Sundance Kid: How do you know? This might be the garden spot of the whole country. People may travel hundreds of miles just to get to this spot where we're standing now. This might be the Atlantic City , New Jersey of all Bolivia for all you know.
Coroico slide show: http://s269.photobucket.com/albums/jj42/jennie_toner/Bolivia%20Files/?action=view¤t=6d5fc77e.pbw
Soon after returning to La Paz from Lake Titicaca , we decided it was time to take one last trip. This time, to a town called Coroico (pop 4500, elevation 5,700 feet - 1750m), on the edge of jungle. Coroico is popular among weekenders from La Paz and foreigners who have completed the “world’s most dangerous road” on mountain bikes – the old road which winds down into the Jungle from La Paz and has claimed over 30 lives thus far. We decided on mini-bus via the new road.
I was lured by John’s stories of pools and hammocks, overlooking steep cliffs and working coca plantations. We headed for the area of La Paz where the buses congregate for Coroico. Again, it was bustling and loud. We caught a bus going to “Coroico, ‘roico, ‘roico” and were off. The ride down was intense, a 6,000 foot plummet through spectacular cliffs and rough-hewn mountains. At the top, before we began the descent, we passed by a pasture of llamas grazing alongside a lake created by the ever-melting glaciers. In the lake were sea gulls! Imagine sea gulls at 12,000 feet! Perhaps they will get the sea back after all.
Coroico was a beautiful town, perched atop a cliff on the edge of the Yungas – the area where the Andes ends and the jungle begins. On each of the steep mountain sides, coca plantations clung to the land with their wiry roots. John and I even took a “tour” - a taxi driver, Gony, and his buddy driving us over to the coca fields to visit their friends who lived there – and learned a little bit about the plant itself.
Coca fields have a life span of only about 40 years. According to our guides, attempts at rotating crops on the field have failed, since coca leaches the soil. After 30 years, they cut the plants off at the roots and get 10 more good years before the land is dead. As we rode up into the coca-growing community, we could see the fires, set on neighboring hillsides, to spur more growth. After the coca has grown enough leaves, women head out to the fields and pick the plant, leaf by leaf, from its wiry stems. Grueling work done in draped white shawls under the unforgiving sun.
Coca is by far the highest grossing crop these folks can grow. US Aid has built schools and bought big screen TVs in the coca-farming towns in the hopes of curbing its production, but as you can see in the slide show, the US Aid-built school co-exists alongside multiple coca fields. Nevertheless, they also grow coffee, cocoa and many different kinds of tasty fruit, including maracuya and tumbo.
After we got into our hotel and settled into the beauty that is Coroico, we headed over to a French restaurant we’d heard about in the guide book. Apparently, some years previously a French couple had decided to dig their roots into the Coroico soil and started a hostel and restaurant just outside town. And my goodness, I had not expected to find such succulent crepes, crème of asparagus soup and llama steak with mushrooms outside a fancy urban restaurant, if at all, in Bolivia ! These kinds of surprises are what make the traveling worth it.
As with all relaxing views, we got bored after a while and decided it was time to head back to La Paz so I could pack for my trip back to the states later in the week.
And so I give you one more funny transportation adventure story before I wrap up. The mini-bus tickets we’d bought for “ La Paz , La Paz , La Paz !” in hand, we waited in the terminal for our vehicle to arrive.
When it arrived, ½ hour late, the first thing the driver did was to pull out a jug of water and pour it over his engine (bad sign), saying to the ticket hawker under his breath “Esta muy mal…” (It’s really bad…). Double bad.
The ticket hawker, however, assured us that there was no problem. “But the driver just said it’s really bad” we argued. “Oh no” the ticket hawker assured us, “it’s fine.” And against our better judgment, dear friends, we piled into the bus with the 13 other passengers.
30 minutes outside town and only 1,000 feet higher up into the mountains, of course, the driver started grumbling, turned off the engine and started rolling backwards down the mountain into a roadside rut to stop. “Esta mal…” (It’s bad) he grumbled. Follow your gut, people, follow it.
Not looking to wait hours in the hot sun until another only-slightly-less-sketchy mini-bus came along, we flagged down the next flat-bed truck which rumbled up the hill and joined an indigenous family and an afro-boliviano family who were taking their mandarins to market in La Paz in the back. We snuggled into the back among the families and their sacks of mandarins. An unlikely yet friendly combination of travelers. I couldn’t help but imagine how different their lives are from mine.
The rest of the trip up the mountain was stunning. Outside the confines of the minibus and in the open air the sky opened up above us and the views down into the cloudy Yungas were even more stunning. The temperature dropped almost 40 degrees as we climbed up into the mountains over 6,000 feet (1,800 m). We started in t-shirts and continued to add layers as we rose, finally shaking and huddling beneath our packs as we again passed the glacier lake, sea gulls and llamas still lazily grazing.
As we rose the last 2,000 feet I felt my breath again begin to quicken and my heart beat fast in my chest, signaling our ascent into the airless Andes.
Back in La Paz, we rested, went out to eat and enjoyed the perks of city life before my impending return home. ATMs!
Even now, back in Cincinnati, some mornings when I wake and hear the traffic outside my window, I think about Bolivia and the sounds I woke up to each morning. In La Paz, the horns, cars, and children playing. In La Isla del Sol, the donkeys braying and trumpet pounding through all three glorious notes. And in Coroico the birds, the bugs and, it seemed, the sounds of hummingbird wings.
Thanks for reading! Hope you’ve enjoyed the adventure as much as I did.
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