Down the River without a Paddle Part One

I tried to post 'Down the River Without a Paddle' as a single post and my broadband account crashed. I am not sure if this was linked. However, I have learned my lesson and will post shorter chunks.

After finishing the Camino del Oro, we made our way to the jungle town of Guanay. Our plan here was to start a three day boat trip from Guanay to a town called Rurrenabaque. Rurrenabaque (called Rurre for short) was a pretty obscure place until a French package tour company put it on the map as a base for their jungle tours. Now, the place has an airstrip (not paved, which is another story). It also has reasonable hotels, with nice hammocks in which you can lounge during the day when it is too hot to do anything else. It also has some fantastic cocktail bars (booze and fruit both being cheap in the area). It even has a swimming pool and some decent restaurants. So, it has become a popular tourist destination. Usually, you either get to Rurrenabaque via a long, dusty bus ride or you fly in. Recently, a pair of entrepreneurial brothers decided to set up a 'get to Rurre by boat trip'. Normally, we avoid organised tours like the plague, but having had a nightmare of a time trying to fly to Rurre last year, we decided to try the boat thing. The entire tour involves being bussed from La Paz to Guanay. As we were already in Guanay, we waited around for a few days. Unless you like to eat large amounts of beef and drink lots of beer, there isn't much to do in Guanay.

Not being a tourist town, there a no nice cocktail bars and no hammocks. It is, however, a main supply town for the mining communities around. So, what you can get is dynamite.

My travelling companion doesn't like this photo. I can't say that I blame him. I can say, however, that he usually looks better than this.

Still having a day to wait for the boat trip, we got a bit bored with the delights of Guanay, and decided to head to Coroico, a popular tourist town about mid way between Guanay and La Paz. The full tour actually starts in La Paz. It buses people from La Paz to Guanay, where you pick up the boat. It will also arrange to pick you up in Coroico if you arrange this. We arranged this. We are told that we will be picked up in the main square. We spend a nice night, go to our favourite German run bakery coffee shop, checked out a Mexican restaurant that used to be good, but is now crap and then settled in for the night. The next morning, we wake up to discover that the community is pissed off with the mayor because he is corrupt. They arranged a public grilling session that was to take place in the main square exactly when we are supposed to be picked up.

We are well use to public protests and road blocks in Bolvia. A few quick phone calls to La Paz and we alerted the tour group of the problem. They arranged an alternative pick up point. This started with a friend of the tour guide coming to our hotel and leading us out of the town to where he had secretly parked his 4x4 which will take us to yet another location where we meet the bus. Bolivia may never win the world cup, but they are quite skilled at the sport of 'road block dodging'. We eventually meet up with the rest of the group.

Below is a view from our bus window. It is quite fuzzy because the bus was bouncing along the road. This does, however, give you an idea of what the road looks likes. This is quite a typical road in Bolivia.


We arrive at our boat a few hours before dark. I will describe part two of this journey in the next posting as I don't want to crash things again.