Into the mines

Arriving in the highest city in the world (Potosi) at 4100m, we were excited to crawl into dark, dusty, hot, smelly mines! In the miners market you can find women selling slices of fruit, cola, and dynamite! Why not right¿ One stop shop! We bought colas and coca leaves as gifts for the miners and headed to the mines. These mines are currently all active extracting zinc and plumett 2 km into the mountain. Putting on our hard hats and lights we started sloshing through the dark muky passages! Climbing down 6 stories we came across a worker who was getting ready to blast! Heading out before the blasting seeing the light at the end of the tunnel was welcoming. I can´t imagine working down there for 8 hours a day!

Smokes, cola, dynamite and amonium nitrate

Dynamite on the street

At the mine

Worker filling the cart

No biggie, just holding the dynamite

The holes in the rock behind are where the dynamite will go

Biking the Death Road Bolivia

Hearing all the stats (average of 1 tourist a year rides off the cliff, and when the road was used daily by locals average of 220 deaths a year) and horror stories about this road of course crazy us still wanted to conquer it! A 5 hour 64 km bike ride taking you from 4700m to 1100m along gravel roads carved into the mountain side with a 200m plumett to sure death on your left! Can I say adrenaline rush! Enjoy our ride!

Starting point and chase van

The first hour was on the new paved road

The group

The Death Road

AAAHHHHHH

Wheely

Don´t look down....I looked down!!!

We survived!

The Jungle

Because every good story should start with "deep in the Bolivian jungle," that´s where we will start this one!

 A 45 minute flight out of the capital La Paz, (taking us over Mt. Huayna Potosi  where we had been only 15 hours earlier-it refreshed memories of a lack of oxygen and waves of nausea) with a soft landing on a dirt air strip we were in Rurrenabaque.  The air was humid, hot and full of oxygen . Perfect!  We booked a 2 night 3 day pampas trip to begin the next day. The pampas is a massive expanse of flat jungle that is seasonally flooded by the  meandering rivers that make up the head waters of the Amazon. The next morning we rolled out of bed with stiff legs from mountain climbing  and limped our way to the awaiting Toyota land cruiser.  It was a  3 hour dusty drive to where the river began and our boat was waiting.  Cruising in our dugout with a 15hp outboard, it was only seconds before we saw our first alligator! Our guide Jimmy (pronounced "Yimmy") made sure to get us close enough to floss his teeth . After 3hrs of cruising up the river and seeing countless alligators, capibara, turtles, monkeys, pink dolphins and various colorful species of birds we arrived at our new jungle home. The huts were raised off the soil with boardwalks between for the rainy season and our lodge was complete with an alligator chilling on the beach front. The first evening we watched the sunset while enjoying a much needed cold cerveza. 

Huayna Potosi

Alli !

Capibara - largest rodent 

Turtle!

monkeys!

Howler monkey

Day 2 began with a 5:30 wake up call by howler monkeys above our hut grunting so loud it sounded like an orchestra of poorly maintained "Detroit" diesel engines.  That morning we went on a  trek through the wetlands anaconda hunting. Sloshing through knee deep mud following the slimy tracks was creepy as hell. You never know when you might feel one slither away under your feet!  We didn't find an anaconda but we did see a 4 m long black caiman crocodile. A nap in the hammocks and the afternoon was spent pirhana fishing! Chris caught about 6 keeping 1 to try for dinner :) 

Alli in front of our lodge

Pirhana!

Yimmy and our dinner

Day 3 started with a sunrise boat ride and a swim with the pink dolphins. Jumping in the middle of the dark murky river where you can't see more than 5 cm deep is just crazy! Lining the shores where we were swimming was alligators and nipping at Chris' toes were pirhanas. Maybe it's better that we couldn't see what was beneath us! "Yimmy" made Chris feel better about the alligators by telling him that they are vegetarian.  Heading back to Rurrenabaque the amount of alligators and crocodiles still amazed us! A dusty jeep ride and we were back. A slightly delayed flight while the ground crews chased a cow off the air strip and we were on our way back to La Paz.  

Chris swimming!

EEEKKKKK

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