Choro trek - back to Coroico
Trip Start
Jan 26, 2000
1
22
30
Trip End
Jun 14, 2000
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Choro trek,
Bolivia
Sunday, May 14, 2000
I met two people from Leeds on this trek and one of them, Helen, used to work on the same street as me in a small suburb of Leeds called Yeadon. It really is a small world.
We finished the trek in a small villages with no appealing qualities just 10 miles from our end point in Coroico. After a few beers the seven of us who finished that day decided we needed to escape this small village and we decided to approach one of the locals and see if we could get a ride. After a few beers no price would have been too great and the guy realised this, we ended up paying 20 bolivianos for a trip which should have cost 5, but none of us had any complaints. The driver would only take us within 2 miles of Coroico (there was plenty of other transport from here) as his truck was an absolute heap of junk and I doubt it would ever make it up the hill, never mind down again. Well I'm sure he was laughing all the way home with his windfall taxi ride.
On arrival in Coroico I went to look for some luggage of mine which was meant to have been shipped down, I arrived at the bus terminal only to find it hadn't arrived, I was sad as the package contained all my films and I wasn't looking forward to completing an insurance claim.
That evening we met a guy who had spent his last 3 days in hospital after his wheel had fallen off while mountain biking with Sky Boliviano (the same company I had used), looks like I had a lucky escape. He also told us of three other accidents on his trip including a snapped frame and a set of forks which fell out of a bike when another guy pulled a wheely!
We spent 2 days in Coroico relaxing, we had a superb hotel with a pool and we could see all the way back up to the huge peaks of the Cordillera Real including Murrarata. This was a huge table top mountain which local legion says had it's top chopped off, the top is supposedly Volcan Sajama, Bolivia's highest peak. My luggage actually turned up making me a happy man again, this called for a big celebration. That night we went to a Mexican restaurant with Mark, Maria and Locky, 3 kiwis we'd met on the Choro Trek. Nobody liked the food apart from me who was luck enough to receive enough leftovers that night to feed me for the next week. It wasn't long before we were on the Tequillas and soon we were all set to go to the local disco. Club Tropicana was it's name, but after and exhaustive search without luck (5 minutes down the road) we ended up sole patrons of a classy local karaoke bar. It wasn't long before I was up there doing a little number, I think the locals were impressed with my tuneful singing. Also a word of warning next time you stray into your local karaoke bar, don't sing Red Red Wine, the second half starts going very quickly, far to quickly for a mere mortal like myself. It was another 4am finish after a french girl who obviously hadn't had a days fun in her life accused all the English of been drunks. I politely explained to her that it was part of our culture and also that the french drink more alcohol per capita than any other country.
