1992 Bolivia

HIGHLIGHT: Coroico is a lazy backwater in the Yungas – the valleys that connect the high altiplano with the low-lying Amazon Basin. The valleys are steep and narrow and incredibly lush. In the background you can see the snow-topped Andes. But here it is warm and humid. The road to Coroico has, with good reason, a very bad reputation. It is VERY narrow on the whole and unpaved (only 1/50 of Bolivia’s roads are paved). It literally clings to the mountain edge and drops about 3000m in 80km (from La Paz). In places it is built on an overhang. In places the overhang is crumbling away. In places waterfalls drop onto the road turning it muddy and treacherous.

I did the five-hour trip to Coroico and (two days later) back to La Paz by camion. WHAT an experience! I found the road terrifying but the scenery exhilarating. On the way down, my camion was virtually empty. On the way back it was loaded with fruit and crates tied with animal hide. On top of these I and my fellow passengers had to perch and protect ourselves as best we could from the wind and dust and sun and overhanging branches and, as we neared La Paz, the massive drop in temperature. The local women came well prepared for the oddities of the Coroico road – hauling out bright blue plastic sheets to fling over their kids and their goods minutes before we passed under a waterfall!

On my first morning in Coroico I walked the 7km down to the village of Yolosa. I was joined by polite Eduardo, who spoke no English and seemed content just to stroll beside me, and a white mongrel that, like a kitten, dashed and darted at nothing and ran circles around Eduardo and I. School children with beautiful teeth in beautiful brown faces grinned and greeted me all the way down the hill. One Indian woman, teeth stained from chewing her coca leaves, gave me a reserved greeting and then laughed out loud when she turned to inspect me from behind and found that I too had turned to inspect her. Flowers blooming everywhere. Birds squabbling unseen in the valley. Two tiny hummingbirds hovering directly over the road, wings a-blur as they snatched tiny bugs out of the air. A perfect morning.