Culture Shock! Bolivia - A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette

Enjoying Bolivia 177

Important Note

This hike takes about fi ve hours, including a riverside picnic. To

make it a day trip, you’d have to fl ag an infrequent bus or truck

back to La Paz.

Hike 4

Don’t get off the bus at Unduavi. Bypass the Sud Yungas
turnoff, and ask to be let off where the new Yungas Highway
turns left. You proceed straight ahead. At fi rst you’ll have the view
into Sud Yungas gorge to your right and later the Nor Yungas
gorge to your left. Known as ‘the World’s Most Dangerous Road’,
for its breathtaking hairpin turns, thousand-metre dropoffs
into green abysses and crosses marking the dead that serve as
warning signs, this road carves down through limestone as the
vegetation thickens and humidifi es. With a new highway on the
other side of the gorge, less vehicle traffi c interrupts this stroll,
which ends seven hours later at the hotland river town of Yolosa at
1,100 m (3,608 ft). From here you can fl ag a bus back to La Paz
or better yet, hop on a pick-up truck, past the other side of the
river, 300 m (984 ft) up to the pretty town of Coroico, where
you can fi nd a relatively inexpensive hotel with swimming
pool. This same hike can be done by mountain bike with a
tour company.

Hike 5

Take a mini-bus marked Ovejuyo-Tranca in the direction of the
Zona Sur. Get off at the tranca (police checkpoint) above Ovejuyo
(past the Zona Sur). Continue up the road until your eyes get
a double blast of white from the pointed Illimani and the fl at-
peaked Mururata. Descend through the agricultural Valle de las
Animas, veer right at a junction in the village of Huni, and you’ll
descend over an ancient Inca trail into the magnifi cent Palca
Canyon, where, in the shade of natural ramparts, you’ll weave
over a meandering stream. An occasional mini-bus now roughs it
through here, but that’s an infrequent event. Pay attention for an
odd complex of farm buildings up to the left. That’s the exit out
of the canyon for the uphill stretch to the old mining river town of
Palca. From Palca, return to La Paz by mini-bus from the central