Captain's log: Stardate 22101.5
All photos taken by Amelia booth (since I no longer have a photo device (I must talk to my engineering crew about getting a new one). You can find her blog
here where she may post more stuff. She can actually word properly too.
Amy and I decided to go to Toro Toro, a national park just south of Cochabamba. Two of the aforementioned Danish girls (Natalie and Sicilia) from our dorm, were also going, so we left together. We got up at 0730, had breakfast, checked out and grabbed a taxi to a mini bus collection point in the south of the city. On the way our taxi got hit by a bus from behind in very slow moving traffic. We were all totally fine, as was the taxi. Additionally a woman spilled her wheelbarrow of water melons in the middle of a busy junction so we had to wait a bit for that to be dealt with. Eventually we got dropped off and had to wander around a bit until we found a sign for Toro Toro and a mini bus waiting. The way these things work, is you have to wait until they are full and then they go. So we were sat there for about 45 minutes, until we had enough people. Which included 4 kids of varying ages. Two of which sat in front of Amy and I and kept staring at us. A lady next to us was talking in Quechua, a language and race of people who live in the Andes. Amy got quite excited by this.
The journey took 4 hours, most of which was on hand cobbled roads or dirt tracks. It was highly bumpy, warm and tedious. However it was really cool to see the landscape on the way. There were bits where all the rocks and mountains were red, presumably a high clay / iron content. Later on it seemed the rocks were blue and green, probably some kind of algae, but it looked like the rock itself. We passed a bus full of Bolivian school children also going to Toro Toro, on the back was written: "Todos días salgo con Dios. Si no a volvo es que estoy con él". I'll leave the translation as an exercise for the reader. It says a lot about this country and how desperate people are for work that they'll drive a bus with this written on the back, and also that this is considered acceptable for kids to get on. Luckily most of the road to Toro Toro was not treacherous at all, and the bits that were had very little traffic on them.
We eventually arrived at about 1300, after driving past the main square which consisted of a reasonably large model of a dinosaur. The town of Toro Toro itself was tiny, according to wikipedia, the population was 676 as of 2001. We were pretty hungry by this point, so we went to El Dinosaurio, a restaurant that was attached to our hostel. All they had was pizza that day, for some unknown reason, so we ate pizza. It was reasonable but not overly exciting. After lunch we heard thunder and saw a massive storm cloud rolling in. To enter the national park you have to have a guide and do specific trips. Unfortunately the guides said it was too late in the day, and that it was going to rain, they suggested a museum thing, which I'm still unsure what it was about. We went and found it in this unremarkable building, as we went in there was nobody there, however a lady quickly appeared from across the street.
A typical street in Toro Toro, with the entrance
to the museum behind the sign on the left.
We paid the 10 Bs entry fee and wandered in, to find a palace of stacked stones and plants, intermixed with small plastic toy dinosaurs (are you noticing a certain trend here). The lady showed us around and explained much stuff in Spanish. From what I could gather it was about what type of rock or minerals particular things were. Amy understood pretty much everything (she's basically fluent already). Then we were shown some dinosaur foot prints in a block of rock. They were quite faint but just about visible. Next was "excremento dinosaurios". Finally there were two meteorites that were pretty much spherical and a bit smaller than a bowling ball. I think they were the ones that killed the dinosaurs, but Amy got very defensive and said it totally wasn't. After that we heard a child crying and the lady ran off and returned with a small child over her shoulder.
The garden bit of the museum. If you look carefully
you can see the toy dinosaurs and birds and stuff.
Two meteorites and a lump of fossilised dinosaur poo.
Many of the businesses there seemed to be run by women whilst also looking fater their children, so there were often kids wandering around restaurants or shops. The restaurant we went to that night looked like somebody's home, there were children's toothbrushes lined up in the toilet for example. A stray dog decided we were it's friends and kept following us. Three times in the restaurant it wandered in off the street and lay down under our table. A stray cat also wandered in, but that was cute because it was a cat.
The next day we got up early and ate fruit that we had brought with us for breakfast as well as bread with avocado. I bought a pot of butter which came in a plastic mug :\ We were paired up with a Spanish guy who lives near Barcelona and has been to Nowhere (festival in Spain that Amy and i have been to many times). We paid 120 Bs each for a guide for the day, and were driven up the mountain. Starting at 2700m and we stopped at 3750m. The air was noticeably thinner up there, we were out of breath even just standing around. We walked for a bit while our guide talked about some stones that were believed to be pre Inkan artefacts, a mill stone, the base of some stone walls etc. I didn't understand a lot of it as again it was only in Spanish, but I got the gist with occasional help from Amy. We also saw cave "paintings" although they were more faded squiggles than anything else. I think they could have done with some art lessons TBH. We climbed down into the small canyon and look around a cave which had been used to hide valuable from the Colonials. After some more walking and a rock that looked like an elephant, and some more caves that were kind of cool, we climbed up this cliff using some ladders and ropes (Emma if you're reading this, there was so much good bouldering bits to do, we'll have to take you there when you come visit). We saw some weird rabbit things with long tails, and slowly walked back to the car. The whole trek too about 4 hours, and was exhausting.
Our guide looking at the landscape.
Amy and I, not looking at the landscape.
Our guide drove us down to a local eco-lodge thing, where we ate our lunch and were watched by a small child who seemed only to speak in babbles or Quechua (probably both), I gave her a juggling ball and she clung to it for the rest of our lunch before giving it back, I gave her a biscuit in return. We drank a local Bolivian tea which is meant to help with altitude sickness and was vaguely pleasant tasting.
The tea on a woven table cloth.
After a short drive we walked some more and were shown a variety of dinosaur footprints, all quite small but pretty cool. Amy was very excited. A bit more walking later and we got to the cavern. Bolivia's deepest cave. After being provided with helmets and leaving our bags and water and pretty much everything in a hut we walked down into the mouth of this cave. Our guide tide a rope to a pillar of rock and we used it to help us get down a short drop. At this point we turned our lights on and continued in past the stalactites and stalagmites, most of which had been broken off by people. visiting before the area was classified as a national park. Deeper and deeper we descended, crawling through some areas and using ropes to get down other bits. At one point we turned our lights off and could see nothing at all. Towards the bottom our guide told us that in some caves in other countries it wasn't uncommon to find dead bodies of people who had died in waves of poison gas, before hastily adding that this cave was fine. We then had to slither through the crack that was barely big enough to fit through, for 3m. When we finally reached the bottom of where we were allowed to go, at a depth of 118m, there was an underground lake and a waterfall, with tiny catfish swimming around. We started ascending again after that, it took a while and a fair bit more crawling through tight spaces but we finally made it out. At the top I finally bounded out and tried to kiss Amy, unfortunately I was too sweaty and she didn't like that and said "ew ew ew" and pulled away, this caused a large quantity of Bolivian school kids who happened to be hanging around the entrance to laugh at us. We headed back to town and after a quick dinner and a hurried cold shower passed out from exhaustion.
The next day we got up early again and met our guide, and headed off, walking this time. He showed us some much bigger dinosaur footprints. There were some maybe half a meter across, and about 10cm deep. After much walking we found an observation deck that went out above a canyon. We managed to see a bunch of Condors flying around. These are birds that are actually big enough for me to see, especially with my monocular, so that was cool, and Amy who like birds was pretty happy too. We walked down 800 steps into this canyon and along a river with continuous waterfalls and stuff, scrambling over rocks as we went. At the bottom we had the option of stopping and swimming, but again there was a large crowd of school children, so we just topped up our water bottles and sat down for a bit before heading back, up all 800 steps. Let's just say that 800 steps is a LOT.
Bigger dino footprints.
The observation deck over the canyon.
A condor flying in the canyon.
Click and zoom in, there's a lot of detail here.
Part of the waterfall.
A view of the town on our way back in.
We finally made it back to town, where our guide told us that the bus he had booked for us at 1400 wasn't happening (Welcome to Bolivia). So we went for lunch and then met the guide again who said he'd sorted something out for us. This turned out to be a pick up truck driven by an American guy. We could fit 3 of the 5 of us on the inside, but two had to sit in the back, outside. We agreed to take shifts, with Amy and I starting, we were joined with a local lady called Theodora (sp). There was a much better view from there and while bumpy it felt pretty safe and was quite fun. After an hour I was getting sore, so swapped with the Spanish guy. Amy stayed in the back since she was enjoying it, as did Theodora since this was normal for her (I felt a bit wimpy when an older lady could deal with this more than me, but not enough to stay out). Another hour passed including a bit of a rain storm, luckily those in the back didn't get too wet since the cab of the truck afforded them some protection. Roger swapped with Natalie, and that was it for the rest of the journey. We were dropped off at our hostel and that was that.
Theodora and I in the back of the pickup truck.
The American guy driving told us lots of interesting things about Bolivia and Cochabamba. Such as Cochabamba and La Paz are entirely hydro powered (I can't confirm this). He also pointed out a small town which was the birth place of an ex president who is famous for trading a large quantity of land to Brazil in return for a white horse.
All in all it was a pretty epic three days, but I'm glad to be back in Cochabamba now where I can spend the next couple of days recuperating. I still need to return to the police station to get a police report, since when I went back on Monday, nobody was there, despite it only being 1530.
Captain's log supplemental
So I finally got the police report for my phone, and called my insurance company up, who informed me that smartphones are excluded under my cover. As I expected insurance companies suck :( So now I have no phone, no way of recovering any money for it, and have wasted a bunch of time (both mine and the hostel staff) and (minimal) cost in going to the police station multiple times. Hooray! Oh well, I might go have a beer and complain some more :)
