Refugio de Vida

There was no way I was going to miss driving a road called El Trampoline Del Muerte, despite Jo's understandable reservations!

Either luckily or unluckily, depending on how you look at it (me the former, Jo the latter), we developed an all too familiar rattle at the front. We popped into a garage in the morning and were pleased to find we just needed to replace the washer and nut on one of the front shocks (again).

More concerning was the fact that all the petrol stations didn't have any petrol due to the festivities. I reckoned we had more than enough to make it, but driving steep gravel roads wouldn't be at our usual mpg so we threw in one of our spare tanks and hoped for the best!

Unfortunately best isn't how I could describe my driving as I neglected to take the handbrake off for the first 10km! In my defense the warning light is now continually on, but it was a pretty stupid move and the worst possible time to do it. I only realised was when I saw how hot the engine was - I've never seen boiling engine coolant before - so we admired the view for a while whilst I poured cool spring water over the radiator.

After that it was pretty plain sailing - sure it was bumpy and slow, but the views were spectacular. The multi hundred metres near-vertical drops were a little disconcerting, and I was glad my mum wasn't in the car with her fear of heights.

Luckily the first town on the other side had petrol, so we filled up (weirdly on super cheap petrol) and cruised on down to Laguna De La Cocha (which bizarrely translates to Lagoon Lagoon), where we spent a free night at a lovely garden restaurant as we brought a gorgeous meal (garlic trout) for the same as we normally pay to camp.

I'm so glad we did the 4 hour drive as it saved us a 12 hour round trip on real roads, and it's experiences like this that you remember. Bring on the Death Roads in Bolivia & Ecuador!!Read more