Buses from La Paz to Coroico leave from its own bus terminal, and are not more than minibuses. They leave when the bus is full, which means you can get lucky or not. My luck wasn’t too bad and the bus filled up quickly. The bus ride itself took a little more than three hours, and ended close to the place where we ended after the Death Road (fortunately buses usually take the new road, and leave the actual Death Road alone). Coroico is a small town, in subtropical climate. It’s quite touristic and there is a bunch of day tours you can do from there. I found a nice hostel right at the main square and after arriving I just walked around for a little bit. I felt a little alone at that time, especially after being a lot by myself in La Paz, and that’s not always easy. But I still had a nice afternoon, and after dinner I went to the main square where a lot of people were hanging out. There I ran into my roommate from the hostel and we talked and watched some Argentinians dance – it was like a nice summer vacation, and Argentinians have a culture of music and dancing, so they knew what they were doing. It was great and I felt good not spending the night in my bed with a book.
On the next day I got up early and went for a walk to some waterfalls. It was impressive how much my surroundings had changed and I was fascinated my all the banana trees and other tropical plants. One of the waterfalls was really nice and I spent some time there, feet in the cold water, drawing.
After I got back, I finally bought my bus ticket to Rurrenabaque. It felt like it took me forever to do that, also because I was a little scared of that bus ride after some things I’ve heard. But when I had the ticket I felt good, and I was looking forward to the journey, that might or might not be an adventure.
I left around noon the next day, so there was not much to do before that. I went to a mirador and tried to find something to eat. Since it was early that wasn’t easy, and so I ended up eating in the street, which I actually enjoyed a lot more than eating in a restaurant.
To get to the bus, I had to take a minibus to another place first, and then wait there for the bus coming through from La Paz. I usually don’t have a problem with waiting, and I also met some other people who went the same way, but after the bus didn’t show up after some hours I got a little nervous. I had a paper with the name of the driver and the number of the license plate, but I didn’t really trust that information. The other people left after a while, because they went with another bus company and their bus had actually showed up, while I was still waiting. Finally, after 5 hours, I found the right bus and the adventure could begin.
The bus was just a normal bus, not too comfortable but it could have been worse. The bigger problem for me was the road – nothing less than the Death Road, but on a bus it’s way scarier. There were quite a few moments, when the tire was not more than half a meter from the edge where landslides had gone down not long ago, or we had to pass a truck that was going the other direction, when I thought, that that was it. Survival chances wouldn’t have been too high..
After a while I forced myself to sleep, so I would see what was going on anymore. And when I woke up a little later, we were in a city, taking a break and loading some (a lot..) more stuff on the bus, and people told me, that the road would be flat from now on. Flat – at least the landscape was flat. The road wasn’t. From time to time I felt like I was on a boat, the bus swinging from one side to another. But it was still way better than looking down a 200m-abyss and fortunately we didn’t get stuck anywhere and made it to Rurrenabaque almost in time.
I actually really enjoyed the last part of the trip, looking out the window and finding myself in a complete different landscape.
I had arrived in the Bolivian Amazon.
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