Bolivia

Trinidad, on your way towards Brazil in Western Bolivia. Instead of taking what is well documented as the most dangerous road in the world…

Trinidad, on your way towards Brazil in Western Bolivia. Instead of taking what is well documented as the most dangerous road in the world, La Paz to Coroico, but I’d already done this journey three times, twice down, once up. In a big multi-coloured bus, very scary. In a mini-bus, frightening. And in the back of a pick-up truck, down right insane.

We decided to turn right out of Coroico and head on what the Colombians laughably called a road, east 300-dd kilometers to a city called Trinidad. It’s on the Manore River, one of the tributaries of the mighty Amazon.

It had been raining heavily when we left Coroico, so many of the roads were out and the rivers swollen. Three days it took, hitchhiking with trucks. I checked into the flophouse on main street. Had the first room on the left, directly opposite where the owner sat at reception, and right next to the TV room. Not that we cared.

There were a few other “gringos” in town, all staying at our hotel, the sheer bloody cheek of it! We were on nodding acquaintances already. Over our weeklong endurance test of a stay they each tried to befriend myself or Peter, my Dutch mate. We were having none of it. It transpired that they were organizing a boat trip into the jungle. Four or five days, a bit of the Amazon, wildlife, a few pictures. They needed extra numbers or were genuinely being friendly. Each time one of them cornered me to enquire if I was interested I would reply:

“Errrrrrrr… I’ll have to talk to my friend Peter.” And each time one of them cornered Peter his response would be: “Errrrrrrr… I’ll have to talk to Justin.”

Their downfall was not cornering us both at once! ‘Course the fact that neither of us wanted to get on any sort of boat with these people, and we were numb from cocaine abuse, had nothing to do with it. Eventually they got the idea, and started to deliberately go out of their way to ignore us. Or was that just paranoia?

They wouldn’t even acknowledge us now, just looked the other way each time they saw us. Things seemed to be going well with their expedition anyway. Each day they would traipse through the hotel with more provisions, and we would purposely try to catch their eye.

Things were going well with our stay as well, although how long we could ride it neither of us were sure. Up at around 1pm, walk straight out into reception. BAM! Sensory overload. TV blaring, owner staring at us and all other expedition foreigners ignoring us. A quick freshen-up, food; we were spoilt for choice. Next door on the left was a “Pollo con Papas” restaurant. Chicken in a basket garnished with chips. Next door on the right was an “El Menu.” Restaurant, a cheap eat. Lunch was only served until 1pm, so we had to be on our toes.

A small round Coca-Cola table was balanced on the pavement. Pete would set fire to cigarettes and a double round of pollo con papas with cerveza would be requested. Once hunger was satisfied, it was straight to the matter at hand:

“Where’s our dealer?”

This is where things got tricky and we should have been arrested. Taxis in these parts consisted of 50cc Honda Dream mopeds. O.K., good so far. Taxi drivers always know where to score. Getting warmer. Our conundrum was… every motorbike taxi and rider looked the same. Tatty bike, nondescript colour. T-shirt and baseball-capped rider.

“Who did we ask last night?”

“There he is!”

“No, that’s him over there!”

“Do you know a place where I can buy cocaine?”

My Spanish was coming along just fine. You would get maybe four or five brush-off’s, before one rider would nod and go “Vamos.” Jump on the back and be gone to god-knows-where in a dust bowl of acceleration, leaving your partner in crime pulling the last bit of gristle off the chicken bones. Wondering if he would see you again.

It was the bad part of town. Ain’t it always? The driver bangs on a door, shouts from inside. The guy was obviously asleep, no joy. Another part of town, hook up with some other moped-clad youngsters. They indicate for us to follow them, and then wait in the street.

“I’m waiting for my man, a load of Bolivianos in my hand. He’s never early, he’s always late. The first thing you learn is that you always have to wait.”

They return, a small bag is produced. I wet my finger and dab, rub it on my gums. Satisfied, money changes hands and I’m back on the moped out of there.

Back at the hotel, it’s time to negotiate the fare. Usually you do this before you actually go anywhere. But hey, I didn’t know where I was going. It was crystal in my head though: you took me to this bit of town, we stopped. Then we went here, stopped, then we went there. I knew the price and quoted it.

“No, no, no.” The guy wanted more. The ensuing argument attracted another Bolivian.

“Ah! a taxi driver trying to over-charge a tourist.” He had “good Samaritan” all over his face. I explained where I’d been. My Spanish really was improving. Yes, I was correct.

“You should pay no more.”

“But I took him to buy cocaine!” The good Samaritan put up his hands and walked away. It really was time to exit stage-right.

Our cocaine binges had attracted two other degenerates. A Peruvian guy we met on our way to Trinidad, had his own Willy’s U.S. Army jeep. And would cruise us around town with Elvis Presley blaring from its one speaker. And a huge German guy, actually he was just tall, but in Bolivia that meant giant. They meant more people to take it in turns purchasing. Spread the risk.

The morning of the boat expedition arrived, and we had just woken and were being ignored. A party of about eight left for the port where they had hired a boat. Things were getting fuzzy for us now, we had mushy heads, incredible runny noses and the jitters, but food was definitely on the agenda. Variety was needed, we almost looked like chickens by this stage. Fish, must be fish restaurants here, makes sense, there’s a river. On the back of a Honda Dream again, destination: Fish Central. We weren’t thinking clearly; fish restaurant, means port, port means boats. Boats mean…

As we paid the taxi drivers I spotted someone from our hotel. Two and two still hadn’t made four. My brain was spinning in neutral. I walked along chatting to him, Pete bringing up the rear. Turned a corner and to my horror – or to their horror, more like – everyone who had been ignoring us from our hotel was on the back of a truck, mouths open, staring at us waiting to go to their boat. They must have thought we had changed our minds and were coming with them.

I did a marching about-turn, walked straight into Peter. Who looked up and saw them for the first time. In our best bumbling Laurel and Hardy impressions we mumbled “Good-bye, good luck,” and waved. We were in hysterics, almost bent double, just made it around the corner before we collapsed giggling stupidly. We were still laughing half an hour later.

Never did find a fish restaurant.

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