The great La Paz yo-yo clamping fiasco

Just to avoid confusion, this is a story that happened in La Paz before we went to Rurrenabaque and the rainforest, which we didn't get round to sharing at the time....

When we first arrived in La Paz we weren't too sure where to leave the van. In the end we decided to park it round the corner from the hostel we were using as a base but for extra security to sleep in it at night instead of using the hostel bed. In fact after a couple of days we realised we didn't even need to be checked into the hostel and could just use the facilities for free and stay in the van, nobody seemed to mind!

This worked for us over the weekend but we weren't sure what would happen about parking during the week. Monday was our Death Road trip, so we were up early and back late. I was quite relieved to see the van had not been towed although there was a typed piece of paper under the wiper with some message about a traffic violation and a request to pay 50Bs (approx £4.50) into a certain bank account. It all looked very dodgy though, hand ripped from a larger sheet and with no official looking logo, we just assumed it was some sort of scam.

We had a shock the next morning, when we returned from our breakfast and shower run to the hostel...

OK, so maybe that note was the real deal but we were a little surprised we hadn't spotted the clamp either the night before or when we first got up. The fine wasn't much but we weren't exactly sure how to pay it! We had few few things to sort out so we decided to crack on with them and worry about the clamp later. In the evening we returned to the van to find another surprise...

Now we were even more confused but at least we weren't clamped any more!

It finally twigged for us when we came back from breakfast on the Wednesday to find the clamp attached again....they obviously clamp vehicles during the day but remove the clamps in the evening even if the fine hasn't been paid.  Seemed like a strange system but that's Bolivia. 

We weren't going to be using the van that day so we just left the clamp assuming it would be removed in the evening.  It was, however the Bolivians had obviously had enough of the Chilean plated vehicle ignoring the parking fines (they don't like Chile at the best of times) and had decided to teach us a lesson by letting down our tyre. Serves us right!

'Never mind, we have the 12V compressor we bought in Chile for just such an emergency' we thought. Unfortunately this turned out to be a useless piece of cheap Chinese tat that couldn't blow up a beach ball. 

'Never mind, we can just fit the spare tyre and drive to a garage to pump the other one up' we thought. Seemed like a plan until we discovered the jack that came with the van had a worn thread and wasn't working.

By now we were a little disheartened but we really needed to find a solution. I decided our best bet was to find someone to borrow a jack from and managed to luck out with the first person I asked who not only was happy to lend us his jack but also spoke English, making the whole situation much easier. The luck didn't hold though, whilst the jack was fine for removing our flat tyre it wasn't quite high enough to put the inflated spare on. Worse still was once the flat tyre was off it returned to its inflated state and was then too big to put back on, meaning I couldn't return the jack to the helpful Bolivian!  In the end we managed to get it back on with the help of a screwdriver for leverage and the Bolivian who stood on the tyre to make it deflate. 

By this point it was after midnight and we were running out of options. However the Bolivian guy was still able to help by pointing us in the direction of a street of late night mechanics, about 15 minutes walk away.

We found a mechanic but had to wait for him to finish the jobs he was working on so by the time we had all got a cab back to the van, fitted the spare and returned to his workshop to reinflate the tyre and refit it, it was well after 2am. The whole job cost 100Bs, twice the price of the fine!  At least we were back on the road.

We parked on a different street that night!

The next day we headed into the town to get a new jack.  However, after 20 minutes looking around in the car spares area of town we began to think we weren't going to find one...only a few shops sold them and none big enough for the van. We were about to give up when I spotted a shop with lots of metal working machines in it. Christine was pretty confused about why I was heading to a shop that obviously didn't sell car parts but it turned out to be an inspired decision as the guy said he could fix the jack for 80Bs, way less than we were expecting to pay for a new one.

The thread through one of the pieces of the jack was totally worn away so the guy machined us a new part.

While this was being done we decided to head to the electronic market to try to buy a waterproof camera for the trip into the rainforest we were planning. On the way we passed through the gas appliance area of town so decided to stop to see if we could get our cylinder refilled....big mistake. Not only did we end up paying 20Bs for an incompetent gas guy to fail to fill our cylinder, we also got clamped again while we were trying to sort it out!!

This was extremely annoying as we were standing right next to the van while the guy was covertly clamping on the other side.....what made it worse was there were loads of non-Chilean cars parked all the way up the street but of course we were the only ones clamped. 

We didn't really feel in a camera buying mood after all this.

We paid the fine this time....and have been parking in private parking lots ever since!

Rurrenabaque and the Pampas

We've spent a lot longer in Bolivia than originally planned after deciding to go to the Amazon here.  It's the cheapest place to visit it in South America and there's no malaria here either.  So we left the van in secure parking in La Paz and got a flight to Rurrenabaque.

It's very hot & humid here and so different to La Paz.  It's not like any other Bolivian town we've been to.  It's very South East Asian, with motorcycles dominating - there are almost no cars here, apart from the 4x4s taking tourists around.  And at night there are street food stalls (although not of the same calibre as SE Asia - mostly chicken & chips and burgers) and lots of stalls selling tourist tat (cheap sunglasses and jungle essentials).

The first night we were in a hostel called El Curichal - recommended by the guide book, but it was actually the furthest out of town.  We only booked for one night as we intended to go on a tour the day after we arrived, but we got disillusioned with the number of tour agencies and the major difference in prices we were quoted, so we needed another night.  El Curichal let us down though by running out of breakfast early - the guy said they'd run out of bread and instead of offering a solution, like going to buy more, he just shrugged his shoulders.  A poor showing for an out-of-town hostel, so instead of booking in for a second night, we packed our bags and went to check out what else was on offer.  We settled on a place called Hostal Touristico Santa Ana, great location on the same street as all the tour agencies and stumbling distance from the two good bars in town.  Plus it was cheaper than El Curichal at 100Bs (£9) for a private double and with wifi that works in the rooms.  No breakfast, but it's across the road from the highly-recommended French bakery.

Then we spent ages trying to work out which agency to do our tour with.  Initially we were looking to do the popular 5-day, 4-night combo tour of the jungle and Pampas.  But the first place we went to quoted us 1000Bs, while another reputable agency wanted 2750Bs.  Such a big difference in price for supposedly the same tour - the only difference is meant to be the standard of food and accommodation.  

We spent a day investigating why the price difference was so big and found that some agencies had really bad tour guides who lied or handled the animals or weren't trustworthy.  We decided not to go for the cheapest we could get, and although the expensive agency consistently gets 5-star reviews on TripAdvisor, we didn't want to pay 2.5x the going rate, so we settled on a shorter 3-day Pampas tour with Indigena for 900Bs.

We really lucked out with our guide.  Luis not only spoke really good English so we got loads of information, he was really knowledgable and amazing at spotting animals in among the trees.  And he was happy to adapt to what we wanted to do.  We were also very lucky with our fellow tourists and got on really well with them.  We were a group of 8 - another couple from France, Bertrand and Justine; three French girls who'd just finished their studies, Charlotte, Marie and Appoline; and a Dutch guy called Arno.

L-R: Marie, Appoline, Me, Paul, Bertrand, Luis, Justine, Arno, Charlotte

On the first day, we had a 2.5 hour drive on that crappy, bumpy Bolivian road to the river, then a 2-hour boat ride to the lodge, spotting animals along the way.

Capybara, biggest rodent in the world.

Turtles

Crocodile

Monkeys

We stayed in a lodge on the banks of the Yacuma and did our excursions from there.

There was also a chillout area with hammocks and deckchairs.

Activities over the 3 days included a nighttime boat ride to look for crocodiles and alligators, shining torches to reflect off their red eyes:

Looking (unsuccessfully) for anacondas:

Piranha fishing (no luck with that either):

This was the bait being air dried at the lodge:

My fishing line complete with bait:

We also went swimming with pink dolphins, although we didn't strictly swim with them as they weren't feeling playful the day we went.  Here is Paul swimming in the Yacuma river in the rain at the same time as a pink dolphin.

There was also lots of chillout time in between.  It was quite warm and humid, so we swam in the river by the lodge.

All the tour groups were also taken to the Sunset Bar just upstream from our lodge at the end of each day's activities.

Meals were cooked by Thomas, who seemed to live at the lodge, cooking for the daily arrival of tourists.  The food was really delicious (chicken, spaghetti bolognese, beef) but there was always only just enough.  As a table of 8, we seemed to get the same amount of food as a table of 6 and we were usually all still hungry afterwards.  On the second night, we asked for more and Thomas was able to give us more pasta, but no sauce.  It's not like we were starving, but we weren't satisfied, which was disappointing.

(Dinner on the first night and breakfast on the second day.  They're doughnut rings, not calamari.)

We're doing a separate 3-day jungle tour starting tomorrow (Thursday 14th) with Mashaquipe, the more expensive agency that gets really good reviews.

Car meets cow

We spent the last three days in the Pampas or wetlands in the Bolivian Amazon.  It's a popular tour spent riding in a boat on the Yacuma river during the day and sleeping in a lodge on the banks at night.  The memorable things you're meant to take with you are the animals and experiences, such as swimming with dolphins and fishing for piranha.  But for us, it will be the car journey back from the river to Rurrenabaque.  

The road is a stereotypical Bolivian road, with loose gravel, big stones and plenty of potholes.  This was our car when we got in it.

Yep, that's a smashed windscreen.  Most of the cars we've been in in Bolivia have had cracked windscreens to varying degrees, but this was the worst.  One of the suspension springs was broken too and we soon realised why - this driver drove fairly fast, even over potholes.  And there was lots of sudden braking whenever he realised a hole was bigger than he thought.  

What he didn't brake quickly enough for was a cow, which suddenly ran out in front of us.  Of course we hit it, and he was going quite fast, so I was convinced it was coming through the windscreen.  Luckily (if that's the right word) it came off the right side of the car.

That is a dent in the shape of the rear end of a cow on the bonnet, with evidence of the cow emptying its bowel on impact.  The cow survived, but stayed sitting on the side of the road looking shocked, so I assume it suffered damage to its legs and/or internal injuries.  

The driver presumably thought he'd got away with it because after getting out and picking up the light off the bottom left which had come off, he got back in and carried on driving.  About 20 minutes later though, the car started losing power and clunking, so much so we had to stop.  The impact had pushed the radiator back and we had leaked all the radiator fluid and overheated.

It had been raining, so after stopping another car driving tourists back and using drinking water from them, the driver filled the bottle with rainwater from a ditch on the side of the road and poured that in.  He cooled it enough to drive another minute down the road and then we had to stop again.  Impressively by then, about 30 minutes after we broke down, our tour company had managed to get another car to come and take over, so we were spared any more stopping to refill with rain water.  To our relief we also got a new driver, so the old driver had to sit on the handbrake in the replacement car.

Yes, the cow bolted in front of us suddenly, but he shouldn't have been driving as fast he was through a herd of cows in the road.  Wonder what will happen to him...we heard that if drivers crash, they are punished by docking of pay.

Given the state of one of the tyres on the car we had on the way out to the river, I wouldn't be surprised if this happens quite regularly during rainy season.

Well and truly bald!  Scarily, this is pretty standard in Bolivia.

Bits and bobs in La Paz

We hung around in La Paz for quite a while.  One of the good things we did was the free Red Cap walking tours.  Ther's no upfront cost, you just tip what you think at the end (a la Hairy Coo bus tours in Edinburgh).  Given the altitude, they take it easy - slow walks to interesting sites and then you sit down while they tell you a story about each place.  One of the stops is a market where we had the opportunity to buy a snack and drink.  The guides recommended 'super vitaminico' juice, so Paul ordered one of those.  They whizz it up right in front of you so you know it's freshly made - the first thing she put in the blender was a whole egg, shell and all!!!!  It made for a fairly gritty drink.....mmmmmmm.

One girl ordered mango juice from another stall and the woman put mango in the blender with the skin still on, so with every sip she was picking bits of skin out of her mouth!!!  Crazy.

We did better on the snacks though; these are 'papas rellenas' or filled potato - deep fried mash potato balls stuffed with a minced meat filling.

The tour ended on the 17th floor of the Hotel President for a view of the city.

You can also abseil down the outside of the hotel.  We stayed behind after the end of the tour to see 3 people do it, one of them in a Spiderman costume!  This is her practising:

That evening was bonfire night, so there was a mini bonfire with a Guy Fawkes on the roof of the hostel we stayed at.

A couple of days later, Paul and I were in the San Pedro district of La Paz looking to buy a waterproof camera for our trip to the jungle and wetlands.  We didn't really have any luck on that front as electronics are really expensive in Bolivia and waterproof cameras don't seem to be in demand.  But we did try a typical Bolivian lunch.  There weren't many eating options in San Pedro so we just went in to a random little restaurant that we stumbled across.  I think they had two lunch options but one was sold out, so we had no choice - we got a vegetable soup starter and then a breaded pork fillet (Milanese) with rice and salad and a bottle of coke all for 10Bs (90p) each!!  And we didn't get sick or anything - double yay!

(The roof was made of corrugated yellow plastic so the room had an atmospheric yellow hue)

Surviving the Death Road

The old road between La Paz and Coroico is dubbed the World's Most Dangerous Road because it supposedly has the highest number of deaths per kilometre of any road in the world.  It's 60km+ of winding gravelly mountain road, in some places only wide enough for one vehicle.  An average of 27 vehicles a year went over the edge!!  In 2008, a new, safer road was opened, so now the old 'Death Road' is mainly used by cyclists who've paid to see if they can stay on the road at high speed.

Paul and I did this on Monday (4th) - which just happens to be the only day it has rained significantly in the week that we've been here!!  This was the fog at the top when we were getting our bikes sorted.

Now, my account of cycling the Death Road is going to be very different from Paul's.  I rode really slowly!  There were 13 of us in the group and I was always one of the last three or four to go, knowing that I'd be overtaken anyway.  We had 22km of tarmac at the start to get used to the bikes (really good full suspension bikes that went over uneven gravel with ease).  

Then another 40km+ of soaking wet crappy road, loads of blind corners and lots of big rocks in the way....oh and the odd car/truck/lorry.

Below is the site of the road's worst accident - it happened at night, a bus met a car at this single-lane section.  For some reason, the bus was forced to reverse, but the driver couldn't see where he was going and drove over the edge, killing more than a hundred people.

Stories like that made me ride slow!  The bus was always at the end of the group, and at one stage I could hear it behind me and I was worried I might be going too slow and be picked up by it (a la Aimee!) but they let me continue to cycle at my own cautious pace.  

The weather cleared up as we descended, so we could see coca plantations at one of the stops.

Apart from the low visibility and rain, it was rather an uneventful cycle, until the very last section.  As we were on the home straight, a dog suddenly ran out in front of one of the girls forcing her to brake hard.  That sent her over the handlebars and she landed on her mouth.  She lost one and a half front teeth right there and another tooth the next day.  Of all the bloody things that could've happened on the Death Road, a damn dog running out caused this!!!!  Couldn't believe it.  A taxi was arranged to take her to La Paz so she could get seen to properly, while the rest of the group went on to have our showers and food, but we were quite subdued for the rest of the day (including the 3 hour drive back to La Paz).  I felt grateful that my only pain was in my arms from gripping so hard!

(For info, we went with Gravity, the most expensive company at 750Bs (£68) but the best reputation and safety record.  Think the money pays for the bikes, which were fantastic.  Was a bit concerned that the girl who hurt herself couldn't be offered first aid on the spot by the bus driver though.  She had to wait 20 minutes until she got to the guide.)