Stay in Cochabamba with visit to Parque Nacional Torotoro
Sábado 8 de deciembre– sábado 5 de enero.
It had rained all night in Samaipata and when I got up Saturday it was
still raining. The street at this end of town had up to 8 cm of water running
down it. No possibility of doing laundry as there was no sun to dry clothes. I
decided to raise my sails and head for Cochabamba. Unfortunately, due to the
chaotic local bus schedule, the quickest and easiest way to go forward was to
go back… to Santa Cruz. I paid a TRUFI driver in the town square for a spot in
his next trip and I was his first passenger. I went next door to one of the two
restaurants which served a little fancier stuff (like coffee) and ordered a
coffee and a brownie. I chose their instant coffee but the brownie was
excellent, except… it had a funny effect on me that took me a few bites to sort
out. I soon realized that there were Brazil nuts in it and I am allergic to them! Made sense as the
eastern Bolivian Amazon is a major collection area for Brazil nuts. This was my
second encounter, the first being cookies in Rurrenabaque. I did not want to
give up the brownie, so I pulled out and spit out the pieces of nut which was
time-consuming and took away a lot of the pleasure.
At 10:30,the TRUFI had a full load and away we went. It was a three hour
ride, and then a taxi ride to the Bus Terminal in Santa Cruz that I was
starting to know too well. It was a 10 hour bus ride to Cochabamba and so I
bought a ticket for 8:30 PM, and waited. In the entrance to the terminal, I
watch a group of about seven native women lying on the pavement with several
small children, trying to sell bows and arrows. The bows are untapered and look
really interesting. I want to go and have a look and a talk but I know if I do
I will end up buying one and I do not want more stuff to drag around. Still, I
can’t help but thinking that there must be much better places to sell than
here. An older man walks by and starts bending over and picking up imaginary
coins from the pavement. Eventually it puts down his shoulder bag and stands
there staring at it. He stays there unmoving for at least a half an hour. Inside
the terminal there is the constant noise of loud voices trying to sell bus
tickets, meals, newspapers and other things. I see a man in a wheelchair with
all of his limbs partially missing, begging. I look back a couple of minutes
later and he is gone.
Finally it is time to go and I find the El Dorado bus (the company I
have bought a ticket from) and try to put my luggage underneath but the man
there will not open the compatment. I notice that no one else is dropping off
luggage either so I figure I need to bring my back pack on the bus with me.
This is supposed to be a ‘semi-cama’, a bus with semi-reclining seats but this
lack of baggage compartment is not a good sign. Sure enough, my seat is broken
and will not go back. After I get on, an overweight older lady, one that,
waiting in line, had ordered some bottled water and then pop and then
complained about the price and then could not open the bottle, sat down beside
me. An employee comes on the bus and
after using a great deal of force gets my seat down (and the one beside it) and then
pulls it back up. Later when I try to get it down, I can’t. To repeat what he
did, I would need to vacate the passenger beside me and the two behind, and use
all my weight. My neighbour strikes up a
conversation. She very quickly asks me about my religion and I try to avoid
talking about it. Eventually I tell her
I am Jewish and to her next question, that Jews do not believe that Jesus is
the son of God. That is all it takes. She launches into an endless tirade
about how Jesus is the one and only and she has the proof. She was very sick
and she prayed to Jesus and she recovered. She has me convinced !! The man on
her other side nods approvingly to all she says. When I finally conclude that
she is not going to get tired any time soon, I tell her that I really do not
want to talk about religion (or listen to her, I imply). Finally she shuts up,
and she and I have no more words, since obviously I am a lost cause. The rest
of the trip is uncomfortable but uneventful.
After a lot of stops, we arrive in Cochabamba at 5:30 Sunday morning, an
hour early. I wander through the town, marveling at the heaved sidewalk in
many places where massive trees have obviously been there for a long time. I
walk to two hostals mentioned in my Travel Guide but they do not exist. I
finally find a couplemore further north, one is a dive and expensive and the other
is just expensive (relatively: $20). I decide to stay there for a night and
move in the morning.
Cochabamba S 17o 23.5’ W 66o 9.6’ Elev: 2600 m.
Monday morning, I find a much cheaper, cleaner hostal, but without internet. Fortunately
there are internet rooms close by. My plan here is to spend a few weeks writing
(first catching up with my blog, which is months behind, and then working on a
book). I also want to take some Spanish lessons as I feel like I am stuck.
Through the internet, I find an NGO, Sustainable Bolivia, which is not
too far away and offers Spanish lessons for its volunteers and for everyone
else too. I walk down there (about 25
minutes) and talk to the Director and Assistant Director, both Americans, and
set up lessons starting the next morning for 2 hours per day for three weeks.
The cost is B60/hour ($9) and the teacher, Maria, is
excellent. She is not as positive as I would have liked but she is very
exacting and never tires of correcting my Spanish, and marking my homework. We
work in a little hut in the backyard of the large house which is the NGO
offices and residences for the volunteers. There are always birds in the yard,
and I am always watching them out of the corner of my eye. One, ruddy brown
robin sized bird with a long curved beak and an upturned tail, pecks at ants
and one day comes right up to the door of our hut, picking off ants as it goes.
In three weeks, I learn all the grammar that I need and do not already know,
have my pronunciation corrected and explained, practice a lot, and have a lot
of my incorrect sentence structures (mostly French ones) corrected. It is well
worth the time, but between the lessons and the homework, in three weeks, I
have only the time to catch up on my blog, no other writing happens. It
certainly was not a waste of time and I will make another stop in Cusco for a
few weeks to do some real writing.
Most mornings I go out for a run. On the run, seeing I am fairly close
to a market which is a bit of a slum, the garbage collecting bins are always
overflowing, smell terribly and there is frequently someone inside looking for
treasure including recyclables. Taking side streets is worse as I come across
people sleeping on the street or urinating on the street. I also enter a wealthy area and here I am
frequently jolted by dogs inside high fences barking loudly at me. On the way
to lessons, I usually buy breakfast on the street (a relleno, fried ground
potato outside with meat, vegetables, and boiled egg inside). I buy some
groceries for lunch so I can keep working and usually go out to a mercado or a
tiny restaurant close by for some grilled steak. I also listen to a fair bit of
tv, using it to keep improving my ear for Spanish. Rain is frequent but mostly
at night.
One of the volunteers at the NGO is Maggie, an American from Kentucky
who is teaching a group of teenage girls who have been sexually abused, to paint
and then paint self-portraits. Another volunteer is teaching them to dance.
Maggie invites me to an opening one Saturday to show off their art and a dance
they have created and there is a slide show of photos of their time doing this
work. It is pretty moving. There is a write-up in the local newspaper the next
day but unfortunately the journalist who wrote up is not very sensitive and the
headline starts ‘Sexually abused teenaged girls…
The area where I am living is noisy with traffic and craziness, but the
neighbourhood of Sustainable Bolivia is completely different: green, quiet and
serene. It is a breath of fresh air. However, when I am writing or studying, I
do not care. Near where I live is an area of outdoor and covered markets called
La Cancha. It is crazy with people and buses and is often very crowded. There
are a lot of smells here and most of them are not nice. Shops of various kinds
line the streets at least where you can see the streets; some parts are so
crowded with covered stalls that there is no street. I often come here to buy
some fruit and vegetables and people watch. One day as I am walking through a
knot of people, I feel resistance on my leg. I pull hard and then realize
someone is grabbing my leg. I pull off the hand and then look back. I see a
number of articles on the ground including one that looks very familiar. As I
turn back, I realize that it looks like the underside of my wallet and I reach
down to my cargo pocket on my thigh and it is empty. I turn back to see a man’s
foot step on top of my wallet. Reaching down, I grab his leg around the ankle
and lift half his body including his foot off my wallet , pick it up and keep
going. It all happened so quick I did not really realize what was going on until
a little while later. I will have to be more careful in this area.
In the news my first week here is the story of an American businessman
named Ostereicher who has been in jail here for 18 months in La Paz for money
laundering drug money. His health is failing and it is not at all clear that he
is guilty as an extortion ring has come to light that involves police, judges and crown prosecutors. Even some
federal cabinet ministers have been implicated. Ostereicher is still in jail
and it will be a long time before this whole thing gets sorted out. I see some
graffiti on a building which says ‘If there were no police, there would be no
crime’. I certainly understand where this sentiment comes from.
At Sustainable Bolivia, I spend time with Gary, an American in his 60s,
who rents a room there but is not part of the organization. He came there with his wife, a
lawyer who helped set up the NGO, but they split up and he stayed. He is a
teacher, works with disturbed kids, but here is doing nothing and his Spanish
is not where it should be. He is in limbo and he is finally realizing it and
getting ready to get out. It is kind of sad to see as clearly he is a bright
guy.
I also meet Cecilia, a psychologist in her 40s from Buenos Aires, who has been going to different countries to volunteer and travel for a vacation for the last few years. She is
interesting and she and I end up planning a small trip together. I need a break
and I want to visit the Parque Nacional Torotoro, 130 km and 6 hours on crappy
roads from here.
On Saturday 29 de deciembre, we decide to head out. It takes a lot of
work to find rooms at a hostal there as it is hard to find phone numbers but
eventually we do. It is also hard to find out where the buses leave from as it
is an obscure corner. I end up taking a taxi there and then walk further to
find it just to find out when the buses go and make a reservation. Everyone I
ask points me in the right direction except two policemen I ask when I am less
than a block away. They would have me go a km in the opposite direction.
Fortunately a 12 year old kid corrects them and I find the location; a woman
sitting at a table on the street selling tickets is the only sign.
The buses leave at 6 PM to arrive about 11 PM, or that is the schedule
anyway. We arrive at 5:20, in plenty of
time to buy the tickets. The bus is there but it leaves at 5:30, and the driver
signals that he will be back. When I ask, I am told that he has gone to inflate
the tires a little more. Shortly after, it starts to rain fairly hard. There is
a building with shelter but not enough room for everyone so we wait out in the
rain. Eventually I buy some popcorn from a street vendor and we shelter
under her stand umbrella. At 7:20, the bus returns and I wonder whether he was
trying to blow up the tires by mouth.
The trip is fairly uneventful for us but not for the driver. Most of it
is on a narrow mountain cobblestone road, with lots of switchbacks, and several
small creek or river crossings. The first crossing works for us but the water
is too deep for cars and a number of them are waiting by the river’s edge
waiting for the water level to go down (?) We do get there about 1 AM.
The name of the town as well as the National Park is Torotoro,
which comes from the Quechua word, turu which means mud. There is a lot of clay
in the area, so when it gets wet it is pretty muddy. The area is really unusual
and beautiful and is the country’s smallest national park at 165 km2
but it is full of natural treasures. It is a very dry desert-like area, with
mostly flat-lying sedimentary rock, some of it folded up, including one valley
which is clearly a large syncline (a downward fold). There is a major canyon
with sheer cliff walls 250 m high which is perfect nesting habitat for
red-headed macaws. There are also green parakeets in the area. At higher
elevation some of the sandstone has been eroded by waves into caves and arches
indicating that it has been uplifted almost 3000 m. There are ancient ruins in
the area as well as rock paintings. Throughout the area, there are also a large
number of deep caves carved out by running water, some of them with stalactites
and stalagmites, and with underground lagoons containing blind cavefish. The
caves also contain large colonies of bats and cave swallows. As well, there is
probably the best site of fossils in Bolivia. But the icing on the cake is that
there is a large number of well preserved dinosaur footprints in the area, even
though there have been no dinosaur fossil discoveries here. I take this to mean
that the dinosaurs migrated through this area but did not live here. What an
amazing area!!
Cecilia and I meet up with another couple from La Paz, and share a ride
and a guide to go up to one of the largest caves, Caverna de Umajalanta, which
has been followed back for 7 km, although we are only planning to follow it in
for about 350 m. On our way up, we come upon one group of sets of 35 cm long dinosaur footprints, of
three toed carnivores. Each set consists of 10 to 15 individual footprints allowing
the gait of the animals to be seen very clearly. A little higher up, the four
of us with Gabriel, our 21 year old guide, pick up hard hats with headlamps,
and enter a huge cavern 30 m high and as wide. There is a small river that
enters here, and there are a few immature cave swallows hanging on to the
walls. No bats are visible, as most have abandoned this particular cave because
of all the human activity here.
We follow the river down through one chamber
after another. When we arrive at the first narrow passage, Cecilia cannot take
the confined spaces and waits for an outgoing group to head back out into the
light. We continue downward, eventually coming into a chamber where there is a
small lagoon. At the back of the chamber, there is a small falls coming down 20
m from above. This is one of the lagoons where blind cave fish are found, but
because of the recent rain, the water is muddy and we can see nothing. From
here, we take another route back out, away from the river and its noise and
soon there is total silence. Our route alternates between narrow passages that
we have to squeeze through, and larger chambers with stalactites and
stalagmites. Unfortunately as this was one of the first caves discovered,
locals have broken a lot of the stalactites, although many still remain. Most
of the other caves are more intact. On our way out, in the last giant chamber,
we spot a large owl, perching on a ledge half way up one wall of the cave.
Crawling through tight passages
Stalactites
After lunch back in town, we take a short ride out to another area
closer to town. Here we walk down into a creek valley where the flat lying
sediments form the creek bed, and at frequent intervals, the creek has broken
through to lower and lower layers.
Creek Bed
Rock Bridge in Creek Bed
Eventually this creek joins up with a major river flowing through a
major canyon, the biggest and most beautiful canyon I have ever seen. A lookout
tower has been built at the confluence where we get an amazing view of the
canyon. While we watch, we see three pairs of macaws leave and return to holes
in the canyon walls. A large flock of parakeets flies over as well. This is
magical stuff and I cannot get over it. The other couple, Rafael and Karin,
turn back at this point, but we continue with Gabriel upriver to where we find
rock paintings along the now much lower canyon walls, quite similar to many I
have seen in northern Saskatchewan in Canada. Finally as we walk back into town
as the sun sets, Gabriel brings us to another even bigger site of dinosaur
prints very close to town. There are many similar prints but one set is a show-stopper:
a long set of prints of a very large slow-moving dinosaur, of a brontosaurus
type. The hind footprints are more than 60 cm long. I am not sure what shoe
size that is, but it is BIG!
The Canyon
Very large dinosaur footprints
The next morning, Ceciia has to be back and she takes the only bus there
is: a 6 AM one. After breakfast, I head down to the town square to try and meet
up with some other people to go to the most distant site, Ciudad de Itas, a
site of sandstone arches and caves carved by waves when this mountain top was
at sea level. I find a group of 6 Bolivians from La Paz, another couple from La
Paz, and another French couple doing an around the world trip. We head up to
the site which is an hour long 21 km drive up a steep, narrow mountain road.
Everywhere we go, including here, we find dwellings, small fields of crops and
livestock, and people. From up here at almost 3000 m, we have a great view of
the area, including one large flat mesa which falls off all around. There is a
small community on top of it and I wonder what parents tell their children to
keep them from walking off the edge of their world into the void.
The caves and arches are very beautiful and our guides, a man in his 40s
and his 8 year old son, tell us that some local people come up here to the
largest cave we encounter with a skylight
in the high roof and a sand floor, to get married. This makes perfect
sense to me as it is an incredibly beautiful site. When we are done and we make
our way back uphill and then downhill to our waiting vehicle (a large truck
with all of us in the back), we drive down to the Caverna I visited yesterday.
I get off and so does Marie, half of the French couple who suffers from
claustrophobia and does not want the cave experience. She and head back toward
the village where we hope to find a major fossil site. It is a hot day, we have
a long way to go, and we do not have too much time: it is already 1:30 PM.
Unfortunately, nothing is marked as tourists are supposed to do all their
visiting with a guide. The directions we get from locals on the way are vague,
and although we get close, we never do find the site. However, it is still an
enjoyable afternoon looking for treasure and scrambling up mountainsides.
Wave-worn Sandstone arches
We get back and I grab a quick supper at a community hall where there
are tables and a number of people selling me meals. I really would like a beer
and there is a little store nearby that sells cold beer. I buy a few extra for
the locals that I have been talking with. Marie comes back to join me and then
her husband, Nicolas arrives back from the Caverna. I ask around about
happenings for New Year’s Eve (tonight), and find out that the whole crew from
this morning is going to a New Year’s supper at my hostal. They tell me it is
at 11:30 but when I ask at the hostal of someone not directly involved I learn
it is at 10 PM. What finally turns out to be the case is that they have a supper
at 10 PM. But when more people want tickets, they decide to have another
sitting at 11:30, without planning anything more than the vaguest wishful
thinking to get the 10:00 group out of their chairs and tables before our
sitting. In fact, the 10:00 sitting is actually more like 10:45 and the planned
Bolivian music and dancing display planned for 11 does not happen until 1. At
midnight some of us have still not sat down yet, but we go through the Bolivian
New Years rituals which include lighting candles, hugs and kisses, and then
opening champagne and washing hands in it to bring wealth in the coming year.
Finally the remainder of us get a seat when a few people leave. Nicolas
and I have bought a couple bottles of Singani (Bolivian brandy), lemons and
Sprite, and I smuggle these into the dining hall and pour for everyone.
However, some are non-drinkers and everyone else are very light drinkers so not
much is being drunk. I am having a good time and without really thinking about
it, I keep pouring myself drinks. By the time we say goodnight to each other,
it is 2 AM and I am staggering. I set my alarm for 5 AM for the 6 AM bus but I
do not hear it and do not wake until 8 AM and with a hangover which sees me
stay in bed for most of the day, emerging late morning to purchase another bus
ticket for the next day, and in the evening to get supper. Still, I am not
unhappy with my day. I have not had a hangover in at least 20 years so it is
interesting. (How is that for rationalization??)
My Bolivian friends at New Year's
The next morning (Wednesday the 2nd) I am up at 5 and glad I
have reserved a seat as the bus is completely full, half of the people
standing. Back in Cochabamba, I say goodbye to Nicolas and Marie, and I make my way back to my hotel to
spend another three days finishing to catch up with my blog, and a lot of
correspondence so I can start traveling again in the new year with a clear
conscience.
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