I am pleased to report that this morning's 5:34am flight from Miami brought us none other than señorita Margaret Post -- carrying not only dark chocolate and Trader Joe's Temptation Trail Mix but also 2 big jugs of Jif Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter. Dramamine in hand, she wisely kept her eyes shut during our descent down the "world's most dangerous road" -- meaning she saw only a little bit less than our driver, considering the rainy fog was so thick you could often only see 15 feet out and (here's the kicker) the windshield wipers didn't work. Nor the defrost, really. And certainly not the heat.

But we enjoyed the ride all the same -- bittersweetly for me because it's the last time I'll descend the 7000 vertical feet from La Paz to Carmen Pampa in my six-month stint as a docente de inglés para la UAC. There wasn't much time for reminiscing though, as we were treated to an exciting delay because a huge bus had tipped into the ditch -- on the up-mountain side, thankfully, not the down-cliff side.

The line of waiting buses, minivans, pickups and orange trucks (each overflowing with people) heightened the drama, but none of it affected the driver's white plastic bag of insouciant bread -- which skidded left and right with every hairpin turn but toppled only once when the driver flew over a cobblestone crater.