Shit its raining.
Yes, we have fallen victim to a tropical shower here in the principle steps of Bolivia's Amazon Basin. Anyway, La Paz rocks; I'll get back to that later.
High Andean plains outside La Paz. |
Just like that, we hit a very definite point where the bus began to head down... down, down, down nearly 4300 meters directly to Bolivia's slide of the Amazon Basin - an amazing change of terrain to witness in just 2 hours. Where else on the planet can you descent from snowy tundra crawling with llama set before such massive rocky peaks to a cloudy tropical forest 4 kilometers directly below? Probably nowhere.
Our chosen path of descent carries with it the title of "the most dangerous road int he world," a name inspired by the high fatality rate of travel on its paths, no doubt due to the lack of guard rails as the gravel road plummets down the sides of mountains. Descending, just as the yellow grass and mosses began to grow longer and greener, we entered the clouds - a major milestone in a a road trip down from the heavens. Riding along mountain ridges and looking over the edge, the forested earth just faded out to white in the near distance, giving rise to the question of whether or not the ground actually exists below us. We continue, and as the mountains above use disappear into the sky, we hit the breaking point of the clouds.
And just like that, we've left the realm of the sun and stars and clouds and moon and in front of us lies the massive expanse of the tropical rain forest, rolling on an infinite sprawl of hills channeling countless streams and rivers between them. The forest sprawls on as far as can be imagined, and the road improved to cobblestone as we re-enter a realm in free from strictly prohibitive slopes, and thus one again rich in human settlements.
Now, I find myself perched atop a mud brick wall in the forest outside Coroica writing these words to be read. We spent our day off the bus eating a delicious meal of spicy river fish with fried bananas, then took a walk to feast on the abundance of tiny wild tangerines that grow on the broad-leaf trees. My discoveries of the day are two-fold: First, the rain forest floor does no lie where it appears to, but rather a good meter or so under crushed subdue vegetation that will swallow you up if you don't step just right, and second, it rains a lot in the jungle.
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