01-04.03.11 Sorata

We had planned to go to Rurrenabaque in the Bolivian jungle after our stay in La Paz but due to flooding and burst river banks we had no choice but to post-pone the jungle action until Peru when the weather should have improved. 

Sorata is located approx 3.5hrs north of La Paz at the pleasantly low altitude of 2670m and a great place to walk in the surrounding mountains the 'Corderilla Real'.  We had to take a small 'collectivo' which is basically a 'sooty van' seating 16 people in very close quarters.  We had front row seats up next to the driver which was probably the worst place to be seated.  After about 2 hours of driving along the flat 'Altiplano' at around 4100m we started to climb over the peak of the mountains and decend into the valley.  The driver next to me was showing signs of some terminal illness, sweating and holding his head and neck every now and again, obviously in pain.  We hit some serious rain clouds and he did a couple of Hail Mary's.  We both thanked god all the way that he was on our side as suddenly as if the lord had spoken the driver started the most reckless decent of 1500m both of had ever witnessed.  Because Bolivia is full of mountains and high altitude altiplano the roads down to the valley are basically cut out of the side of the mountain - any accident was sure to be fatal.  Our driver seemed to have a death-wish and was hurtling down 40kmph roads at 65/70km on the wrong side of the road round blind corners in the thick fog & cloud.  There were several occassions when we were faced with traffic head on and Ryan and I nearly asked the driver to stop so we could get out.  I have never been so petrified in my life and Ryan said it was the second worst journey he has ever been on, second only to a kamikaze taxi ride from Krakow to Auschwitz when Jay nearly got out and refused to go any further.  Thankfully we arrived in one piece with clean underwear.

The weather of the previous few days had been pretty poor in Sorata and the road and footpath condions were pretty dyer.  Most of the roads with the exception of the main square were unpaved and extremely muddy but that didn't put us off our first day of hiking.  We chose a popular day walk to the Gruta San Pedro (cave of San Pedro), 24km there and back along the mountain roads and footpaths.  The walk was spectacular with fantastic views of the valley, if not green with corn fields and agriculture then multi-coloured by the minerals in the exposed rocks.  We found it such a shame that we didn't have our camera as it really was picture perfect. 

The next couple of days were spent making future travel plans whilst the weather changed from rain to sunshine with the odd walk in-between.  We were glad to have a few days of peace before the madness of Oruro Carnival on Saturday.