La Paz and beyond...

As our bus wound its way into La Paz from Lake Titicaca Millay worked out that when she did her parachute jump in New Zealand a few years ago it was from a LOWER altitude than the one at which we currently stand. We´re currently 3,800m (that´s 12,500ft) above sea level and trekking around this steep hilly city is a constantly breathless experience.

As it turns out though this time we´re just passing through, we´ve managed to find a jungle trip that is going to take us tomorrow by boat deep into the Amazon Basin. We signed up eager for the adventure that will take 3 days and involve camping in the jungle for 2 nights. It was only after we´d handed over our money that the reality began to sink in and we started to wonder what we had gotten ourselves in for. In this part of the world ´boat´ could mean anything from a pre-war rust bucket to a raft; my Spanish wasn't good enough to enquire about the existence of a motor. The one thing Millay did discover was that it definitely doesn't have a toilet, I don´t think we've ever prayed so hard for ´good health´ if you know what I mean.

Still if we survive the trip down there the town we´ll stay in for a couple of days, Rurrenabaque, should be gorgeous and chilled. The other slight adventure is that is that the only way back to La Paz USED to be (our mothers - notice the USED) via what was officially recognised as the "world´s most dangerous road". Apparently drunk driving, a 3.2m wide mountain road and 600m drops wasn't conducive to a happy driving experience. Luckily, thanks to a huge international development grant, a new road has now been built that is apparently a lot safer and the old road is now restricted solely to hiking and mountain bike tours that are advertised everywhere as ´ride the road of death´. Don´t worry Donna, I've got Millay on a short leash on this one!