The Choro Trek 72km- death road 2

Day 1
Set off early in the morning to a similar starting point as our death ride. But started a bit higher 4900m. It was Freezing! Snowing at the top... We sooo werent prepared for this. (we being me and an Auzzie i had recruited as i really didnt want to go alone.)
Meeting the guide had been pretty interesting. He was an old guy, about 50yrs, didnt even introduce himself. Just started walking. Also we noticed he only had 1 tent. Did that mean we were sharing with him!? But i suppose you get what you pay for!! - and we payed comparitavly little. At the top we also met a group of Islrali boys. They were looking for the path, but refused to listen to our guide because they had a story written down in hebrew of how to find it! they were also doing the hike carrying a guitar! Nutters! but they said it was a necessity!
Anyway, we started walking and it was pretty steep downhill. Also night before i had only had 2 hours sleep, as i had thought it would be a good time to go for a night out. This then resulted in me falling over and ripping my best pair of trousers. I now have NO clean or unripped trousers! How depressing! Mum.. send me more... out here it is impossible to find new trousers which fit. All South americans are way too short!
Anyway.. i had a bit of blood, but it was no big deal. My greater concern was the weather. it had been understandably cloudy above, but once we were walking lower... it shuldnt have been. We were still in a cloud and it was raining. It rained all day! and the fog was so bad we couldnt see 5 meters in front all the way. This is supposed to be a famous trek for its beautiful scenery, and we werent seeing none of it! As we walked on and got tot he bottom of the valley the path was made of rocks. This was a killer. another girl we met fell over 3 times! All of us were close to falling. it was torture. wet, cold and slippery. When we arrived at camp, it was no better, there was no fire to dry our clothes, so we had a cold uncomfortable night.
DAY 2
When we woke all the clouds were gone thankfully! We could see that we had managed to walk to the cloud forest. This meant for a hot and humid day! But none of us minded. We all needed our clothes to dry off! i went to brush my teeth and found the Israili boys, they invited me in for coffee.. offered me needle and thread for my trousers, and were fantastic, and invited me to come listen to them playing tonight. I was gone so long that my guide came looking for me, as apparently i was holding them up. I really liked these 5 boys. they were doing the trek alone. and that seemed like way more fun!
The trek was pretty tough. I had worn bad socks the day before, and also my knees were killing me from my fall. I hoped at least the path would be better, but instead it was worse. The humid air made the stairs ultra slippery. I fell over and now have a GIANT balck bruise on my buM! sooo not fair! However the views were amazing and there were so many butterflys, i felt like a little girl in a cartoon! they were flying all around. the flowers were pretty awesome too!
After 8 hours walk, we reached our camp, munched dinner then i joined the Israilis for a fire. Unfortunatly a cloud came over, so we couldnt light a fire, but they made hot soup, then caramelised peanuts, and tea, and played songs in english and hebrew on the guitar. They also told me their war stories, trainig stories, and also how to get discounts for everything. and not to be so polite. For example. One of them walked in to the tourist agency, asked for the price of the tour, got the price down, paid, and then 5 people turned up. becasue the tourist agent hadnt asked how many people. CHEEKY! Also they just tend to get discounts at restaurants and stuff... just coz their israili! Sooo not fair. but we had good laughs and a good night overall!
DAY 3
After having stayed up with the boys to the small hours i was knakered. We had an ultra early start of 6am!The path was pretty easy in general! a bit of uphill,. a bit of down, and a lot of flat. I thought i was going to die by the end. All becasue i hadnt looked after my feeet on the first day. It was a fairly peaceful walk back, but a bit shoddy as again.. we were in a cloud! that is just so, not coool! Nothing to see.
Anyway.. got back to la paz safely.. and have to go to bed as have a 6:30am flight to catch to the jungle. thats where i will be for the bext few days, so expect no reply!
xxxx