The Death Flight to Rurrenbaque

Weather: Not too hot in La Paz, swelteringly happy humidity in the jungle.

Llama Count: Need to update this metric to mosquito count temporarily. Not the most exciting animal in these parts but they seem to fill a good 90% of the conversation out here.

The transport options to the jungle town of Rurrenbaque* are as follows:

Number 1-- The Bus.

This goes down the remains of the death road, it is meant to take the newly built bypass around it. However, this adds three hours to the journey time so most drivers don´t bother with that innovation. Consequently there have been quite a few deaths on this week. Apparently last week a whole football team disappeared off one of the many cliff edges. The journey is meant to take twenty hours. However, it has been known to take five days, due to bus crashes, road failures, and the Bolivian favourite... the flat tyre.

Number 2-- The Boat.

An expensive four day cruise up a river.

Number 3-- The Plane.

Supposedly the fastest and safest option.
Definitely one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

I asked if I could have a window seat. Turns out all the seats are window seats, as there are only fifteen. The plane is tiny and you cannot stand up strait. The pilots seem very relaxed, a bit too relaxed. Due to the altitude of La Paz there is a very long run way, and it takes a very long time to take off. But we do. The plane rattles, and rattles, and then every few minutes there are a zero gravity couple of seconds, as we hit turbulence. To be fair to the pilot we are flying over one of the highest points of the Andes. In fact the mountains appear to be higher than us, and in one case I am certain we are flying lower than a snow capped peak. Forty terrifying minutes later we land in the jungle. The plane negotiates a last mountain and we appear to be about to land in the forest. There are only trees as far as I can see. Then suddenly out of nowhere appears a dirt landing strip, and there is an audible sigh of relief from all passengers as the plane touches down.

Rurrenbaque is a jungle port town on the river Beni. This is the land of the motorbike. There are more motorbikes here than street dogs. However, there appears to be a one bike policy per family. Whole families (including the odd dog and chicken) straddle their machines. Im not really sure where they are all going, Rurrenabaque doesn´t seem to be big enough to warrant transport. I think its more of a social event. After the traffic of La Paz long live the motor bike. They don´t need no zebras here.

*A place that looks easy to pronounce but no tourist can get it right so the Bolivians helpfully have renamed it Rurre.