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Bus hell

I think I may well have been to hell and back since the last post!!!!Used up my nine lives for sure. But I'll start from the beginning rather than launching into tales of near death experiences!!!!!!In La Paz we had a quick word with tourist info, who said the bus was OK and a cheaper option as we had a bit of a lack of money for a flight. So we wander on up and book a bus ticket....all good so far. Get on bus the next morning, leaves only half an hour late......settle in for a 17 hour bus journey....which I don't mind as theres exciting stuff to do at the end of it. After three hours sat in the yard of the mecanica......only 30 mins out of La Paz I did start to wonder if we are cursed....every bus we get on breaks!!!! Amused self feeding stray dogs biscuits. After 2 hours and fifty minutes of staring at the bus, the mechanic finally does something, and the bus was miraculously fixed in about 10 minutes, and we went straight back down the road we went up originally!!!! All going quite nicely after that, until we headed down a curiously thin and steep and windy road. Sheer drop on one side, and we were the ones pulling over to let huge lorries and things go past, except I'm not sure there was quite enough room, and we were probably dangling half the bus off the edge every time....luckily (not when you read what happens at 2am)I was sat on the right hand side , so had good view of the waterfalls we drove under, and the landslides. Boulders. I think C has a photo of the crew removing the rockfall and nearly getting a splatted by a great big slab of falling rock. Still kind of OK with the bus at this point. Then I wondered why so many jeeps were coming up with bicycles on top. And then twigged....this must be the famous 'Death Road'...aka the most dangerous road in the world. Were you wondering where it was? Yep, here.....and I have been down it in a big old bus. With too many people on it and maybe a broken engine. Or brakes. Was hopeful that at the end of this road things would get better....was pretty amazing to see the scenery change...from normal trees and pretty chilly high up La Paz, the plants got bigger and weirder and this tropical feeling kind of crept up on me, like, yeha we are in the Amazon Basin, which was pretty cool. Dinner stop was also good, chicken again...kind of a staple of my diet! Bus also pretty easy to fall asleep on, until they stopped and let another 12 people on....very very hot. 2am....jolted awake by lurching of bus. Thinking, it's OK, buses did this in Madagascar, but when it hit the 45 degree angle and people started to scream it got a bit more real and there was definite potential for tipping right over! So staring at the ground from slightly nearer than I am comfortable with....made the decision to get off the bus...and had to break into the stampede to get off through the drivers window which had turned into a skylight we were that tipped over. And stood around in the mud waiting to get pulled out by the bus that had wanted to get past....no chance. Arrived in Rurre after 24 hours on the bus and found gorgeous hotel.

posted by Katie @ 2/26/2004 10:05:00 pm