The language school helped us organize a trip to Torotoro, a national park pretty close by, for my first weekend in Cochabamba. Our group was made up of four girls from the school and one much older Spanish man who must have felt very much out of place. Our guide, Rico, was a young man, whom we had no idea spoke English until he busted out in a perfect Californian accent revealing he´d grown up in the states, but not until we had properly embarrassed ourselves.
The 100 mile distance from Cochabamba to Torotoro took four hours which gives you some idea of how bad the roads were. But we were greeted by a much nicer hotel then I was imagining. It was more of a big house to ourselves with a personal chef.
After a good night's sleep we hiked through the canyon to a beautiful waterfall where we were able to go swimming. We were gawked at by all the Bolivians and more than one photo was requested. In the afternoon we visited the caves. It was slightly terrifying for a person with a small case of claustrophobia, as we had to wiggle our way through more than a couple of tight places. But I'm glad I did it! On the way back to the hotel the car broke down while crossing a river, but luckily very close to home and it was magically working the next day.
Sunday we did a hike where we got to see tons of fossils, but by far the coolest thing was seeing dinosaur footprints in the afternoon. One of the girls questioned the authenticity of the prints saying she thought it was a tourist trap, but I'm saying they are really real. Some of the prints could have been something else, but many were very obvious and would have been extremely difficult to fake and rather pointless for the smallest national park in Bolivia that gets relatively few visitors.
All in all it was fantastic first weekend trip from Cochabamba and I hope for many more like it!
No comments:
Post a Comment