Pan-American Transmissions: Part 11

“Pan-American Transmissions” is a travel series from Special Contributor Diego Cupolo as he travels south from Nicaragua to Argentina. He has few plans, a $10-a-day budget and one flute-playing gypsy companion. Check back as new dispatches are posted from the road.

Pink flamingos wade through blood-red lagoons on a seemingly endless plateau of snow-covered volcanoes, vast salt deposits and leftovers from ancient lakes that dried long before the first human ever stepped foot on the continent. Surrounded by this panoramic gallery of Dalí paintings, I peel off the cracking skin from my knuckles and wonder, “How the hell did we get here?”

After many years spent living in crammed city apartments, Ania and I needed space — a lot of space — so we headed to the southwest section Bolivia where the Andean high plains, known as the Altiplano, meet Chile’s arid Atacama desert and spill down into the Pacific Ocean. With its rare geologic formations and an average rainfall of just one millimeter per year, the region is one of the driest, strangest places on Earth, leading many scientists to say it looks more like Mars than any part of the blue planet we call home.

Ania and I arrived eager to get lost in other-worldly destinations like the massive salt flats of the Salar de Uyuni and jagged canyons that make up the Valle de la Luna. As we learned in the Amazon, Bolivia is a nation of extremes and the most isolated places are only accessible through tours, which is lame, but what else can a cash-strapped traveler do?

We hired a driver for a three-day desert tour to the Chilean border and when we crossed over, Ania and I took exploration into our own hands by renting mountain bikes. Both experiences had their pros and cons, but in the end, the heavy Atacama sun pounded our shoulders, the dry desert air made our skin rough like sand paper, and it was all worth it when we saw the barren desertscape turn into a kaleidoscope of purple every sunset and sunrise.

The Salar de Uyuni

Ania and I watched countless herds of llamas pass the bus window and ate even more quinoa-potato soups before we would reach the town of Uyuni and receive one crucial piece of advice: “Try to hire a tour guide that won’t drink and drive.”

As we soon found out, Salar de Uyuni tour agencies vary greatly in quality and the amount you pay is not always an indicator of the experience you’ll get. Breakdowns, flat tires, bad food, alcohol-induced accidents: a lot can go wrong on a multi-day off-road tour through the open desert.

For better or worse, we chose the Estrella del Sur agency to take us on a three-day tour through the Salar de Uyuni and Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve before dropping us off at the Chilean border. Total price: $700 Bolivianos, or about USD$100 with food, accommodation and park fees included.

We began early in the frigid morning air. The driver pulled up in a Toyato Landcruiser. His name was Fredo and he looked sober, which was good, so we loaded the car with four Irish medical students that would make up our tour group for the next three days. Our first stop was an enormous abandoned train graveyard outside the town, an orgasm for photographers and rust enthusiasts, but Fredo told us we had 10 minutes to explore the site so we could rush to the second stop, a gift shop that sold little llamas made from salt, where we would spend half an hour.

With souvenirs tightly secured in the back, we entered the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. A place is so large and so flat that Earth observation satellites use its surface to calibrate their altitude meters and global positioning systems.

According to fossil records, the Salar was part of prehistoric Lake Minchin more than 30,000 years ago. Standing at 11,995 feet above sea level, Lake Minchin would’ve competed with Lake Titicaca for highest lake in the world, but it dried up thousands of years ago, leaving behind the flat concentration of salt we see today.

As we drove through the blinding white leftovers of history, Fredo explained the volcanoes around us used to be islands when the lake was still around. We took a chance to stop at Isla Incahuasi, one of the small “islands” in the middle of the Salar, and got out for a short hike on the rocky outcrop. Here visitors can walk over old corrals that once housed prehistoric lake creatures and stand among giant cacti that grow one meter per century. Not bad.

When we returned to the car, Fredo cooked up a few Alpaca steaks and we ate lunch as he boasted about how Alpaca meat was free of cholesterol. Not bad at all. The tour was looking good at that point.

Then the Irish students blasted Lady Gaga music in our car as Fredo rushed us out of the Salar. He said we needed to reach the hostel before sunset, which was confusing since the tour agency told us the highlight of their tour was watching the sunset from within the Salar. Basically, it was main reason to visit the salt flats and we’d be missing it. A tragic realization, but perhaps not as tragic as finding out people over the age of 20 are willfully listening to Lady Gaga.

Without stopping another time on the salt flat, we arrived at the hostel by 4 p.m. and were told dinner would be served in three hours so we could sit and have tea or something. Ania and I took the chance to run away — far, far away — from the tour group and went back into the Salar on foot.

Though we didn’t get far — the place is 4,000 square miles — we did finally get some quality time with the barren land, the silence and the nothingness to contemplate very serious questions. Local legend says mankind was born from Lake Titicaca, but Ania and I figured it was more likely that our ancestors crawled out of Lake Minchin after the water dried up.

It all made perfect sense as the sun set and our shadows grew long while the sky turned into bands of orange, purple and yellow, each color reflecting off the white surface of the Salar.

“I wouldn’t mind dying here,” I thought to myself. And then it got cold and we went back to the hotel for dinner.

The Eduardo Abaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve

Early the next morning, Ania and I made another short trip into the Salar to watch the sun rise and have one more holy experience before breakfast. We came back frozen stiff, ate and then waited for Fredo, who showed up 30 minutes late only to take us on a short ride to the nearest store, where he would sit and talk with the owner for another 45 minutes. All the other tour groups were way ahead of us.

When he was ready, we drove quickly through a region of multi-colored lagoons with Andean flamingos wading through volcanic hot tubs and stopped briefly to take in the surreal imagery as Fredo repeated, “Come on, don’t go far from the car, we don’t have time.” I wanted to punch him in the face.

The rest of the tour pretty much went on like this. Inside the Eduardo Abaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve, we drove through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world to the soundtrack of Lady Gaga and never seemed to have enough time. Volcanos, geysers, boiling mud pits, petrified lava fields, peculiar rock formations, splashes of paint on martian landscapes — the sights were truly amazing, but less enjoyable when broken down into standardized drills: Drive, step out, take a picture, drive.

Maybe this is what the tour is supposed to be, but the other tour groups didn’t seem so rushed. Not to mention our Irish car mates’ non-stop celebrity gossiping. Oof. Maybe it was just bad luck.

The last day of the tour, I met a Chilean photographer who shared my grievances and he gave me some good advice: Take the Salar tour with a Chilean company.

This was his third time through the region (fist time with a Bolivian company) and he said Chilean agencies cost a little more, but they provide a much better tour than Uyuni-based companies. It’s the same three-day trip, only backwards so you finish at the Salar de Uyuni.

“Basically,” he said. “Chilean agencies are more likely to deliver the experience they advertise.”

Still, the photographer was explaining all this as we sat in a natural hot spring, watching the sun rise through the steam of a distant volcano. The small inconveniences of the trip were worth the the scenery. It could’ve been much worse. We simply had high expectations for the Salar tour.

That said, Ania and I got dropped off at a lonely bus stop they called the Chilean border, and vowed never to take a tour again.

Into the Atacama Desert

An hour after descending 2,000 meters (about 1.25 miles) from the Altiplano, Ania and I reached the Chilean customs office in San Pedro de Atacama where security guards took our apples, calling them a threat to national security even though they were labeled with “Grown in Chile” stickers.

Rules, regulations, working toilets and organic flax seed granola bars — we crossed an imaginary line in the desert and everything changed. After four months in the Andes, Ania and I came down from the indigenous Altiplano and fell back into what most people would would call “Modern Western Society.”

Without hesitation, we took this opportunity to rent mountain bikes. It was recommended by every traveler we crossed and costed about USD$10 for a day, so what the hell? With a map in hand, we set out for the Atacama desert on our own.

We rode through shallow rivers to a red quartz canyon they call the “Throat of the Devil.” We circled spiraling rock towers. We climbed whatever peak looked interesting and rested in whichever shade seemed inviting. It was a much easier to enjoy the landscape without a guide telling us what to do.

The main drawback to this approach is that we got lost out there. Far away objects can appear closer than they really are in wide open spaces. While trying to find the famed Valle de la Luna, we pedaled about two hours in the wrong direction. Still, in the confusion, we found a few cliffs with unforgettable views over the hypnotizing valley and enjoyed its lunar surface from above.

Sure, we never made it inside Valle de la Luna, but it didn’t matter. We were more than satisfied. This was adventure. This was the reason we had come to the Atacama, a place where the sun burns, the shade freezes and the dry air makes alligator scales out of your skin. Mars climate. Peace at last.

Hitchhiking South and Beyond

There’s a lot more to do in San Pedro de Atacama, but we couldn’t afford it. More salt flats, more hot springs and more geysers. It’s worth a longer visit. Instead, Ania had a plane to catch. After 10 months, our trip together was coming to an end.

With too many stories to tell, we hitchhiked to the paradise port city of Valparaiso, then Santiago, and then all the way over to Buenos Aires where we would slam on the brakes and fly through the windshield. Ania landed in plane seat back to Montreal, which was sad, and I landed in an office chair where I would work for the next five months, which was only slightly less sad.

Without a doubt, we would be reunited again, but not before I finished this long journey and reached the end of the road in Tierra del Fuego.

By Diego Cupolo

Coming up next, the final installment of Pan-American Transmissions: La Carretera Austral: On a Gravel Road to the End of the World.

 Read all of the other Pan-American Transmissions entries here.

About the Author

Diego Cupolo is a freelance photojournalist currently on the road to Tierra del Fuego. Most recently he served as Associate Editor for BushwickBK.com, an online newspaper in Brooklyn, and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Star-Ledger, The Australian Times, Discover Magazine and many other publications. View more of his work at DiegoCupolo.com.

The post The Driest Place on Earth: From Bolivia’s Salt Flats To Chile’s Atacama Desert appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

Pan-American Transmissions: Part 10

“Pan-American Transmissions” is a travel series from Special Contributor Diego Cupolo as he travels south from Nicaragua to Argentina. He has few plans, a $10-a-day budget and one flute-playing gypsy companion. Check back as new dispatches are posted from the road.

“The ‘call o’ the wild’ is in the blood of many of us and finds its safety valve in adventure.”

Percy Harrison Fawcett’s words bounced in our thoughts as we rumbled down the Andes into Bolivia’s Amazon basin. Ania and I had just finished reading David Grann’s The Lost City of Z, a tale of Fawcett’s wild expeditions as he hacked his way through the jungle, eventually vanishing in search of what many called “El Dorado,” the forgotten kingdom of gold.

Stories of wrestling matches with anacondas, flesh-eating maggots and hostile indigenous tribes filled our imaginations while our bus turned and weaved through 20 hours of rocky, muddy, terrible, tombstone-ridden roads on the way to Rurrenabaque, Bolivia’s gateway to the Amazon. “Rurre,” as locals call it, is known for being one of the easiest, most cost-effective jumping boards for anyone looking to dive into Fawcett’s old stomping grounds.

You could say we were excited. In this long voyage through Latin America, visiting the Amazon was never part of the plan. Ania and I figured it was out of our $10-a-day budget, but that was before a company from Dubai bought a batch of my photos. We immediately threw down our reservations, stocked up on insect repellent and chose to use the winnings on a small expedition into the world’s largest rainforest.

Of course, when we arrived, the reality wasn’t quite like we imagined. Like many Amazonian settlements, Rurre isn’t the exotic riverside village it used to be. It’s been thoroughly saturated with tour companies. Regardless, the town remains a necessary stop for jungle adventurers, because how the hell else are you going to make it in and out of the Amazon without a decent guide?

Here’s the run down: a three-day tour costs about USD$75-$100 per person, but be aware, Rurre has one general rule: All tour companies lie. The only thing you can do is find the agency that lies the least. That said, the two main tour options are: a) a relaxed, wildlife-sightseeing three-day boat tour in the pampas (wetlands) where visitors stay in riverside cabañas, or b) an adventurous, machete-hacking three-day selva (jungle) tour in the nearby Madidi National Park where visitors hike through the rain forest, build their own shelters and camp with jaguars.

Ania and I splurged and did both. The pampas tour turned out to be a bit too laid back for our taste, most of the activities involved sitting and eating so I won’t talk about that here. On the other hand, the jungle tour left us soaking wet, bite-ridden and completely satisfied. With all the ways to die in the Amazon, just one day inside this venomous jungle is enough to spark a new appreciation for life and, at the same time, gain a deeper respect for old-fashioned explorers like Fawcett, who went missing not far from this region a little less than 100 years ago.

Day One: Meet the Locals

We got off the boat on the shores of the Beni River to meet our guide, Taz, an ex-member of the military who grew up in the Amazon, our cook, Marcia, who was Taz’s cousin’s aunt’s sister, and another local named Alberto, who was training to be a jungle guide. Ania and I unloaded the supplies with Amir, an Israeli psychologist, and three male models from Paris who videotaped everything we did. This was to be our jungle crew.

Though the guy in tour office told us we were going to Madidi National Park, we soon learned we weren’t technically in the park, but just across the river in Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve (remember the general rule). This would’ve been a frustrating revelation, but we shrugged it off since we were in the Charka Indigenous Territory, a small jungle community that recently opened itself to visitors and agreed to teach us about their way of life, something that wouldn’t have been possible in Madidi.

We left our packs with the cook and walked through the thick jungle until we reached an opening where children were running around a large straw hut. On the ground in front of the structure, a white duck lay quacking, with its body twisted and its feet in the air. A mother and father came out and greeted us with big, nervous smiles.

“What’s wrong with the duck?” our guide Taz asked.

“Oh, the duck?” the mother said. “A pot fell on him while I was washing the dishes this morning. I think it broke his back. I guess, we’re going to have to eat him sooner than we expected.”

Everyone laughed and the duck remained still. The father then gave us a tour of his land. He had a small farm in the middle of the jungle, complete with banana trees, and showed us the stumps of old mahogany trees. Both Madidi and Pilón Lajas were converted into nature reserves fairly recently and most of their high priced lumber had been exploited in the ’80s and ’90s.

“Finding a mahogany tree in these jungles is harder than finding a jaguar,” Taz said.

We went back to the hut and the father brought out a gigantic bow and arrow. In this region, few people use hooks to catch fish, instead they hunt them in the night with the same handmade bows and arrows their ancestors used. We tried out our archery skills on a water bottle. Out of everyone, Ania was the only one able to hit the target.

When the sun hung low in the sky, we went back near the river to set up camp for the night. On the way, I almost walked through the web of a blue-yellow-purple spider that was the size of my hand.

“Watch out!” Taz said while pulling my arm back. “That spider has six times the venom of a rattlesnake. If it bites you, you have two minutes to live.”

We arrived at the camp site, alive, and began clearing an area to set up the mosquito nets with a tarp overhead. Amir, Ania and I did the work while the three Parisians watched. One of them took out a bottle of cologne and sprayed himself. Taz laughed.

“You brought cologne?” he asked. “What the hell do you need that for? You going to the club tonight? All that stench is going to do is scare away the animals and bring more mosquitos.”

As the night darkened, the jungle animal chorus amplified. The cook made grilled steak and rice for dinner, not bad, and then a few members of the Charka community stopped by our campsite to welcome us. They played the flute, passed around a bottle that read “Potable Alcohol — 190 proof percent,” and talked about the challenges of living in the Amazon.

We learned the community had a school, but no teachers. A river, but no potable water. And the wild pigs, which once sustained their diet, weren’t coming around as often as the used to. They also said that less than three decades ago, it was common for boys to get married and start families between the age of 12 and 14. These days, they wait a little longer.

The jungle creatures were singing with full strength by the time the potable alcohol ran out and we put out the fire. Everyone crawled into their mosquito nets to call it a night. For whatever reason, we were sleeping on the ground, not in hammocks, but Taz said it was okay, so I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best.

Day 2: Many Ways to Die in the Jungle

The next morning I woke up alive and without snake bites, which was good. I then took a squat in the forest and learned the origins of the name Madidi National Park. Ants. Many, many ants. They swarmed all over my waste before I could even finish. It seemed odd so I asked Taz about it and he said “madidi” means “ants that eat shit.”

“Yeah, I don’t know who decided to give the park that name,” Taz said. “But that’s the kind of ant we have in this region.”

Taz went on to say the jungle ants can strip the flesh from a dead animal within minutes. Their teeth act as scissors and on rare occasions ants have been known to feast on farmers that dozed off after a long day’s work.

“These ants move like streams,” Taz said. “If you get caught sleeping in one, they will carry you away. Piece by piece.”

He then talked about the dreaded Canduri, a tiny fish that can enter the urethra or anus of unsuspecting river bathers. When a Canduri inserts itself in the male organ, it can be extremely difficult to remove and the victim is left with two options: amputation or death by some terrible infection. Women have it a little easier, they don’t usually face death, but Taz said it’s best for both genders to wear underwear when bathing and to “Never pee in the water!”

It was a heavy conversation for our morning toast and jam, but a necessary one. Regardless, it felt good to be in the jungle, under the tall trees and to be surrounded by explosions of green in every direction. We were answering what Fawcett described as “the call o’ the wild.” This time, it can in the form of a stench.

“Pigs!” Taz said, breathing deeply through his nostrils. “I smell a herd of pigs! Be quiet.”

I didn’t smell anything. Taz kept sniffing the air, listening.

“They’re less than 400 meters in that direction. Quick, follow me,” he said.

Taz picked up his machete and woke up one of the villagers, who also got his machete, and we all went quickly into the bushes to hunt some wild pigs. Every 50 meters or so, Taz and villager stopped, sniffed the air and listened for the ruffling of leaves.

“200 meters,” Taz whispered, pointing into a wall of leaves. “That way.”

The pursuit went on for about a half an hour. Each time we stopped to listen, the long moments of silence made me realize how city life had dulled my senses. In the end, we got close, but never caught up to the pack. Taz blamed it on our foul insect repellent. Apparently, pigs have a powerful sense of smell and they knew we were coming. The village pig feast was postponed.

We passed the rest of the day, hiking and looking for jungle animals. Some time before dinner, we went back to camp, packed up and moved deeper into the jungle, next to a small river where we would spend the second night. Amir and and I began clearing a new area for our tarp as the Parisians looked on again and the cook started collecting firewood.

Then there was a terrible scream. “Ayaaaaa!” The cook went into panic. A small viper wrapped around her wrist while she was picking up a branch, but she was able to swing her arm fast enough to send it flying through the air. Alberto, the guide-in-training, chased after the viper, caught it, and then cut it’s head off saying one bite from the little guy could kill a human in less than two minutes. Nice to know, considering we’d be sleeping on the ground again. Still, Taz said it was fine.

We washed up in the river — wearing underwear, of course — and ate a couple of decent-sized fish Taz had caught with the bow and arrow. Not long after, we set out into the jungle again, this time in the dark, and spotted some very large, horrifying creatures. I never knew snails could grow larger than my open hand.

By the time we got back to camp our mouths were full of spiderwebs and our feet were tired from a long day of hiking in the mud. I went under the tarp and started setting up my bed when I noticed a giant black tarantula perched on my backpack. It just sat there, looking at me, so I showed Taz and he started playing with it, letting it crawl up his chest. Apparently, tarantulas aren’t dangerous.

“They bite, but they won’t kill you,” he said.

On that thought, I went to sleep.

Day 3: Many Ways to Live in the Jungle

The third day was a half-day, but we probably learned the most about the jungle on our final excursion. After breakfast, Taz brought us on one last hike to explain the traditional and medicinal uses of various jungle plants.

There were trees that could numb pain like Aspirin and trees that could cure impotence like Viagra. One tree could cure malaria while another could stabilize snake and spider bites. The jungle was full of helpful trees and plants, the trick was knowing which ones to use.

“It’s a shame because many tourists get sick and don’t know about all the plants that are here to help them,” Taz said. “The tree that stops malaria is the most important one. It stops the sickness right away. You just have to know how to find it.”

He then showed us a tree whose bark smelled like garlic and was used to repel mosquitos. There were trees with edible fruits and even a tree with thick vines that were full of water. Taz cut a section for us and we drank the jungle’s freshest water from the porous branches. Delicious.

With the abundance of plant species in the Amazon, the list went on. Some trees walked on their roots, having the ability to move into more sunlight, while others acted as parasites to their neighbors, suffocating competitive species. Most interesting of all, one plant held a natural toxin that locals squeeze into rivers to “make fish sleep.” It’s a special way of hunting, Taz said. The toxin temporarily paralyzes fish, making them float to the top of the water, and locals pick out the largest ones leaving the younger ones to grow older.

Maybe life in the Amazon wasn’t so hard, after all. Like anywhere else, it’s a matter of knowing one’s surroundings and taking advantage of the resources. With everything we learned about the trees that day, it was clear that a large civilization could have existed within these jungle walls. Just as Grann concluded in The Lost City of Z and like Fawcett suspected in search for “El Dorado,” the Amazon is more livable than most people imagine. You just have to get over the venomous snakes and spiders.

Then it started to rain. We took shelter under a tree and, to pass the time, Taz showed us how to chew Coca leaves while he talked about his time in the Bolivian military. With a mouthful of coca, he told us about gun fights with narcotraffickers near the Peruvian border and how he spent months in the jungle with documentary crews to film jaguars. Taz was a good guy. Aside from all his attempts to sleep with Ania, I’d say he was one of the best guides we could’ve hired.

Returning to Civilization

When the rain stopped, we hiked back to camp, packed up and set out for the Beni River again. The jungle left us covered in bug bites, some of which left scars that I can still see as I write this, but the discomfort was worth the experience. As Fawcett said, “One learns little from a smooth life.”

Old-fashioned explorers would’ve probably laughed at our three-day guided tour, but I think we did well for first time jungle adventurers. No one died and we learned more than we expected about the Amazon, its plants and the way its residents live with the forest, not against it.

The community members came to the river bank to send us off while Ania, Amir, the Parisians and I loaded up the boat. As we said our goodbyes, a teenage girl gave me a big hug and a strange smile. She didn’t speak Spanish and there was a little mud on her cheeks, but in those wide, joyful eyes I saw the same lust and curiosity that must have met the gaze of jungle explorers more than 100 years ago.

It was good to know such wild places — and people — still existed in the 21st century. We got on the boat and headed down the Beni River towards Rurre. Unlike Ania and I, Fawcett never made it out of the jungle. His disappearance remains a mystery — some say he was eaten by cannibals, others believe he entered a parallel dimension — but what we know for sure, is that Fawcett, the last true explorer before airplanes and Google Maps, pursued his ambitions as far into the wild as any explorer ever went and this is worth some contemplation.

“There, I believed, lay the greatest secrets of the past yet preserved in our world of today,” he said. “I had come to the turn of the road; and for better or worse I chose the forest path.”

By Diego Cupolo

Coming up next from Pan-American Transmissions: The Driest Place on Earth: From Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni to Chile’s Atacama Desert. Read all of the other Pan-American Transmissions entries here.

About the Author

Diego Cupolo is a freelance photojournalist currently on the road to Tierra del Fuego. Most recently he served as Associate Editor for BushwickBK.com, an online newspaper in Brooklyn, and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Star-Ledger, The Australian Times, Discover Magazine and many other publications. View more of his work at DiegoCupolo.com.

The post Into The Amazon: Bolivia’s Gateway To The Jungle appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

You wouldn’t think that the remnants of a prehistoric lake would make much of a destination, but this slideshow of Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat, shows you why it’s a must-see in South America.

Besides the odd mirror-like effect that occurs after it rains (see above), the salt flat is known for the optical illusions its depth perceptionless terrain provides (see below).

The post The Weirdness That Is Salar De Uyuni appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

I’ve been on some white knuckle roads in my life; the ones you switchback up nothing much more than a concrete trail up sheer cliff face. Sure, it’s a feat of engineering, but will traveling on said road be a feat of another kind?

Yes. Among others, this road I’m talking about is the legendary North Yungas Road, near La Paz, Bolivia. Given the name in 1995 (must have something to do with the 200-300 estimated deaths on the road each year), surviving a ramble on it, is just that, a feat. In fact, it is so stressful, even feared, that the locals have made a tradition of indulging in a few drinks before embarking. You know, to kill the nerves. Now that can’t be good. I like to think it’s a noticible lack of anything safety related, combined with blind corners and thousand foot drop-offs, that leads to the memorial crosses, more or less, lining the road.

Almost defying logic, tour companies continue to take mountain bikers up the road for an adrenaline packed, danger spin back down (the approach to “Death Road” is pictured above). Sound like something you’d be interested in? Check out TravelDudes blog about his experience… just hold on tight.

Picture by bjaglin

By Jon Wick

About the Author

Jon lives in Butte, Montana, spending most of his time on skis or bikes; sometimes both. He began travel writing while teaching in Korea and is currently pursuing his Master’s Degree in Technical Communication at Montana Tech. Jon has begun writing his first book, The Story of Will, whose movie rights are still (very) available. Catch more of Jon at TheJonWickproject.wordpress.com. (@ExpedJon)

The post The Most Dangerous Road In The World appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.