Where to start: One infected stomach, Biking down Death Road, The REAL Death Road, A Jungle tour and madness!

well well well. I am not even sure where to start because it has been a wild ride and it has not stopped for some time now. To begin with Anna and I spent about a week in La Paz. It is an awesome city, huge and old and crowded and exciting but I was quite sick and could not really enjoy the fun. I had been feeling sick, all bloated and unable to keep down much food for a while, about two weeks but it just got worse in La Paz, I wasn't able to eat at all and really only felt up to lying in bed. So finally after one very horrible sleepless, sick, feverish night I decided to get some help. I would always feel OK in the morning before I would eat anything or did anything. So the next morning feeling better Anna and I set off to find the Canadian embassy to ask them where I should go to get help. The embassy was awesome they are all so nice, helpful and friendly. They had all of these photo books on Canada which made me feel pretty homesick. Anyway they gave me a list of doctors and let me call my mom for free and then we ran into the Consular and he just sat and talked to us about his work and travels for a while as well as printed us out a copy of the news feed he got so we could read some international news. From there we set off to the private clinic (which was very expensive in Bolivian terms, I am sure very few can afford to go to the private clinic). They were nice there as well and the doctor kinda spoke English which was good because I don't know any of the Spanish words for what I was feeling like. After some tests and such they decided I had a stomach infection and that I needed an IV and an Antibiotic drip so my first IV was lying in a Bolivian clinic while nurses would come in and start talking to me and asking me things in a language I didn't understand. Finally they let me go and I just have to take some pills everyday. The next day I was feeling better and was starving because I hadn't eaten in a week. So I proceed to not follow the doctors orders and eat little by little, instead I chose to eat a lot by a lot, finishing the day with a bowl of Indian curry (the first curry place we have found and I couldn't resist) We also spent the day booking our next activities. One of the things to do around La Paz is to mountain bike down the so called Death Road. It is this very dangerous highway that worked its way from La Paz to city called Chulumani. The highway is mostly a single lane and runs up the side of a steep mountain. The road has no railing and in lots of parts the drop off, straight down mind you, next to the road is 300 feet. It is intense and crazy. And very dangerous, there have been hundreds of deaths on the highway including bus loads of people whose drivers just fell asleep (they drive crazy hours) or just made some small mistake and drove right off the road (easy to do when your margin of error is less than a foot.) There are also waterfalls that fall right on to the highway and all that delightful jazz. There is a new highway now that is much safer but some people still use the old one because it is a half and hour quicker, craziness!!! I really cannot emphasise enough how nuts this road is. Now the road is mostly used by bikers biking down it, which is still an intense experience.

I end up not sleeping at all after eating the curry which just set my stomach off and ruined all of the doctors good work. I felt like shit when I woke up and got ready to go on a down hill mountain biking adventure. We started early getting to the La Paz office by 7:15 am. We ate breakfast there ( I didnt really because I felt like throwing up the whole time) And then we set off. We drove up the new highway and started up very very high in a dense curtain of clouds. We got out of the bus (there were 5 of us in my group plus the guide and the mini bus driver). We got suited up in rain pants and top (it is very cold up there, my fingers went numb very soon on and damp and we were going to be biking under those prementioned waterfalls later). I felt terrible at this point and found a somewhat secluded (which is hard in an alpine plain) place to throw up a couple of times and then we were off. We were biking down the new highway at the beginning, which is nice and smooth and paved and only alittle scary when cars and trucks pass us, but I am pretty used to that from biking at home. The bikes are awesome and we just fly down hill, hardly braking at all. It is amazing scenery, Andean mountains and plains and a snaking river and little villages. And we were just blasting down the hill. The first stop was a check point, there are lots of these in Bolivia, I am not completely sure of there purpose but soon we were off again. This part was great smooth and a bit like flying. Then we reach the 8 km we had to bike up hill. Now it was not particularly steep or long but being as high as we were any kind of physical activity is damn difficult. I managed to bike most of it but had to walk up the last hill. But this expense of energy really set me off feeling pretty sick again and my stomach was none to pleased with my decision to bike up hill. After the uphill section we were off again on another down hill ride until we reached the begining of the old highway, aka Death Road. It was much different from the new highway. It was gravel and steeper with sharper turns and if you missed them you would go shooting off into space and die, more than one person a year does that while biking on this road. All over the place there are crosses and memorials to the people that have died on this road, and the guide would say things like ¨This is Italian corner because an Italian biked off here two years ago etc, etc, etc.¨ How delightful. Now I tried to take the road as fast as possible but I believe I have a very strong desire to live and thus was not at the front of the pack. But it was an unbelievable ride. We descended into jungle territory and the road snaked along this insanely steep mountain that shoots right down into a spectacular gorge. As we descended out of the clouds it was a clear day and the temperature kept getting hotter and hotter. It was crazy to see the ecosystem and environment change so drastically on one bike ride. And man was my heart in my throat for the whole thing. We got to bike under water falls and stop and look out at some amazing views and it was so much fun to just glide down hill for so long. But by the end of it my stomach had gotten the better of me and I was just trying to finish without dying. We finished the bike ride by riding down into this small tropical village with chicken, dogs and children everywhere. Now Anna and I had planed to continue on and do a jungle tour after this so we needed to get to Rurrenabaque first which is a small town in the Bolivian area of the Amazon basin. We were told by the Biking company that we could buy are tickets for the bus (which was a lot cheaper than the plane) in this small town. And thus we did. We booked with this woman at the local store and she didn't even bat an eye at us only asking if we preferred the mountain side or the valley side. We decided that the valley side would probably be much more beautiful so we stuck ourselves there. We were even pleased to find out that the bus could pick us up right outside the door of the country hostel we were going to stay at that night (it was were the bike tour ended with a big old lunch). Well everything just seemed to be turning out for us! So we headed off to the hostel, which was idyllic and in the country where it was hot and there were beautiful flowers and banana trees everywhere and even a pool. Anna and I spent the rest of the day lying about and enjoying the rest. The hills around there were amazingly steep but there were all of these terraced farms up so high on these hills in these tiny patches of order. I don't even know how people walked around on these hills they were so steep and they have little houses up there and everything.

We we spent the morning doing some more nothing. Our bus wasn't supposed to arrive until 3 pm and so we just hung out. The drive to Rurrenabaque was supposed to take around 15 hrs or more so it was going to be a long over night haul but I was ready for just chilling out and listening to my i pod etc. I have gotten used to long bus rides. We were told that the road was pretty crap but that really isn't anything special in Bolivia. We were expecting the usual crap, gravel roads, rivers over the road, lots of ruts and stops. Nothing that we haven't experienced many times before so were not worried in the least. Sitting out on the highway we waited to flag down our bus as one just whipped by us. It wasn't labeled with the same company name as the bus were were looking for, however this is a very common occurrence, and we started to get worried that our bus had passed by. What were we going to do? But never fear our bus came rolling right along and stopped for us, no problem. It was a tall bus up on huge off roading wheels, the kind on many buses here because of the roads they drive. It is the kinda bus that feels pretty top heavy because everyone is sitting up so high and under us is only the baggage storage, no bathroom mind you, not for a 15 hour journey, come on in Bolivia two stops is considered more than sufficient. We climbed on finally finding our seats that had been taken by others and we sit down. I am stoked and just stare out at the beautiful scenery. Anna is sitting in the window seat and I on the aisle. Well about 20 mins into our journey my whole perspective changes. We are driving on the craziest, stupidest most fucking (and I need to swear in this section to get my point across) insane road that I have ever been on. Now the day before on the death road we had made many comments like, man you would be crazy to drive on this road, it is pure madness and insanely dangerous and listened to many stories about buses driving off the road and all that. I really believed that since it had its name and reputation the Death Road was the worst road of its type in Bolivia and they had a new highway so it really wasn't so bad. Was I ever wrong. The Death Road was actually just the best known of such highways and I was now driving on to another. I have NEVER been so scared in my entire life. It was the worst experience I think I have ever had. I was totally consumed with Terror and I am not over exaggerating at all. This fucking top heavy bus lumbers its way on to the most insane road (even more than the death road) I have ever seen. It was suicidal. The road was cut into a mountain side that was basically straight up and down. It was a one lane ridge that just clung to the mountainside above a more than 300 foot straight down drop into the gorge below. Now this road wasn't even cut into rock like the death road but this red dirt that is everywhere here and erodes like crazy so the edge of this narrow one lane road was totally eroding away. There are no barriers, there is no wiggle room, you either do it perfectly or you die. We had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. There were sections of this road where the bus was right up against the mountain on one side and had less than 4 inches between the outside wheel and the abyss of death. From where I sat I couldn't even see any road out the window only the river winding its way along way down below us. I almost started to panic as the bus would lumber its way onto these sections of road that were in no way flat and would sway percarioulsy out back and forth out over the edge. My heart almost stopped. We passed tiny settlements on this road, a couple houses here and there tucked along the road in the barest tiniest more precarious of spots. I almost made Anna get out at one because I didn't think I could keep going. It just seemed so stupid to risk your life in this way. But then what we would be stuck there and this bus did this everyday so we decided to stick with it. There were points that it was so unbelievably bad Anna couldn't even look so she would bury her head in my shoulder and we would hold hands. I couldn't really move with the terror of it. I just put on my ipod, stared straight a head, gripped my armrest like it would some how protect me if we fell 300 feet and prayed to every deity I have ever heard of. I didn't take any pictures sorry. I had no desire to lean out the window and face the insanity of that road full on, I wanted to do no leaning out over an abyss at all. Also, vehicles drive on the left, as opposed to the right like the rest of Bolivia. This gives the driver in a left-hand-drive vehicle a better view over their outside wheel, making passing safer. At one point we reached one of the rare sections of road where there were two lanes but there were two dump trucks what needed room to get by and to maneuver this we had to back up, god damn reverse up along this narrow narrow highway of death. I couldn't hardly breath as they did this little maneuver. Then later while picking are way along one of the more dangerous, eroded and narrow parts of the highway we hit a couple of really deep pot holes that caused us to sway erratically and dangerously wide out over the precipice. Now the Bolivians on the bus were all treating this like it was nothing, this is the only highway to tons of little and not so little towns in the jungle so they had just accepted the danger of it as if it were nothing. Yet as we hit those pot holes there was a collective intake of breath across the bus. It was beyond terrifying. And not only was this road narrow but it was super winding so we were always going around insanely sharp blind corners, not so fun. We finally descended and followed the river at the base of the valley which was still a damn scary ride but nothing to what we had been through. Reaching our first stop, a town of at least a couple hundred people (now remember all supplies etc have to come in along that fucking insane road) and getting off and I nearly kissed the dirty ground. We had dinner, food never tasted so good. I had been sure I was going to die so this was a nice change. I got to talking with a couple from the bus, mid thirties and the guy told me he had jumped out of planes and done a lot of crazy things but he had never been so terrified in his life. I agreed. The rest of the long and bumpy bus trip was scary and windy and dangerous and then dark, but nothing as bad as the first two hours. Although in the dark you just couldn't see the abyss, which doesn't really make it better. It was a very very very bumpy ride with the bus swaying side to side with the huge pot holes made it feel like we might tip over at any point. I didn't sleep a wink.

We finally reached Rurrenabaque at about 6:30 am. and I have never been so happy to get anywhere ever. I really thought I wasn't going to see another day for points on that bus. We were planing on staying a day and finding a tour booking it and leaving the next day but there was a woman at the bus stop from a company we had heard of and they need people to go that day so we went back to her office. We unpacked some of our stuff, ate some breakfast, wrote a quick email and then we were off again. This time we piled into a 4 by 4 with five other people (4 kiwis and an Aussie) in the back and the guide, drive and cook in the front. Now the seats were pretty uncomfortable and were lining the sides of the truck so we were always facing sideways. We had to drive for more than 3 hours down this dirt road to get to the river to start our tour. It was a very dusty dusty road. Everything here is either dusty or lush. The soil out here in the jungle is fine and red and great when it is covered in jungle but just terrible and dusty as hell in road form. And as I mentioned before it erodes like hell. This road had the worst pot holes I have ever seen. They were at least 4 feet deep in some parts. Needless to say after not sleeping for more than a day this was a rough go. We finally reached the river where the Pampas tour was to begin. The pampas is an area that is basically like a huge marsh, mangrove style park with tons of wild life and huge trees. We then board this really long shallow dug out canoe style boat with a little engine on the back. We spent the next couple of hours boating through the Pampas to our camp. There were lots of other groups doing the same thing and about 5 camps. It was an amazing ( I know I say that a lot but lots of things are amazing) trip. We saw so many kinds of birds ( I always think of you Greenwood when I see all the birds knowing you would know what kind they are) some were big and some small, lots of colors. We saw hawks and birds of paradise and all sorts. We saw our first pink river dolphin but we would see lots but it is pretty fucking cool to see a dolphin in a river. We saw a couple kinds of monkeys, including these really cute little ones that were hilarious to watch. We finally reached our camp. A couple of thatched roof houses on stilts. We dropped our stuff off had a snack and then headed out to watch the sun set at another camp where you can buy cold beer, and it is still only about 2 dollars even all the way out here in the middle of a jungle swamp at the end of the craziest road I ever thought existed. Then as the mosquitoes came out we boarded the boat again and went to look at crocodiles in the dark. Their eyes turn red in the light so they are easy to spot. WE find a couple and our guide catches a small one with his hands and we all get to hold it and look at it before we let it go. The sky was also so beautiful. It was clear and you could see a million stars, I have come to be able to the recognize the southern cross. There were also tons of fireflies which kept looking like shooting stars in the sky. We finally headed back to camp and ate dinner and went to bed under mosquito nets, although I am pretty sure there were also bats in our room. Anna and I just passed right out since we hadn't slept in almost two days.

The camp kinda smelled moldy in parts because of the dampness. And man was it hot. It was unbelievably hot. In the sun it was blazing. We woak up the next morning had breakfast, all the food was pretty good actually, then we went out in rubber boots to look for anacondas. I guess it is a bad time of year to find them because it is so wet they are all further in the Pampas in giant swamps but as soon as we got to the swamp we were going to and exited the boat we ran right into one. It was big but not huge and we could get so close I pet it. It was very smooth but after a while it seemed to get pretty annoyed with us so we left it alone and went walking around the swamp for a while. We saw another bigger crocodile. Then back to camp to get in our swim gear, we were going swimming. Now this did seem a touch crazy and scary since we had already seen crocodiles and anacondas and we were going to go fishing for piranhas later but we were to swim with dolphins. We reached this circular open area in the river system where lots of dolphins like to go. The water is so murky that once you are in you can barley make out our hand below the water and seeing your foot or even waist is a lost cause. I have always wanted to swim with dolphins but this isn't the perfect situation. But with that bus ride under my belt not much can scare me now. I just compare the new activity with the bus ride and it comes out smelling like roses so I dive right in. There are maybe five dolphins in the clearing,you can see them when they surface, and the guides always throw in water bottles or balls for them to play with but other then when they surface you have no idea where they are and as a game they like to bite your feet. Now not through the skin mind you but it is shocking to have your feet bitten in this murky amazonian water. So it was a bit nerve wreaking but pretty awesome. They never bit my feet but I tried to keep them near the surface. We spent about 2 hours playing with the dolphins then it was back to camp for lunch. After lunch we rested in the heat of the day then we went piranha fishing. We had to reach this tiny river system down this rapids because I guess that is the best area for piranhas. Dolphins eat them so there are not that many in the dolphin areas thank the lord. You just kind jig for them with fishing line with meat on the end. I turned out to have all the luck and caught three piranas (two yellow and one red) and a sardine. The red ones were bigger and more dangerous and our guide showed us how they bite by having the red one bite a huge chunk out of one of the smaller dead yellow ones and it was scary. It took a huge chunk out of the other fish. And man does it have been teeth. We ran into a couple other groups, from one of whom there were two guys swimming, our guide told them it was a bad idea because of the piranas and also the crocodiles got bigger around there. Man boys can be dumb sometimes trying to show off. Anyway we went to watch the sun set again and sat in hammocks and drank really cold beer, it was great. Then we went back and eat dinner (which included fried piranha which was pretty good but really fry anything and it is good) and chilled out. We got up at 5:30 am the next morning to go out in the dark and listen to the howler monkeys which sound more like dogs or lions. Then we just paddled down stream listening to the jungle nosies as the sun rose. There was also a huge storm cloud in the distance that gave us a pretty amazing lightning show. Then back for breakfast, then out again to look at wild life and swim with some more dolphins, which was hilarious, they really do seem to have a sense of humour. Then back again for lunch, during which a pretty big crocodile climbed up right near the kitchen on the bank of the river and our guide fed him by hand a piece of meat and then he just sat around sunning himself for the rest of the afternoon. After lunch we were back in the boat with all of our stuff and headed back to the starting point of the river. On the way back we saw a bunch more wild life including a capabara, which is the largest rodent in the world and is pretty damn cute. Once we got back at the starting point and unpacked the boat the truck hadn't go there so we sat around in the shade and waited. It was so hot that you just sweated buckets in the shade not doing anything. Finally our truck arrived and we piled in for another hot and dust and bumpy drive back. The drive back took a bit less time because he went faster but damn I was exhausted by the time we got back. We were all tired, covered in dust with the sorest bums around. We had all planed to stay in Rurrenabaque for a night, wash up relax and then fly out the next day (no way I was getting back on that bus for hell or high water) But because you can never really plan anything down here we were told on our arrival that our flight had been switched to an hour from our now so hot, tired, dusty and dirty and sweaty as hell the seven of us had to run around pack the stuff we left behind, get our plane tickets from their down town office, get food and water, get a cab to the air port and catch our flight. It was a damn hectic 1 hr that we hadn't expected, we were all dreaming of showers. But we finally made it to the air port (the one building on a grass run way) after getting felafels from a crazy old hippy American dude who was living out in the jungles of Bolivia so the US government doesn't implant his skin with micro chips (insane but good food). We climb onto the little plane, dirtiest people around find our seats and settle in exhausted. The flight takes barely an hour and soon we are narrowing in on the lights of La Paz. We land, no problem, we are almost there, almost finished a very very long day when Anna mumbles something incoherent to me then passes out. Now we both knew she was bad with altitude and we had just gained a bunch in an hour flying from the jungle to La Paz. So I talked to her and made her wake up and talk to me but she was still kind out of it. So we waited to be the last to exit the plane, and the kiwis help me carry her stuff to the one room airport. We sat her down and waited for our baggage to arrive and then Anna got much worse. She couldnt breath right and started loosing consciousness and crying and wasnt able to talk then she just passing out for a while. I am trying to keep her conscious by talking to her and making her look at me, I got a cab to take her to the hospital but she kept getting worse. The air port people were completely useless and couldn't even figure out how to give her oxygen. These two Israeli med students stepped in and helped me, they said she was just hyperventilating and put a plastic bag over her mouth and told her to breath in through her nose and out her mouth. She was finally ok after a while but she was really in and out of it and it freaked the hell out of me because I didn't know what to do other than to keep her conscious and try to be calm. It was really scary. I am going to take more first aid when I get back because it is really shitty not to know what to do. And I didn't think she was hyperventilating because she wasn't even breathing that much. Well after all of that. We caught a cab to our hotel that we were staying at in La Paz and chilled out for the rest of the evening. Anna was doing much better and the Israelis said that all she need to do was take it easy I could have kissed them. And now here we are back in La Paz after quite the whirlwind of terror, adventure and excitement.