Death road survivors

Biking down the world's most dangerous road is not everyone's idea of fun, but we loved it. Five hours of downhill madness and one massive stack in the group that, thankfully, didn't end in major injuries but was caught on video. Here's the route:

• Start at La Cumbre, 4640m above sea level. Up here it's freezing. There's snow and fog so thick that you can't see the 100-metre sheer drop to your right.
• Super fast ashpalt. This is meant to be the easiest part of the track, but that doesn't matter when you're flying over your handlebars at the first bend (see video of stack below).
  
• Long dark tunnel
• Police coca checkpoint
• Chuspipata, the beginning of the death road. It's rocky, it's muddy and it's skinny. It's also seen more deaths than any other road in the world. The last tourist to die on this road was an Israeli, who thought it was a good idea to play chicken with his mate until he ended up off the cliff.
  
• El Semaphoro
• The corners of death
• San Juan Waterfall. In 1983, a bus veered off the road at this point and into a canyon, killing more than 100 passengers in what is said to be Bolivia's worst road accident.
• Muddy dusty part
• Red mountain balcony
• Yolosani River
• Finish at Yolosa, 1295m above sea level. Safe and sound.
  

Us biking under San Juan waterfall

THE STACK
*No one was hurt seriously in the making of this video, but it looks pretty painful. Don't watch if you're not into pain.


Press play to watch

More photos

The colours of Bolivia

More photos

Inside San Pedro Prison

The main entrance to San Pedro (photo courtesy of the BBC)

The gringos serving time in San Pedro say it's more like a hostel than a prison. And when you're inside their section, which is set apart from the general population, you could almost buy that.

Things are a little run down, but that's no different from most hostels. Their rooms are comfortable, if a little cramped. They have internet access, telephones, a small library, a gym and a sunny courtyard that's always full of people chatting, playing cards or reading books. They can buy beer and whiskey, hamburgers and chips, order takeaway, invite friends to visit and even bring in prostitutes for the night. There are no guards on patrol and no lights out. But there are still gates. And they shut firmly behind you when you enter. Unlike us, many of these guys won't leave for very long time.

"This is my fifth prison," says our guide, Stuart. "It's the best one. If you're going to do time somewhere, I could think of worse places."

Stuart's from Zimbabwe. He's a short, slightly built man, with long red hair and a swollen, discoloured nose from years of alcohol abuse. In a former life, he was a jockey. Now he's a drug smuggler, awaiting sentencing in Bolivia's largest prison. He was caught trying to smuggle cocaine out of La Paz in wooden picture frames. The picture frames were meant to have been soaked in a chemical for four weeks. According to Stuart, this is a sure-fire way to keep the sniffer dogs away. "But my packer only soaked them for three weeks, so they found the cocaine and I ended up here," he says matter-of-factly. He's facing a 15-year term but he's banking on Bolivian inefficiency to get him out.

"The Bolivians have to sentence me before the 9th of July, and if they don't I'm a free man," he says. "I can walk right out of here."

Stuart takes us on a short tour, giving us the ins-and-outs of prison life. Inmates in San Pedro have to buy their own cells when they enter. Some people buy extra cells, which they use as investments or shops. In this section, the cheapest cell goes for $US400, the most expensive $US40,000.

A well-dressed, softly spoken Columbian man owns the most expensive cell. It's three storeys, with a kitchen, cable TV and a view of the city. It's not flash but it's the best digs you can get in San Pedro. The owner is serving a 25-year sentence. He was a big hitter. A Columbian drug baron, caught with a plane full of drugs.

A few doors down is a young Canadian guy. He was caught with one gram of cocaine in a hotel, and is serving a six month sentence. A few doors down from him, a prisoner lives with his wife and five children. His wife runs the main store in this part of the prison and the kids leave the prison every afternoon to go to a nearby school.

A well-dressed middle aged man walks by, and Stuart tells us that he was a police officer, until he was caught holding up an armed vehicle holding $US1.5 million. He's now the most important person in this section, acting as the middle man between the prisoners and the Colonel who runs the prison.

We meet a young south African guy whose been in for three months. He won't say what he did and he hasn't been sentenced. He talks to his family regularly, but hasn't told them he's in prison. He's hoping to get out in a few months and pass the period off as an extended holiday. Fransisco is from Portugal. His girlfriend has just moved into his cell.

This is where we end up at the end of the tour, drinking beer and chatting. If you want, you can also buy a half a gram of cocaine for 20 bolivianos (about £1.50) or a joint for 10 bolivianos (£0.75).

Ironically, drugs are freely available in San Pedro. There are factories inside the main section, churning out some of the world's purest cocaine. During the day, the gringos send a runner to get supplies from the general population. At night, little white parcels are flung through gaps in the wall separating the two sections.

After a few hours, we say goodbye and head for the gate. Without thinking, we wish Stuart luck with his July 9 deadline. We collect our passports from the guards, and walk out. The gates clang behind us. We're free.

*To get a better feel for life in the prison, pick up a copy of Marching Powder by Rusty Young. The gringos inside the prison will tell you that the book is 20% true and 80% bullshit, but it makes for a good read regardless.

Just call us tarzan and jungle jane!

We think we've earned the smug grins we're wearing right now.

We stumbled out of the jungle today, filthy, sweaty and smelly, to find the permanent camp full of people. They looked a little surprised to see us and were suitably impressed when we told them that we'd been dossing on the jungle floor while they'd been languishing here with their showers and toilets and little wooden cabins.

For a couple of city slickers, I don't think we've done too bad. Elu thinks we covered at least 35km on our hikes. We've slept on the jungle floor. Bathed in a river with alligators. Drunk water from a tree. Learned which trees and plants give you garlic, ginger, rubber, red dye, and poison. And our animal and bug tally looks pretty good, even if we didn't see a giant tarantula or come face to face with a jaguar.

Carl relaxes on the boat ride back to civilisation

More jungle photos

What's worse: the sound of animals you can't see or the sight of animals you don't hear?

We're not sure.

So far, we can count the number of animals we've seen in the jungle on one hand. But last night there were definitely things creeping around our camp.

There's no mistaking the sound of a wild pig digging around in search of food or the screech of howler monkeys in the trees above. It's the more subtle sounds that make you worry like twigs snapping, the rustle of leaves in a nearby bush or the soft thump of something walking on your mosquito net. The last noise was the worst. I could hear it clearly, right above my head, but it was pitch black and be damned if I was going to turn on the torch to see what it was. Instead, I gave the net a gentle push upwards. The sound stopped for a second, then I heard it again, the plop, plop, plop of something walking on my net. A second push and it was gone, leaving me to hope that I didn't just upset a tarantula or flesh-eating rodent (yes, I am sure they exist).

Feliz domingo de Pascua

We've just realised that it's Easter Sunday. Our first ever Easter Sunday without chocolate.

It's not all bad though. The rain has stopped, nothing made it inside our mosquito nets while we were sleeping, and we've had an incident-free bath in the river. (Elu assures us that its safe, but then again he also says we won't encounter any jaguars if we need to get up to go to the toilet tonight ... but he's forgotten that we saw paw prints on the way here this morning!)

Carl taking a bath in the Rio Tuichi

Our jungle home for the next two nights

We're safely ensconced in our mosquito nets on the jungle floor. It's raining outside, but we are covered by a makeshift roof - a tarp hung over three sticks, tied with bark.

We hiked for four hours to get here, and I have to say it was bloody tough. Our guide, Elu, is 56 and he's the fittest person among us. He doesn't say much but we discovered yesterday that he's prone to off road adventures. One tiny sound in the distance is enough to send him diving into the foliage without warning, gesturing wildly for us to follow. Yesterday it was wild pigs. We chased them until we stumbled into a muddy clearing. Pigs scattered in every direction, screeching, snorting and stomping all around us. The air was thick with humidity, sweat poured out of us. The stench was almost too much. Elu made us sit there for ten minutes, waiting for the pigs to return. By the time we got back to the normal 'path', we looked and smelt no better than pigs ourselves.

Carl enjoys fresh water straight from a tree

Today, though, he was all business. He moved so fast through the foliage, seeing tracks where we only saw shrubs. With packs full of food and supplies for the next three days, we wobbled across fallen logs, along dry river beds, stumbled down muddy hills, tripped over tree roots, walked into spider webs, sunk into boggy marshes and sweated like bastards.

We've set up camp and eaten our lunch of rice and chicken. Now we're all exhausted. Time for a siesta before we head out tonight to look for tarantulas.

What have we done?

Carl on mosquito watch

We've been at our jungle camp for five minutes and already we're wondering if we have what it takes to survive the next four days. I've got a monster mosquito bite on my forehead and an ominous lump forming on my foot. Carl is examining the holes in our mosquito nets and applying unhealthy quantities of DEET to every part of his body, even those covered by clothing. (He's heard the mozzies in the jungle are so vicious they bite through your clothes, so he's not taking any chances).

We are in Madidi National Park, one of the most biologically and culturally diverse protected areas on earth. It's a world away from the pampas. This is the real Amazon, the one you see in the movies, with jaguars, tarantulas and all kinds of nasties.

Our camp is located on the bank of the Rio Tuichi, three hours by boat from Rurrenabaque. The facilities are basic: a few small cabins, two toilets, cold showers and a kitchen. Most people stay at the camp for two nights, using it as a base for short hikes into the jungle.

But we're not 'most people'. We're spending one night in the camp, then hiking deeper into the jungle tomorrow morning and spending the next two nights camping on the jungle floor. It sounded like fun when we were in Rurrenabaque. Now we're not so sure ...

Guide - 11, Tourists - 1

The ones that didn't get away

That's how good we were at piranha fishing. Bismarck was reeling them in, one after the other, while we spent most of our time putting more meat on our hooks. We got our own back though. We feasted on the little devils for lunch - they're actually really tasty fish, albeit little. A fitting final meal in the pampas. Now, it's time for our afternoon siesta before we head back to Rurrenabaque. The hammocks are beckoning ...

More photos from our trip to the Amazonian pampas

A black caiman is lurking near the toilet

We think he's trying to hide. He hasn't moved at all in the last 15 minutes, but his red eyes shine like little beacons in the black water. The black caiman is the second largest species of crocodile, after the saltwater crocodile, but it's the largest predator in the Amazon basin. These guys can grow to seven metres long. Eek!