Toro Toro

We set off on friday afternoon for Toro Toro. Our "4wd" which was really a taxi picked us up and slight apprenhension crept in after hearing of the road quality and seeing our vehicle. But we set off nevertheless. It was not long before we were out of the city and onto the dirt and cobbled roads (actually it is really difficult to define them as roads) for 4 long hours, apparently the road quality has been significantly improved over recent years and journeys use to take 8 hours. Honestly, if this is them improved I would hate to see what they looked like before. The drive though is a beautiful one and well worth it despite the completely numb arse from the constant bumping of the car.

As we crossed river crossings, drove through little towns (one of which to our amusement we thought was called Gomoria, but later actually discovered this just means rubber in Spanish, and so its location on a tyre was not the name of the town) were chased by wild dogs and blocked on the roads by a random assortment of animals we got closer and closer to Toro Toro. The roads started to get windier as we crept up the mountains, by now it was dark, which in some ways is a good thing because it meant we could not see the rather terryfying roads winding up mountains, with sheer cliffs, and no discernible road surface.

We finally arrived in Toro Toro in the evening, at which point our driver rather embarrasingly asked directions to our hostel when we were parked right outside it- The huge sign outside obviously not a big give away to him.

Felix came to greet us and we had our own little bungalow for the weekend. In fact we had the entire hostel to ourselves for the weekend as there was no one else staying there which was kind of nice, especially as it meant we could go to dinner on saturday evening in our pyjamas...bonus! The hostel was really nice, very clean, nice room, staff were lovely.

We woke on saturday and after one very cold shower (we did not figure out how to use it until Felix heard one of our cries of anguish at the cold shower and told us how to work the hot water) headed to breakfast. It was really nice, cereal, bread, and the cook even brought me another scrambled egg after I informed her I was vegetarian (the first one had ham with it) which was really sweet.

We then set off to the tourist office to get a guide and pay the park fee. As it is a national park you are required to take a guide round the park. We set off with Justino (our guia) in tow. We headed to the man sized caves called Itas, we were really lucky to get to go there, as they do not like to drive their. After driving the rather perilous road (again, not a road!) to get there it is easy to see why. It was pretty awful, at one point a taxi infront of us got stuck going uphill and our guide and driver had to go and help them push the car, hilarious until the same thing happened to us, and this time it was us doing the pushing.

Finally we arrived and set off on our hike to and around Itas. This was the start of two days of pretty intense hiking, the terrain is pretty rough throughout the entire park, so if not a hiking fan you might want to give it a miss. We climbed up and down boulders, rocks, cliffs, and finally arrived at the caves, some of which were used as temples in the past. They were pretty cool and definitely worth the perilous road journey, however getting back to the car was more of a challenge. Climbing up a sheer cliff with a rope when you are not clipped in is a rather scary experience but we all navigated it safely.

Then we drove down to the smaller underground caves of Umajalanta. By this point it was mid-afternoon and we had not seen a tourist all day, which was heaven. Not that you really see many other tourists in Bolivia as a whole anyway, but here there was nobody. The wilderness and scenery was peaceful and unspoilt which is definitely one of the bonuses of Toro Toro. It is not the sort of place that has a gift shop selling tacky dinosaur keyrings and cave magnets.

On the way to Umajalanta we came across a tiny old women and her house, we found out she was 97, which was mightily impressive, more impressive was the fact that she was charging people to use her bathroom 1bs which is 10pence, London prices! I guess you do not live to 97 without having some smarts. Anyway the bathrooms were horrific, but due to my appalling bladder I had to use them.

We hiked to Umajalanta and donned out helmets and headlamps for the proper caving to come. We descended into the cave and it gradually got smaller and smaller until at one point we had to crawl to get through the chamber, we then reached a very steep descent where we had to rope down, it was very slippy and wet but I made it down safely. We made it into the next chamber which was the concerto chamber, and our guide proceeded to sing a song for us, highly amusing. We decided not to go any further as you had to crawl to get through, which was a shame as we did not get to see the blind fish in the lake. The cave was definitely worth it for the beautiful stalagmites and stalacites. We walked back to the car and headed back to the hostel.

They made us a delicious dinner, I had vegetarian lasagne which was really yummy after all that hiking, even better enjoyed in one´s pyjamas. We were so shattered that we were in bed by 8.30 in preparation for the early start the next day.

We had to leave at 7.00 so we awoke early for breakfast, and after telling them the night before not to go to much effort, just something simple as it was so early, they made bread and little cheese saltenas, which was very sweet of them.

On sunday we headed to the canyon. It was a good walk along many beautiful natural sites, dinosaur footprints and fossils. We arrived at the Canyon viewing platform and had an awesome view, this was a proper canyon. We proceeded to do the Garden State scream into the Canyon (yes we are that cool) at which point our guide probably thought what did I do to deserve this lot.

We descended the 800 steps and 300 metres to the bottom of the Canyon, it was a long way down, but the realization only hit at the bottom that we had to get back up it! We walked through the Canyon to the waterfall Vergel which was really pretty, you could swim there, but only Amy was brave enough to go in, it was bloody freezing in fairness, though I did paddle my feet, which was nice and cooling after all the walking. Our peace was interrupted by a group of Bolivian tourists who were slightly braver than us about going into the falls. We made the long hard slog back up the Canyon in the hot midday sun, it was hard work but definitely worth the effort.

Then we walked right along the several canyons and stumbled upon more cave paintings, dinosaur footprints (including the brontosaurus which was massive) ,no T-Rex though, apparently that was elsewhere iun the park.

We ended up back in Toro Toro village, utterly exhausted, packed our things and headed back to the city. This time it was in the light, which meant we could see the beautiful landscape, but also meant we could witness the sheer terror of the descent. Blind corners, random animals blocking the road, amongst other hazards and dangers. Honestly I wished it was at night again.

The landscape of Toro Toro is unlike anything I have ever seen, beautiful mountains everywhere you look. I think it is probably the most beautiful place I have ever been, and I was very sad to leave. It was defintitely worth the visit, and is a place I will never forget. The lack of other people especially tourists there, means it felt like we were some of the few that have seen this place which is truly special.

This weekend I am going to La Paz for the Gran Poder festival, so I shall fill you in on that next week.

Weekend Dos- Archeological Museum, Cancha and Cristo de la Concordia

This weekend was ram-packed with more Cochabamba based activities. On Saturday morning I visited the Archeological museum with some other volunteers. It is in the centre of Cochabamba, and on the grand scale of size of museums this is definitely the smallest one I have been in. However, that did not make it any less interesting.

This little old man called Rene gave us a tour of the museum, he thanked us for coming as he said it is the only way he could improve his English, which was not bad at all to be honest, better than my Spanish in any case.

Anyway there were a few small rooms, filled with fossils, bones, clothes, pottery. Standard museum stuff. It was all pretty interesting though, there were quite a few Inca relics, which were pretty cool. Probably the most interesting thing I learnt was that the tyrannosaurus rex came after the jurassic period, which means Mr. Spielberg that you lied to me! 

Anyway we went for lunch in this placed called Casablanca. I chose the panqueques, which I expected to be like a small stuffed crepe, how wrong I was! Cue absolutely massive stuffed pancake, I am talking giant. How stupid of me, I forgot I was in Bolivia and there is no such thing as a controlled portion. Anyway I ate it all, suffice to say dinner was a smaller affair of just a banana and a mandarin. The mandarin´s over here are A-mazing, I have like 2 or 3 a day. Simply delicious.

After lunch we walked to La Cancha. Now I have been to La Cancha before, but not on a Saturday. Saturday is market day, so as you can imagine it was even busier (if thats possible) than usual. La Cancha can be an incredibly claustrophobic place, as market sellers try to appeal to you with their wares, people push past you down the narrow streets or aisles, and the general buzz and hustle and bustle of the place sweep over you. We were in search of the American aisle a.k.a the Gringo aisle. Where the quality of crafts is better than the rest of the market, we somehow stumbled across it, though if you asked me to find it again I would not have a clue. La Cancha is a total maze and navigation (already not my strong point) is frankly impossible. I did not buy anything but definitely will return to the gringo aisle in the coming weeks for presents. 

In the evening we went to the Cine Centre, which once you step inside, is like you are transported to the States. It is so Americanized it sort of makes me feel a little sick. The highlight of the Cine Centre is the food court, where there is a place called Tuesday Burger. Brilliant, because it is a total rip of a TGI Friday´s right down to the logo, and the patterned black and red border. In Bolivia there is seemingly no copyright laws. Another delight spotted at La Cancha was Sonia instead of Sony. Brilliant, I think I will start cataloging the blatant infringements of copyrighting, watch this space.

We saw Date Night at the cinema, unexpectedly funny.Good night.

On sunday we went to the Cristo de la Concordia. You can walk up the thousand upon thousand of steps but we took the cable car. This is not because we are all incredibly lazy. Apparently it is really dangerous to walk up the stairs, full of thiefs and glue sniffers, not that I can say I spotted any. Anyway the cable car was downright puny, and I am not the biggest fan of heights...bad combination. It was ok, everytime it would go over a pylon, it would jolt a little, but it was fine. We got up to the top, and you are hit by the sheer scale of the Cristo, it is massive.

The Cristo is 33 and a bit metres tall I believe, higher than the one in Rio. ´Ave that Brazil! On Sundays you can climb up the statue, so for the extortionate 10 pence fee we made the slog up the tower. The steps were pretty awful, and there was only one way up and down, which led to ensuing chaos. However, we finally made it up to the top (when I say the top I mean the arms, as you sadly cannot go any further) and looked out upon the whole of Cochabamba. It was a cracking view and well worth going up, as you could survey the beauty of Cochabamba, and the surrounding mountains. This is us on the way down. (Amy, I nicked your blog photo, hope you do not mind, I have not uploaded any photos yet!...yes lazy, I just cannot deal with how crap the internet connections are and how long it will take!)

We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling in the restaurant Brazilian coffee. So that was my weekend. Next weekend I am thinking about doing Toro Toro which is a national park a fair few hours bus ride from here, which has dinosaur footprints. It is supposed to be amazing, so hopefully I will have many tales from there next week. So until then. 

Weekend Uno- Tarata y Centro Cultural Simon Patiño

Weekends are for travelling or seeing the city, so I made the most of it this weekend.

On Saturday I went to Tarata with some other volunteers. It was an early start and after trawling the city and getting lost trying to walk to the stop (eventually I got a taxi) I managed to meet up with some other volunteers and locate the trufi (like a taxi) stop to Tarata. It is about a 45 minute trip to Tarata but it can be quicker depending on how crazy your trufi driver is. The route is a really beautiful one as we got out of the city and into the more rural Tarata. One thing to note is Evo is huge out in the rural areas, everyone has flags and spray paint on their houses in support of Evo.

When we arrived we took a look around the plaza which was really beautiful and started to look around some of the buildings there. We went into the office for culture and tourism which was basically just a single guy who did city tours. He gave us a city tour for 5bs (50p) each. It was really good, in Spanish, but I could pick up most of what he was saying. He took us to the top of the Iglesia de San Pedro where we had a fabulous view of the town and its surroundings, we climbed to the roof, which I managed to do, despite my fear of heights. Once up there I was concerned about how I was going to get down but I made it down ok. He showed us around this kind of mini-museum full of artefacts and archeological discoverys, it was really interesting. At the end he gave us a postcard of Tarata and we signed the visitors book. The last people to go on a city tour before us was 3 weeks prior, so as you can tell it is not a very touristy town, which actually is really nice, as you get to experience the real Bolvia.

We then proceeded to walk to the convent but it was closed until 2.30 so we went back to town to find some food. By this point we had walked miles and it was all on cobbled paving which is bloody hard work. My concern was to find something vegetarian, as I am aware that outside the cities, vegetarianism is pretty non-existent. We settled down in a small place where the waitress told us the four choices of which all I can remember is some meat soup, chicken, and some sort of sheep part. We asked if they had anything vegetarian to which the reply was: Do you want to try the salad? Brilliant. Yes I will TRY the salad. Though to her credit she brought me a nice big plate of salad, rice and potatoes. It was edible and actually was much better than I expected to get in somewhere so rural. I was prepared with my backup plan of getting bread and fruit from the street sellers, but it turns out I was in luck.

After lunch we proceeded to walk and try and find some rumoured pre-inca ruins, we walked absolutely miles. This included getting stuck on a bridge (which actually turned out to be an empty aquaduct) and having to climb and jump off the side of it (it was not an elegant site!) and climbing over crazy terrain, which included jumping over the tiniest stream of water, which I mocked and then proceeded to slip into and my trainer went completely into the sludgy mud , lovely. The best thing is its so dry and warm here it dried out in no time.

I do not know if we ever did find the pre-Inca ruins, we found some sort of monument which we christened the ruins as we did not know where else to look. We then walked up this massive hill and got an amazing view of Tarata the surrounding wilderness, mountains and lake. It was very beautiful.

The beauty of Tarata was somewhat tainted (and I have found this to be a Bolivian problem) by the litter. This little town in the middle of nowhere and there was just so much litter. There was a ditch where there used to be a river or stream and it was full (I mean completely full) or litter, it is so sad. Also when we walked up to the top of the hill there was litter, I do not even understand how it got there, but it is such a shame, as it ruins this otherwise perfect landscape.

We then went back to the convent and the monk came and let us in. It led into this beautiful garden, which was like a little oasis or haven, we just sat there for ages enjoying its peaceful beauty.

We left Tarata in the late afternoon, it was a long day, but one I really enjoyed. I am glad I saw this little town , and it was nice to get out of the city for a bit.

On Sunday I went to the Centro Cultural Simon Patiño. I took a Micro to get there but ended up going the wrong way and arriving in some really rural town, I had to take the entire route backwards to get back to the city and then I got a taxi to the Centro. I met some other volunteers there, who had already done the tour, but I went on it on my own. At 11.30 the tour was in English so I booked onto that, much to the dismay of the 5 other participants of the tour who were Spanish. However the guide translated into Spanish for them so it was ok.

The house was amazing! Its belonged to Simon Patiño though he never lived in it. He was hugely wealthy due to discovering tin in Bolivia, and he built this enormous house in Cochabamba. All the furnishings etc were made in Europe and shipped over. Decadent is not the word, it has inspirations from all over Europe. It was truly an amazing sight. It is now used as a cultural centre, and it currently houses a sculpture exhibit of Bolivian artists. It was brilliant, a really good exhibit and well worth seeing. After that we walked around the beautiful gardens where there were also sculptures. Being there you would not believe you were in the middle of Cochabamba, its so peaceful and beautiful, you can barely even hear the traffic and general buzz of Cocha.

Anyway that was my weekend, filled with beautiful sights inside and outside Cochabamba.

First week in Cochabamba

So it has almost been a week since I arrived in Cochabamba, and it has flown by. So far I love the city and am enjoying my time here.

Cochabamba is stunningly beautiful, its kind of a sunken city surrounded by these huge mountains, the scenery and landscape is the most amazing I have ever seen.

On arrival I was taken to my host family who I absolutely love, they are so nice and welcoming. In terms of Bolivia in general I have found the people to be some of the warmest I have ever met. Almost everybody you see on the street greets each other. My family do not speak much spanish, except the daughter who speaks fluently. My spanish is awful but I learn more every day and am getting by fine. I have had two Spanish lessons so far, so I have a way to go.

The weekend I arrived was bank holiday weekend so the city had kind of shut down, which was good in a way because it gave me time to settle in. The house I am staying in is really nice, my host family only moved here around 3 weeks ago, but its very nice, and in a really nice neighbourhood.

In terms of my vegetarianism I have so far encountered no problems. My host family make amazing meals for me  without meat. Lunch is the big meal of the day, its a big family affair and everyone gets together and takes time over it. Its a shame in some ways that we do not have that in our culture, where we maybe have one or two family meals a week because everyone is too busy doing their own thing. I ate out twice yesterday for the first time with some other volunteers. For lunch we went to a vegetarian buffet which was very nice, I thought that it was soup and salad which is a good lunch for me, but then there was a second course of quinoa! One thing Cochabambinos do not know is portion control. Also the buffet was 1 pound 30, bargain. They eat so much food its insane. It is known as the gastronomical capital of Bolivia and I have never been anywhere else where there is so much food available, street vendors, markets and restaurants/cafes everywhere. In the night I went to a sushi bar and got veggie yakisoba. So, so far no problems. In fact I will be writing an article this week about vegetarianism in Cochabamba.

To get to work, I get the micro, which is effectively a bus....except there are no stops, so you just flag it down whenever and get off when you tell the driver. The traffic here gets really bad at times, there is a lot more traffic than I expected. To get the bus into town costs me 15p, so as you can see living out here is very cheap!  I have a good 10 minute walk either side of the micro, one of which where my house is, is up the most enourmous hill, though I have had little trouble with the altitude, the best thing is to take it slow. I have been told that people with bad circulation do not suffer as much with altitude sickness, so maybe that is why I have felt fine. One things for certain though when I leave Cochabamba I will have a killer set of lungs thanks to that hill, which is great for when I move to higher ground.

Work is going well, I have a couple of articles on the go at the minute. Trying to review Zona Sur, a Bolivian film released last year, but it is hard to get a copy, I think this may have something to do with the fact that it is politically challenging, I will see on Monday though.All the other volunteers are really nice.

Tomorrow we are taking a trip to Tarata which is like 45 minutes south of Cochabamba, we will take the bus. Apparently they make bread with their feet there which is interesting, I am not sure whether I will be trying any though, not if the people making it have feet like mine.

I cannot upload any pictures yet because there is no usb port in the cafe, I will probably do it at work or something.

Hasta Luego.

London, Aeroplane, Dallas, Aeroplane, Sao Paulo, Aeroplane, Asuncion, Aeroplane, Finally Cochabamba

After the epic 60+ hours trip across the globe and several different airports I now consider myself to be somewhat of an airport and aeroplane connoisseur.

Started the long journey from Cardiff at 5am on Thursday morning, got to Heathrow Terminal 3 in plenty of time. It is a pretty decent terminal, and I was just glad to be getting rid of my huge backpack. I checked it through to Sao Paulo and just prayed it would get there in one piece.

The flight to Dallas was around ten hours, it went quite quickly as I read the Guardian cover to cover and American Airlines has the on demand headset tv´s. I watched the American Office (episode was the Golden ticket one: Brilliant) and I watched Invictus which was ok but Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman´s South African accents were awful. I started to watch The Messenger which I was quite enjoying but was interrupted by a video on visa control at Dallas Airport and then I could not start it up at the same place again, annoying. The vegan meal on flight was fine, some rice and chili mixture and some fruit. I was shocked on the flight at how green the Texas landscape was, it looked just like Wales, though I expected it to be just desert.

Dallas Fort Worth is a small airport but it was ok to spend a few hours in. In-fact I did not spend that long there as the queue for passport control off the plane was outrageous. I spent an hour and a half there and the queue doubled in size after I got through so I felt very sorry for those at the back.

At Dallas I managed to grab some Veggie friendly food, a houmous and veg wrap and a yoghurt, which I had to throw away because it tasted nothing like yoghurt, awful American version full of additives!

Flight to Sao Paulo was overnight, I knew I needed to sleep because I had a long day ahead of me at Sao Paulo Airport.American Airlines do not do a veggie option on flights to Latin America (No idea why) but I was not bothered as I had already eaten at the airport. As hard as I tried to sleep I just could not, due to the fact that the turbulence was awful over the Gulf of Mexico. Finally drifted off and got 3 or 4 hours light sleep, woke at like 6am when they served a croissant and a yoghurt (which did taste like yoghurt, hooray!) and landed at Sao Paulo around 7.30am. Last section of the flight was awesome, got to see so much of the landscape which was stunning. Sadly blighted by quarrys or logging camps, man´s destruction obvious to see.

Thankfully my bag arrived in Sao Paulo, got through customs and immigration fine.In South America they do not speak to you at all, as opposed to the US where they grill you forever. I plonked myself down on a seat in the airport, cable locked my bags to the chair. I proceeded to read Cosmo cover to cover as well as some crappy free book that came with it, which frankly I feel has lowered my intellect irreversibly! Awful! I just had a cereal bar for lunch as I could not carry my hand luggage and my backpack and get food!

Finally i checked my bag in around 6pm, very long day! and I proceeded to look for Veggie food, of which I found nothing. The airport was ok,bit dingy for my liking.

I got on my flight to Asuncion at 9.30, we were late taking off by about half an hour.Tam airlines reminded me a lot of easy jet, however to my surprise on a 1 and a half hour flight they had a full meal service and it was veggie, result! I kept drifting in and out of sleep and we landed at Asuncion around 11.

Asuncion is a small airport, but probably nicer than Cardiff´s! I had heard things about having to bribe customs to let you into the country, but I had no trouble. I went upstairs when I found a few other people who were sleeping at the airport and I settled down for the night.I drifted in and out of sleep,when I woke I found there were many small children in the airport offering to shine peoples shoes, they were so young and they were there all night, it was awful to see.

I woke around 6am and waited for my flight to Cochabamba at 11.10, the flight was amazing.Bolivia´s landscape is so beautiful, just miles and miles of mountains and desert.We stopped in Santa Cruz to drop people off and finally made it to Cochabamba at 1.50. It was a long trip but worthwhile, Cochabamba is beautiful and in the next few days I will let you know all about Bolivia.