world" from the south american development fund after it had 350 deaths in a year while only conducting limited traffic. This was due to the road being so narrow that trucks and busses would frequently tip over the side of the roiad when trying to pass each other and plunge to their destruction on the cliffs a hundred meters below. Today when there is hardly any cars on the road , however, even though the tour operators still call it the Road of Death "El Camino del Muerte" it is safe exept for those extremist who want to press their mountain bikes to the limit on the 3400 m high 69 km long descent. For me bicycle trip was really lots of fun and altough the types of landscapes we wen through were the same as on the trek the road gave new vantage points for seeing and enjoying it.
As I arrived safely at the bottom I rejoined Rebecca in Coroico where we stayed at a small resort with a swimming pool and fantastic views over the surrounding valleys. We also stayed there the next day to relax just going on what we though was a short, flat 2 hour walk to a nearby waterfall. The walk was really nice but when we came back 5 hours later after walking a great deal, climbing a bit and getting a bit lost we were quite tired and really happy to have a dip in the pool. We got our energy back a bit the next day when we were forced to get up late, and sit around the pool for half the day because we were still waiting for our afore mentioned wet clothes to get dry. In the mid afternoon, however, we finally gor our clothes back and took a minibus back to La Paz.
The next day, which was yesterday we woke up early for a busy schedule of shopping and sending a package home to Denmark with all our cold weather gear, which hopefully we will not need any more. In the evening we then got a 20 hour bus ride west to Santa Cruz in the Bolivian lowlands where we will hang out for a day or two whili planning our rainforest adventures.
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