Since I was working in a bar in Rurre, it was clear that my last night
there had to be celebrated. That led to me sleeping in way longer than
planned, and then having to say goodbye to everybody with quite a
hangover. But I made it to my flight in time (which wasn't that hard
because it got delayed anyways) and spent an horrible hour on a small
airplane above the wide and empty lowlands of Bolivia.
I was
continuing my travels with an English guy, Scott, and after arriving in
Trinidad we made our way to the bus terminal to find a night bus to
Santa Cruz. We bought our tickets and had then a couple of hours in
Trinidad, which we spent walking around. Fortunately I felt better by
then, but there's pretty much nothing interesting in Trini.
The bus
to Sta. Cruz was definitely not the best one in my life (I don't sleep
that well with a drunk guy sitting behind me, coughing all night) but we
made it.
Since I'd heard that Sta. Cruz isn't the nicest of places,
all we did was find a taxi to the 'bus stop' from which we could go to
the nice little town of Samaipata.
The taxi driver had no idea where
to go, but he was nice and eventually he brought us to the right place.
From there we took a shared taxi to Samaipata. It was a 3 hour ride, but
I slept most of it, still suffering from my hangover.
Samaipata
When
we got to Samaipata we were surprised how quiet it was. It kind of felt
like there were no people there, and no busy life. Also all the streets
around the main square were under construction, so there was no traffic
at all ( not that one would need any kind of transportation in a place
as small as this). It was easy to find the hostel, which was the place
where I was supposed to be to work a month before, and after settling
down we cooked some lunch and walked around the town. There was a
'mirador' (viewpoint) and several small, but fancy and European shops,
and that was pretty much it.
I still didn't know what exactly I
wanted to do in Samaipata and it took me a while to decide. But then I
ended up going to some ruins called 'el fuerte', which were pretty
impressive, and some beautiful waterfalls. I took a long walk above the
waterfalls and was surprised how much it looked like Austria - I almost
felt like I was in my home country.
My afternoons in Samaipata I
spent with painting - the owners of the hostel saw my sketchbook the
first day, and liked it, and offered me to paint something in exchange
for a room. So I made a draft for a mural in the kitchen, and now
there's my artwork on their wall (which is pretty cool). And i didn't
have to pay for any of the nights I stayed there, including the
delicious breakfast with whole wheat bread and fresh fruits.
But
there really wasn't that much to do in Samaipata, and I was a little bit
in a rush to travel the rest of Bolivia without overstaying my visa. So
after a couple days of nice and quiet I felt like I was ready again for
a big city - Cochabamba.
Cochabamba
To get from Samaipata
to Cochabamba, without having to go back to Santa Cruz, was an
interesting thing to do. First I had to go to an even smaller town than
Samaipata called Mairana. The departure time of the bus changed
depending on the person I asked, so I wanted to get there early. Luckily
I caught a bus so I didn't have to take a taxi and arrived in Mairana
super early. I found a restaurant that sold the bus tickets, but when I
bought it I noticed that I was the only person on the bus. I had to wait
for almost 2 hours, but no more people came within that time. When we
left there was one other person with me in the back, and a whole family
sitting in the driver's cabin of the bus. I was a little nervous, but
along the way we collected and dropped off some more people and after
some hours we arrived safely in Cochabamba. Since it was the middle of
the night I could sleep on the bus until morning - that seemed like a
great solution to me except that it was freezing cold.
When I got up
my plan was to go first to the bus station to collect some information
and a map of the city (that only got interrupted by a delicious
breakfast on the street). I also had a good friend there, but since my
phone had given up working in Rurre i couldn't get a hold of him.
I
spent the early morning hours looking for a hostel with a reasonable
price and after i finally found one i just dropped my bag there and left
for the city.
The first thing I did, and one of the only things you
can do in Cochabamba besides eating, is to walk up to their enormous
Jesus statue which overlooks pretty much the whole city (it's even
bigger than the one in Rio de Janeiro) Getting up there was more that
exhausting, and the heat started to kill me. And since I had left
everything at the hostel (which wasn't really a hostel, but more just a
cheap place to crash) I didn't have to wait long for my sunburn.
At
the top of the hill, and right next to Jesus' feet I met some guys that
spoke German. It turned out that they were Swiss, German and Austrian,
and they were the only white tourists I met in Cocha. After a while we
decided to go and get lunch together, but that plan got interrupted by
some Texan missionaries, from which I learned never to admit to speak
English at the bottom of a giant Jesus and to people that wear 'I love
Jesus'-shirts. What else they said I don't know, because my mind was too
occupied with finding the fastest and least rude way to get away from
them.
The way down was a lot better than the way up, and the next
task was to find a public phone to call my friend. Usually you can find a
phone on every corner but, of course, when you need one there are none.
After a while I found it though, and my friend agreed to meet us
for lunch. He actually showed up on time, and I was super happy to see
him because he reminded me of the good times I had in Rurre.
We had
lunch at the market and then I split up with the German-speaking guys
and David (my Bolivian friend) took me on a little tour through the city
and its markets, including the place where the buses to Toro Toro
leave. Until a week before that I had no idea that Toro Toro exists nor
what it was. But a good friend of mine in Rurre told me about it and
then I looked it up in a 2008 travel guide. It said something about the
only house in town having electricity 24/7 was the church and buses
leaving twice a week.
The reality in 2014 was a little different
though, and when we got to the bus station a grand group of tourists
awaited us. It turned out that buses now were leaving once or twice a
day and it was an easy thing to say 'yes' to the plan of going there the
next day.
I spent the evening at my David's house (mostly playing
with his monkey Jack, which is his pet) and as Bolivians are they
invited me to dinner, for which they served delicious homemade
empanadas.
And as Bolivian guys are, David insisted on taking me back
to my hostel safely and after finally getting there I passed out
immediately after this long day.
The next morning I spent walking
around and reading before getting lunch with David. After that we went
to get my stuff and he brought me to the Toro Toro bus station.
My
original plan was to find the German guy again because he had said he
might come with me. But since I couldn't find their hostel, I thought I
was going by myself after all and was quite surprised when Andi and
Thomas suddenly showed up at the bus stop. It felt good and I was
looking forward to this unexpected trip.
Toro Toro
The bus
ride to Toro Toro werd about 5 hours on a bumpy road, but I had a lot
of food with me and was in the middle of a good book so I didn't mind.
We
stayed at the first place we found, which was basic but nice, and for a
little extra money (which the owner forgot to charge us for in the end
anyways) we could use the kitchen too.
Toro Toro seemed like a
pretty dead place, especially after a big and busy city like Cochabamba,
and at the hour of 9.30 pm it was impossible to find something to eat.
The
next day we wanted to do a hike into the canyon, and since tourism is
'improving' rapidly we had to go with a guide. At first I was a little
disappointed because I had expected Toro Toro being the kind of place
where you can just go on your own, but then the tour was good and the
guide showed us things which we definitely would have missed without
him. Like the dinosaur tracks. And some ancient wall paintings. And he
explained us a lot about the plants and how they were, and are, being
used for medical purposes.
The hike itself was beautiful as well, and
since we didn't meet any other people we were just surrounded by the
incredible silence of nature and our own noises. We also went down into
the canyon to take a break and a swim at some beautiful waterfalls,
before walking the exhausting steps back up.
The rest of the day we
spend with buying food for dinner (the Toro Toro market is the emptiest
I've seen in all my time in South America) and cooking, and reading.
On
the following day we had planned to go to a place called 'cementario de
tortugas' (turtle cemetary), this time on our own. The morning was slow
because it rained, but when it stopped we started the short, but very
nice walk to the 'cemetery'. The landscape in Toro Toro is quite
interesting, because you're able to see all the lines and layers of the
mountains' formation.
When we got to the cemetery, the only person
there was a little energetic girl. When she saw us she took us to the
little museum, and then went to get her mom while we were looking
around. The museum was new and it seemed like it still hasn't been all
finished, but it showed some interesting information about the dinosaurs
and mountains of the area. There were also some fossils including (what
a surprise) turtles. But the best part about going there was the little
girl's mom, an original Bolivian 'cholita', who the showed us around
the place of the archaeological excavation. It was a hilly field of
earth in different intense shades of red, where they had found multiple
turtle fossils and were still discovering new ones. It was pretty
impressive, if you ask me.
On the way back I once more noticed the
many different colours the landscape here had, going through all shades
of grey, green, purple and red. I loved it.
Back at our hostel everybody had a little alone time before we cooked again, had dinner on the rooftop and played cards.
This
was our last night in Toro Toro and when we got up the next day we only
went down to the river for a little bit before taking the bus back to
Cochabamba.
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