After we had survived riding down the death road we decided to stay in the tropical part of Bolivia, not far from Yungas, our last stop of the road. The rest of the group boarded our Van and went driving up the death road back to La Paz while Britta and I decided to discover the area a little bit more. So we took a Taxi to Coroico, a village close by.
The town lies at an altitude of 1,751 m on a mountain spur above the valley of the Río Coroico. The hotel was small, very basic, and cute. A great place to relax and enjoy the view. It was still so weird that we had gone from super cold and thin air to tropical with high humidity in just a few hours. - we went to bed early and decided to sleep long the next day to recover a bit.
I read that the annual rainfall here in the subtropical Yungas is 1100 mm and has a clear dry season from May to August and a rainy season from December to February. The monthly average temperatures fluctuate only slightly between 20 °C and 25 °C; it is summery warm during the day and pleasantly cool at night. As we were there in October that meant we could have any weather... we just had to watch the sky and follow our instincts.
The breakfast was out on the terrace with a great view towards the green. My friend Britta always loves to go out and go for adventures, so with that view, it was clear that we wouldn't relax, but go out and explore yes or yes haha.
So with our stomages full and some water in our bags, we decided to search the Uchumani hike trail to find the San Juan waterfalls. We had heard that it was only a 1.5-hour hike to get there and that they are quite nice so we started walking. - Remember back then we didn´t have internet everywhere, so no Google Maps 😅
I loved to be back in the "green". Don´t get me wrong, the Andine part of Bolivia is stunning. The mountains, the views, and the lagoons are just unique.. but the cold and the thin air is not my favorite. I just love it when the humidity is high and you have plants and live everywhere! so much flora and fauna!
We walked along the sandy road and passed by some houses but mostly nature. The trial was pretty silent and very fast we felt like being all by ourselves in the middle of nowhere, which was nice but also a bit spooky... it was a little bit clouded and we didn´t know if the weather would change or if we are just at a kind of cloud forest, where its normal to have some clouds 😅
After 20 minutes we reached the part where the road was going very steep downhill. There was a sign with some name of a waterfall, but as far as we could see it was very far down and behind a little hill still.
About 20 minutes after that we were about halfway already and we could see the waterfall far away. It looked awesome and quite big.. but still a little bit far away. The road was very steep and with the humid climate that we were still not used to, we were sweating a lot. Of course, our muscles were still hurting from biking down the death road the day before as well. - So I slowly started to doubt if that had been a good idea.. I was tired and started to get hungry as well. The waterfall was still so far away. And then all of a sudden it started raining!
OMG what a mess but also a relief at the same time. Now there was no doubt, we had to go back. If it would keep raining like that this road could fast turn into a waterfall itself!! 😅😱
What a failure. We were getting so wet! There were not many houses on the road. We passed only about 2 or 3 and at every house, I was checking if there was someone, that maybe could give us a ride or some shelter for 5 minutes... but nothing. Very weird. One of the houses was even abandoned. We thought about staying there for a while but it didn´t seem like it would stop raining any time soon. So we kept walking and were just happy when we were back at the hotel.
Back home, we took a warm shower, backed up our things for the travels the next morning, and decided to relax and play cards instead. I googled the waterfall place and read that many people had similar experiences. The range was from "got attacked and bitten by a street dog pack" to "got totally lost on the way" 😅 And even those who had made it said it would have been much easier to go by taxi 😂
Well now you know - should have been smarter. But on the other hand, I don´t know how smart it would have been to be stuck down there when the rain was starting... Anyway, I searched and found some pictures of the waterfall for you on Tripadvisor.
Really a shame we couldn´t make it. Especially as we only had one day for that. But a day of rest was also good to recharge our batteries.
The next morning we had to leave early for the airport again. A taxi brought us to the Mini Van. And with the Van, we went all the way back to La Paz to board our plane there that would bring us to Santa Cruz. It's so crazy to cross all four climate zones once again but backward - from tropical to cold.
Once we boarded the small plane and took off we could see the difference in the landscape even better from above. The first thing you see is the bare rocks at the top with little vegetation. Then come mountains, valleys, and finally eternal green.
Crossing the highest glaciers I was surprised how close we flew by. It seemed like we were just a few hundred meters over them. - just like in that movie, where a soccer team crashes somewhere in Chile on a Mountain and they have to eat each other to survive 😅😱 - Today I would be a bit concerned with that view, but back then it was just part of the adventure and lots of fun!
Still, I was happy when we finally arrived and went to our hotel in Santa Cruz. The plan for that part of the country was to actually enter the wildlife a little bit more and we didn´t have much time for it, so we searched an agency to schedule a tour for the very next day and then went to bed early.
But more about that soon, so stay tuned! You won't regret it ;)
Cheers,
Liz