Rurrenabaque to Caranavi

After a wonderful night’s sleep, we had a scrumptious breakfast at Café Piraña, including excellent coffee, fresh squeezed juice, flaky croissants & chocolate croissants (yum), and omelets. The owner also made each of us a fresh luncheon sandwich that we carried away in our backpacks.

The café:

The town of Rurrenabaque was very clean, with wide streets. Motorcycles were a very popular form of transportation:

After breakfast, I braced myself for 64 more miles of jiggles and jolts—we had to ride back over that long road of potholes. I forgot to mention that along with the big trucks, there were numerous herds of cows that used that road. So as you came over a rise, you had to be prepared for a herd of cows walking in the road, or sometimes a cow or two just laying in the road—and they don’t get up and move either. With focused energy, we soon put the potholes behind us. Whew.

Here are Ben and I in front of a house:

The day was hot. As we rode through the small town of Sapecho, we noticed a woman with a manual machine squeezing glasses of orange juice under a tin awning. We all stopped for a refreshing drink. I asked if I could take a photo of her, but she said “no”. So I took a picture of the Sapecho “welcome” sign across the street.

When we stopped for gas, William discovered that he had a gas leak from his fuel line. The chase truck was far behind us (still bumping along through the potholes), so Maurice, William and Ben tried various solutions. Maurice finally found some fuel tubing in town that worked perfectly. We spent a while at this gas station, and ate our sandwiches in the small pockets of shade.

We were heading south, back toward La Paz, with the final destination of Caranavi, a fairly large town. Many of roads today were dusty and full of bike-rattling rocks. Also, there were many large trucks on the road, creating blinding dust clouds. I had a hard time finding a good rhythm. (I think that I used up all my mental concentration abilities on those potholes!) Along the way, there was some pretty scenery to enjoy:

The main street of Caranavi was full of cars, buses and people. After checking into our hotel, Ben and I headed two blocks away from the crowds and found this nice plaza with an outdoor café, where we shared a drink.

Nearby were some small boys playing—their “toy” consisted of two soda bottles tied together with a piece of string, and it provided a lot of enjoyment for them.

We passed this Stihl shop. We took this picture for our very good friends Dan and Bill who own B&B Small Engine Repair (a Stihl dealer) in Santa Cruz, California:

We also saw a lot of XR 250’s—it seemed to be the bike-of-choice in town.

Back at the hotel, we used our mosquito repellant to stop an insect invasion coming through a crack in the bathroom ceiling—it worked! (But, alas, our hot water never did.) We went to bed looking forward to tomorrow’s ride on “El Camino de la Muerte” (the Death Road).

<< Day 11: Guanay to Rurrenabaque | Day 13: Caranavi to La Paz via “El Camino de la Muerte”a >>

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