The Most Dangerous Road in the World!?? Oh....that totally makes sense now.....!

It´s been a while since our last blog. We last left you in La Paz, Bolivia. A rather GIANT city, but quite pretty due to the fact that it´s located in this giant sprawling valley. We also made some friends in our hostel and managed to find this awesome local hang out that likens itself to Hollywood karaoke.... (shout out to the Tinga Tinga lovers out there)!

The next morning we hopped on a bus....preparing ourselves for a 20 hour bus ride, our longest ride to date. We are getting better at these long rides, but each one ends up being an adventure and a half. For example, once our bus got going in La Paz it decided to stop and let this guy get on (who by the way had the best mullet ever!) and give the longest speach...(we are not really even sure about what...the engine and the smoke billowing through the window from the exhaust was distraction enough. But not to worry Chad, as promised we captured this and many other moments of this bus ride on video.

Once we made it out of town, we quickly noticed that the road was becoming smaller and smaller....less than one lane in some parts. The scenery was beautiful, however, with waterfalls and jungle alike. But did we mention that the waterfalls were ON the road, and the bus was sliding everywhere in the mud!?? We realized about 2 hours into it, that we were on what the Bolivians call the Death Road, the most dangerous road in the world... due to the fact that it is one lane, on the side of a cliff, in the middle of the jungle, and that giant trucks and buses have to pass eachother frequently. We however were the only travelers on the bus, as well as the only people who were freaking out when the bus had to reverse on the tiniest piece of road we have ever seen. People kept laughing and telling us how funny we are...but that was real my friends, we really were scared. Nevertheless, we made it to Rurrenbaque, our destination, and the gateway to the Amazon.

The next few days were spent in the Pamapas (kinda like grassland and jungle mixed together) swimming with Pink River dolphins, seeing alligators, and anacondas. It was awesome, totally worth the bus ride to get up there. Our guide, ¨Negro¨, was a true baller naturalist, and Jo was definitley given ample opportunity to ¨nerd out¨ and learn about the native plants (that one was for you Braidy!). Aly still thinks that swimming with the dolphins is the best and that mosquitos really do love her.... (don´t worry, those Malaria pills are being taken!)

After our trip we spent a day chilling in Rurrenbaque, and by chilling we mean SWEATING due to the humidity and the hot weather. We loved it all the same though. Last night we endured another long bus ride....on a bus with NO shocks whatsoever. Imagine 20 hours of Indiana Jones. Throughout the night we would be woken up by crashing into the window, the seat in front of us, or by catching air in the ailse. We do hope that these rides are earning us street cred when it comes to bus rides! This morning we were dropped off on the side of the road with some of our other travel companions from Chile. We managed to catch a cab to Corico, a tiny town that has tons of character and an animal refuge that we are going to try and volunteer at for a few days. We love monkey turns out, and there they let us hang out with them all day long!

Love to you all! Until next time, Adventure is out there!!