A quick google search will tell you that the snaking highway from La Paz to Rurrenabaque will only take 10 hours by bus. The cost; $10 USD. Seems like a no brainer right? Especially when the flight is notoriously stressful, can cost up to $80 USD one way. Every back packers dream - a “local experience”, saving money, and the chance to meet other travelers? 10 hours ins’t that long, right? I can tolerate it, right? Read on to find out why that is an optimistic estimate by all measures. Spoiler; just catch the plane.

After recently traversing Death Road by mountain bike (read my post on that here my confidence was running high when I stepped onto a bus in the Villa Fatima Bus Terminal in La Paz way back in 2014. The morning was sunny, the air cold and crisp, and I boarded expecting a short jaunt down the hill before arriving in the jungle later that afternoon. Woefully underprepared, blissfully ignorant and thoroughly underdressed, I plugged my headphones in as the bus pulled out from the station. The bus was full of locals - the back seat occupied by live chickens and roosters. A dog sat in the front and somewhere a baby was crying. A Canadian backpacker sat behind me - we spent the first hour of the trip sharing tidbits from our travels, discussing our plans, reviewing our reasons for catching the bus. For me, it was due to not knowing that there was a plane that serviced the route between La Paz and Rurrenabaque. For her, it was due to trying to book said plane too late. As we pulled out of the city and headed westwards towards the snaking mountain path I opened my book, the city of La Paz disappearing behind the bus.

It wasn’t until we’d been driving for an hour or so before I realized how woefully under prepared I was. After climbing up a series of steep foothills and switchbacks, the bus then emerged out onto a thin ridge. To my immediate left out the window I was presented with a gorgeous vista of endless rain forest and cloud cover below. However, it was only when I glanced out the front window that I began to recognize the terrain. In front stretched a muddy brown track, perpetually snaking to and fro around the edge of cliffs, underneath overhanging trees and across small streams. Whilst I could only see the track until it disappeared behind a rock wall, I remembered where I was - having been there two days before sitting atop a mountain bike. Staring down the barrel of that horribly unkempt and winding road, this time on board a bus however, was wildly more terrifying than any fear I had experienced whilst on the bus. I unplugged my headphones at this point and considered praying to any God that would listen.

The way down was even worse than I could have imagined. Prior to this bus trip I considered myself fairly stoic, thinking that I was up to pretty well any challenge. Midway down the road, however, I realized how utterly inaccurate this notion was. The driver took it extremely slow, keeping the bus to a crawling walk as we descended. That didn’t prevent other, smaller trucks and buses from overtaking us, often scooting past the bus at a mad dash, narrowly avoiding traffic coming in the opposite direction. Yep, there were also cars coming up the hill, despite the road being barely more than 5 meters wide at points. At no point on the slow descent downhill were there any effective guard rails, barriers, or traffic management systems. Only the thin, snakelike gravel and mud road winding ever downwards. I was bewildered as we drove, sitting as I was on the left hand side of the bus. At each corner my side of the bus veered precipitously close to the edge, the road disappearing from view as the driver slowly turned the wheels up front. There is no more uncanny feeling on earth than watching the edge of a cliff slowly loom up before you are sitting (literally) on the edge of the cliff without road beneath you. It was utterly bizarre and truly terrifying. With each new turn the rain forest loomed up beneath me, hundreds of metres below. At some turns I saw the wreckage of cars and buses that hand’t been cleared from the forest - some of the wrecks appearing terrifyingly new. More terrifying still, when another bus approached from down the mountain we were forced to slowly reverse (the driver now blind to the road behind) to a suitably wide point for the other bus to pass. I could have sworn I heard the screeching of metal as one bus brushed past - our bus rocking ponderously as it passed. As we rocked I was afforded a surreal view of rain forest below, looming up with each rock of the bus. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been more terrified in my life. As we rocked back to stability and the other bus extricated itself from us I became aware of just how blase the locals on board were with the process. There were no gasps as we teetered on cliff edge, no cries of alarm as we rocked back and forth. They merely sat quietly, patiently waiting through each violent rock of the bus.

Like all good things, however, our drive down Death road finally came to an end. The way down gradually smoothed, the steep gradient descending into more of a gentle hill. I let out a sigh of relief as we began to pass through thick jungle, no longer surrounded by steep cliffs and sheer mountain passes. Now, we passed through undergrowth, moving swiftly past trees. After passing a town or two we made our way deeper into the thickly jungled areas to the north of La Paz. I started to feel hopeful, thinking that we might arrive in Rurrenabaque before midnight. I reminded myself that the drive was only due to take 10 hours at the maximum. Now, 5 hours in and having barely traveled more than 50 km, I was at least hopeful that by tomorrow morning, I’d be waking up in a bed at my hostel in Rurrenabaque. However, just as we started to pick up greater momentum it began to rain. That thick, tropic pelting rain. It was a genuine deluge. As we made our way deeper into the jungle the roads become gradually more precipitous, turning from gravel slick into muddy slides. The bus driver persisted though, maintaining a steady pace into the jungle, taking each corner carefully. I considered myself luck at this stage, wordlessly thanking the driver for his caution. However, my blessings soon turned into muttering under my breath. As the rain intensified and night began to fall, our slow progress through the jungle was halted as our bus reached a thick line of traffic. In front were several logging trucks, smaller cars and other large buses. We sat idling in the jungle for an hour before we made any movement. When we did it was halting, our bus chugging slowly behind one of the trucks in front. As we came to a straight section of the road I saw how bad the traffic snarly actually was - in front lay an endless line of traffic stacked up. I asked a local in the chair opposite me what the hold up was about,

‘Bogged,’ he said simply.

And I saw that it was true. Ahead, a large semi-trailed lay stranded in ankle deep mud. Cars were able to pass, but anything heavier was stuck, leaving us in a thick queue of trucks, buses and industrial vehicles. The air was very hot, having transformed turned from cool mountain air into the soupy jungle heat in our descent. Men were gathering by the bogged semi trailer outside as the sun set, water now pelting down from the sky. Nobody seemed to have any answered for what to do, and none of the heavier vehicles (our bus included) seemed willing to try and navigate the muck slowly building around the semi trailer. The road was unrecognizable now, a thick clay colored smudge in the jungle. Without any decision our announcement our bus driver turned the engine off.

‘What’s happening?’ I asked the local.

‘Staying here for the night,’ he responded.

I opened my book and hunkered down into my chair to wait

I think the bus took off sometime after midnight. Beyond all hope I’d fallen asleep during the night, and woke to the dull rumbling of the bus. I didn’t know when or how we’d passed the bogged truck, and thought not to question it. We trundled into the hot night, invisible tree limbs brushing the bus windows in our passage. The night was very hot, and the dull, steady rumble of the bus sent to sleep promptly. Throughout the night I slept fitfully, waking only to find the bus entrenched within more jungle. We broke down again at another point, the bus heating up intolerably as the driver gunned the accelerator uselessly. I must have fallen asleep again, because when I awoke it was to a different vista altogether. Flat wetlands stretched to either side of the slowly moving bus, and beyond, the vast Amazon Rain forest. We were now thoroughly and obviously within the Amazon Basin. To the sides of the wetlands small shacks and villages were dotted, beyond, endless rain-forest. It was a genuinely magical way to wake - if not for the pounding heat now overtaking the bus, I would have felt a sublime sense of wonder. Yet, the heat was well and truly here. I felt myself sweating and sweating as the morning turned to midday and our bus approached Rurrenabaque. As the road turned from muddy track to asphalted highway once more I began to pray for a shower - the heat truly sapping my remaining reserves of composure and tolerance. Arduously, the bus approached the tiny dot on the horizon that must been Rurrenabaque. The heat was stifling - drank the remainder of my lukewarm water as we pulled into town. I disembarked from the bus with a relish that was more than slightly unbecoming. The first sight I saw upon leaving the shanty bus station? A gleaming white airplane coasting overhead before coming to land in a field. I watched it as it landed and the passengers stepped out - all backpackers like me - them, looking refreshed and exhilarated, excited by the prospect of being in the jungle. I, on the other hand, was already plotting my escape.

In the end I arrived in Rurrenabaque 14 hours later than anticipated. I arrived largely sleepless, irritated, and somewhat behind schedule. I had saved what was about $50 USD by catching the bus. All that I’d had to do was endure wildly changing temperatures, my life flashing before my eyes, and two lengthy waits in the heat of the jungle. My advice; absolutely do not catch the bus from la Paz to Rurrenabaque unless you are truly interested in self torture - if you can afford the flight, do so - do so without any question at all.