Coroico is the town situated at the bottom of Death Road. In order to delay the inevitable return journey, we decided to stay down there for a few days. I say ‘down’, but Coroico is still at 1600 metres above sea level making it higher that Ben Nevis (1344 m.a.s.l.).

Coroico is a nice little Bolivian town in a beautiful valley, and usually has warm weather. It was definitely warm while we were there, but it did rain quite a bit. We stayed at El Cafetal, a French owned lodge with a lovely pool. Graham has memories of having had the best meal here when he was in Coroico 16 years ago, and by coincidence we were staying at the place where he ate it. With this in mind we ate there three times a day for the three days we were in town and we were not disappointed. The perfectly cooked llama steaks were delicious.

Taken during the 5 minutes of sun we had in 3 days!

Typical view from our room

The only downside to the accommodation was the questionable electric work… The shower spat water out in all directions, and especially in to the loosely fitted plug sockets. We both got pretty big shocks when trying to switch the lights off!

A warm shower – or a torture chamber?

The road from our lodge in to town was being dug up, and with all of the rain it was a treacherous walk in to the centre. Not to be deterred by a little mud we headed in to Carla’s Beer Garden which had a great view of the local football pitch. Coroico are known as the most dangerous opposition in the world as away teams have to travel along Death Road before the match even starts!!

After three relaxing days we felt ready to take our chances on the equally crazy new road and go back to La Paz.

Bonus pic – bird on a wire