About 2 hours into the journey, we came to a halt, as the rain drenched muddy road had claimed three cars, that needed to be towed out, and caused us a 40 or so minute delay. But once the road was clear we were once again flying. A few hours later, after starting our climb we came across a grounded lorry, we slowly edged passed the lorry, only for the back end of the bus to skid out and clip the wagon. It was only on close inspection we realised the wagon was carrying gas cylinders. Also having dug the wagon out the driver wasn't overly impressed about being pushed further into the mud, and an argument ensued between the bus and wagon driver with allegations being thrown back and forth. Finally the dispute was settled and we were on the road again, stopping briefly for food.
As the night set in we stopped, for what we thought was our evening meal, only to be told the bus would be there for the night as a landslide had happened on the road ahead and it wouldn't be cleared until the morning!
After an uncomfortable sleep, we were rudely awoken around 6:30 by a choqlita singing! Anticipating an 8 o'clock departure we sat tight. When 10:30 came some people decided enough was enough and took a taxi option, we held firm, and finally at 1pm we started to move, only about 5km up the road, and we again hit traffic. I decided to take a walk and see what lay ahead, after 1km i hit a small landslide with some trees teetering, a further 2km down the road I came across a fallen tree, with nobody working to clear the blockage, it wasn't looking promising. En route to the landslide, a makeshift slaughterhouse had been set up, where some pigs killed in the landslide had been gutted and hung from the trees! Finally I reached the obstruction, and hearing different tales, some saying 2-3 hours and the road would be clear others saying 2-3days the only thing for consistent in the stories was nobody knew if the road beneath was damaged!
Upon return to the coach, dark clouds started to develop over head and the first few drops of rain fell and stopped, thankfully! Around 4pm a guy came passed the bus shouting La Paz, he had a bus on the other side of the landslide, we decided it was a risk worth taking. We gathered our belongings and made the 5km or so journey! When crossing the mud Katie lost her shoes on numerous occasions, with locals standing and laughing at these silly foreigners.
We gratefully boarded the bus, and sat and waited for departure, it soon became apparent a lot of people wanted to use the service, fortunately for us we had a seat. The bus started to reverse down the hill until we reached a suitable turning point, and after a multiple point turn we were off an moving forward. Shortly after we reached a small town and the bus stopped offloading a fridge, and allowing more people onto the bus, but into the luggage hold. We set off for caravani at quite some pace, and made reasonable time getting there, allowing the people in the hold time to stretch their legs, and for us to eat our first hot meal in 48hours!
Again everyone was loaded into their relevant travel positions and off we headed towards coroico, on what can be described as the continuation of The Death Road, a series of twists and turns on a narrow stretch of road climbing from 1000m to the heights of 4700m. The uneven surface had the bus rocking and on occasions, gave us the impression that only three wheels where in contact. The first point of interest in this leg of the journey, involved us getting off the via around midnight and walking a 100m or so through puddles, and mud as the bus driver was unsure of what that particular stretch of road has instore. About an hour later we were again asked to get off and walk, this time through a fast flowing stream come river, as we got off the bus we saw a guy slip and drop his torch over the edge of the waterfall. Needless to say we headed as far away from the edge as possible. Once we had crossed the bus followed suit, only to get stuck, after multiple attempts to free the bus, including about 20 of us pulling the bus with a rope,a lorry coming the opposite way was able to tow the bus out!
Thankfully we were left to settle for the night, apart from a Chilean couple on the floor talking and singing till 3am!
We finally arrived in La Paz at 6:30am on Tuesday 44 hours after leaving Rurre on a supposed 18 hour journey!
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