There and back again

Well our trip to Coroico is over and we somehow managed to come out alive! If you haven´t read Jason´s blog for the trip there, then I suggest you do. Needless to say, it was a terrifying experience and probably a bit more than we bargained for, but exciting nonetheless. We stayed in a bit of a different hostal in Coroico. It wasn´t actually in the town itself, but up the hill a ways, accessible only by 4x4 taxis. Extremely quiet and we had our own little casa to ourselves and would wake up each morning to the jungle birds, with an amazing view of the Bolivian mountains. Went out to explore the area one day and hired some horses to speed up the process. We took the beasts right through town and the locals thought it was funniest thing, as they would come running out to the street and laugh and wave to us. Made our way up through some rough roads past coca fields (really wanted to see some armed drug lords cruising around and were dissapointed in their absence) and orange groves to a second village above Coroico. Extremely poor and the people here seemed just plain scared of the horses and the strange white humans riding them. I quite enjoyed being back on horseback and am going to look into some longer expeditions in Argentina. We celebrated our equastrian prowess with a ´3 man´ hot tub. Granted I think it was made for 3 short bolivian men, and it took quite a while for us to squeeze in there, the $2 bottles of bolivian wine helped ease the pain and general anxiety at being in such close contact with Jason and Ryan. Much of our time in Coroico was spent listening to the pounding rain on our tin roof casa. We had been warned of these so called ´rainy seasons´ and can now appreciate their glory. Knowing that it had been raining for 5 days straight, made us feel exceptionally excited about our return trip up death road. On the way to the bus station (to catch the bus back up the road) the taxi we were in went into a sideways drift down a muddy clay hill and for a while was wobbling on two wheels, great way to start off the day. We left yesterday afternoon in a packed minibus to meet our maker. The road back was in much worse condition then the road on the way there. Instead of small streams intersecting the mud, it was now raging rivers which we had to cross in our minibus. Before what we thought were waterfalls on the road, were more like dripping facets compared to the versions we had yesterday, which actually were waterfalls. But enough talk, ill let the pictures speak for themselves, although I hardly think they do it justice. Arrived back into La Paz in the middle of a snow storm. We were all quite excited as it felt a wee bit more like home, although due to some laundry issues, the only thing I currently have to wear is a pair of surfer shorts. Warmed up in one of the thousands of underground little restaurants throughout La Paz, drinking warm wine and eating llama steaks (which by the way, if you can find in Vancouver, I highly advise to try...delicious meat), glad to be alive after the harrowing journey. Plan is to leave today for Oruro, where tomorrow we´ll catch a train to Uyuni, to visit the salt flats. Thats about it for now! Adios! Pictures! New and improved Gaucho Jordan We don´t know his name, but this is the man who successfully navigated us down the death road, I am forever in your debt. Pretty sure Jason was about to hug him there. Next three are random death road pictures. Keep in mind thats about how wide the thing is the entire way, and on the one side is a straight drop probably 500-1000 feet. Not only did we have to somehow squeeze by the big cattle and cocoa trucks, but our driver was actually passing other drivers heading down in an effort to get to Coroico on time. Didn´t get any shots on the way back, just believe me that it was much, much worse.