We had four days to kill before heading off to the jungle and La Paz was not where we wanted to be for that time! Nor were the salts flats at Uyuni anymore appealing; especially as it would take 13 hours to get there on some pretty awful roads!

Coroico sounded like a far better option as it was only 3hrs away and it was where the jungle tour would be heading through anyway. Would they be able to pick us on the way through? Yes. Perfect! See you in Coroico in four days time!

Just outside of La Paz, "the Most Dangerous Road in the World" starts. If you are so inclined, you can mountain bike the 80km from La Paz to Coroico and experience the sheer drop offs into valleys deep and enjoy the limitless expanse of high Andean mountains and tumbing waterfalls and snow capped mountains as you descend. We elected for the bus and left La Paz in the cold and grey and arrived in Coroico in the blazing sun and humidity. Welcome to the jungle, as Guns 'n' Roses say!

Heading up from the tiny bus terminal into the town's main little plaza was sweat inducing; and we had only being walking for 5 minutes! After a spot of lunch and plenty of fresh fruit juice we abandoned the plan to walk uphill for twenty minutes to our elected hostal. A 4x4 taxi would do the trick, thank you very much!

Hostal Sol y Luna was everything it promised to be and more! The room we had was massive and our bags literally unpacked themselves in all the excitement of so much space! Out of one window we could see snow capped mountains far in the distance with the lower jungle clad slopes closer to home! It is true that practically anything grows in these climates. The avocados were the size of small rugby balls and the lemons and guavas demanded to be picked, they were so ripe, fresh and full! They were literally just arms length from our bedroom window!

And everywhere you looked were colours in abundance. It seemed that every plant that could flower was doing so. It looked as if a giant painter had tripped and split buckets of paint all over the green jungle hillside! It was a natural riot of colours!

The hostal was locally Aymaran Indian owned and they had a large tract of land that extended further up the mountain. In amongst the riots of colour were the odd well placed hammocks. If you could be bothered to get up and walk ten minutes and locate a hammock, you would be rewarded to one of the best chill out spots in the world! A hammock, a good book and sunshine. Bliss! But the crowning glory of this chill out spot was the two swimming pools with views overlooking the valley far below. Why not spend your days around a pool, surrounded by stunning natural beauty and just let the rigours of travel slowly leach out of your body? Why not indeed!

When we could be bothered, and we needed a break from the awesome food that the family cooked, we headed off into town. Lonely Planet made the town sound like the gastronomical centre of Bolivia. This we had to see for ourselves! A variety of international food it did have, but each and every one was a one man stand. If you were last in the queue, you would be eating at midnight....and this was not Argentina!

But what we had at the French and Swiss restos were well worth the effort of getting off our hammocks and away from the pool. We never expected to have a Swiss raclette....even if they did come with one of the 400 species of potatoes that Bolivia is famous for!

Lest you think that it was ALL bliss, there was a downside being here! That downside was the tiny little sandflies. Unlike mossies that you can hear and usually feel land, these little sandflies were silent and almost unnoticeable! You never realised that they had come until you started scratching! By the end of our four days in Coroico, we had about 60 bites per leg. If we didn't know that it was these little b*****s, then we might well have had chickenpox or measles!

The things we do for travelling.....aren't our sacrifices extreme?