Toro Toro

Hello hello! We have officially survived our Toro Toro expedition. The word "survived" should not be read as a joke; we actually did a lot of dangerous - but really fun - stuff this weekend!

The Way There

In order to get to the park in time to have a full day on Saturday, the plan was to be on the road by 5 am. (It takes about three hours, and then about an hour walk/drive to all of the sites. I'll explain the layout of the park in a bit.) Well, we definitely did not get on the road by 5. Ben (Blanca's son, who came with us on the trip) and I left the Mano a Mano building around 4:40 to pick up the Oxford group at the CEA. On the way, Ben realized that he didn't have his long-distance cell phone, so we would have to stop back after we picked up the others. Well, we got to the CEA and realized that nobody had a key to open the door so that they could actually get into the car. A lot of people tried various things to figure it out, but nothing seemed to be working. Anyway, after about 15 minutes, Ben ended up  crawling under the fence to wake the staff person up, because nobody else could find him. So we eventually piled into the car and headed back to Mano a Mano to get Ben's phone, but it wasn't there. Later, it actually turned out to have been in his camera bag the whole time! 

We got on the road (all a bit squished) and everyone just tried to sleep the whole way. I can't really sleep in cars, so I took some pictures out the window! 

In what has to have been one of the cutest moments I've seen in a while, this dog was running around a community and went up to the door of this house. The little boy opened the door, looked at the dog for a few minutes, and then just went back inside. It was adorable, to say the least. 

This is a picture of one of the mountains - it's a little less green than the ones closer to Cochabamba:

Toro Toro - The Beginning

We arrived in Toro Toro and were welcomed by a big sign saying "Welcome to Toro Toro National Park," along with some rules and information. To be honest, I don't really think it's a park. It's more like a town that happens to be surrounded by a lot of cool historical things to do, and the municipality has just deemed it a park to make sure that stuff stays as preserved as possible.  You drive into the town and have to pay a small fee just for being there (they charge foreigners about $4.50), and then obtain a guide. You aren't allowed to - and shouldn't - visit anything without one! 

This is a picture of the dinosaur statue  in the town's main plaza (which is actually under construction at the moment):

And this is what we had for breakfast! Api, which is a warm drink made of corn, cinnamon, water, and lemon - it's delicious! - and these pastry things which are filled with cheese:

After eating, we met our guide Gabriel to go to our first site! We had walked about 20 minutes when he told us that we would be gone for 8 hours and would have no place to get food or water until we got back. Everyone had a few minutes of panic, which included discussions of whom we would eat first (whoever keeled over first was the general consensus), but we carried on. 

Just outside the town, we saw dinosaur footprints! The big ones are from Sauropods, and the small ones are from some sort of carnivore:

We also saw some cool views of mountains that had been formed in landslides:

And some donkeys:

The Canyon

Yesterday's trip was, for the most part, a hike down about 300 meters into a canyon, a swim in the lake/waterfall at the bottom, and a hike back up. It was quite exhausting and also scary, because we had no harnesses or anything and had to scale quite a bit of it - Toro Toro is pretty much untouched by people, so there weren't stairs or any easy ways to walk. 

On the way to the canyon, we saw this natural amphitheater, where a lot of singers apparently film music videos:

Here's a picture of the canyon from above:

The lake/waterfall:

That picture doesn't really do it justice, though. It was like a little paradise! We swam around and took pictures under the falls for a long time. 

And we saw some ancient paintings, which our guide couldn't really tell us much about because they haven't ever been studied properly:

Going up the canyon was one of the most exhausting things I've ever done. We were basically rock-climbing without any sort of protection from falls for three hours, and this was after we had already gone down and gone swimming! I think the worst part was that nobody had expected that to be the case - we had been thinking we would walk around at a leisurely pace, see some fossils, and swim in a river, all without risking our lives. It was definitely worth the trek though!

Dinner & Sleep!

Obviously, we were starving when we got back to the town. We went to the town cafeteria (it's kind of like a dining hall, with a bunch of long tables and different stations of food - all made by locals) for dinner and got something which is apparently called piquemachu, but which just looked like a mountain of food to us. That was exactly what we wanted!

Here's my plate: rice, fries, hot dog slices, ground beef, egg, tomato, onion, ketchup, and mayo. Definitely not anything I would usually eat, but it was the most well-deserved plate of food any of us had ever eaten. 

I made a dog friend:

And then we went to our hostel for the night! It was beautiful and clean and comfortable, and even though we had to pay for toilet paper and the showers were cold, it was like heaven. We all hung out for a while, but everyone was asleep by 10. 

La Ciudad de Itas

Today's first stop was La Ciudad de Itas, which is basically a bunch of really cool rock formations from millions of years ago. They were actually carved by water because they were in the ocean, and then got pushed into their current location somehow. 

We had to hike/climb/scale a small mountain to get to the "city," but it was easy compared to yesterday!

We saw caves:

Pretty views and such:

And a rock shaped like a turtle! A few of us actually climbed this, but I don't have the pictures. (Once the Oxford group gets home and uploads all of theirs, I'll have more to share! That won't be for about a month, though.)

The Cave

So today I did something I never thought I would: I went spelunking. I didn't bring my phone into the cave, so I don't have pictures of my own, but here are a few I found on the Internet:

Here is a brief description of the cave journey: we had to do the same rock-climbing that we did yesterday and this morning, but in complete darkness with only (really poor) headlamps to see: we had to basically slither through a few narrow passages; we had to use ropes to get up and down steep slopes inside the cave; and we had to slide down slippery rocks on our feet. It was TERRIFYING. On the other hand, we got to see stalactites and stalagmites actually growing, different formations that looked like shapes (a Christmas tree, a sombrero, a champagne glass), we saw a subterranean lake/river where blind fish live, and we got to go spelunking!!!! Definitely worth the anxiety it caused because it was so cool.

(Note: I'm not sure I'm actually using the word "spelunking" correctly here, but I've always wanted to check it off my bucket list, so just go with it.)

Dinner!

We drove back to town to eat before setting out to go back to Cochabamba. Tonight's dinner was similar: chicken, rice, a boiled potato, dehydrated potatoes (which I really liked - no surprise), onions, and tomatoes. 

Here's my plate:

And some cute kids we saw outside:

We're in the car now, and I cannot wait to have a hot shower and go to sleep! Sorry this post was so incredibly long, and thanks for reading it!

To conclude, here is another cute Bolivian dog:

Salteñas

Hi again! Day two in Bolivia was amazing. After having coffee and reconnecting with the States a bit over the wifi at the cafe, Joyce, Alexa, and I decided to explore Cochabamba for a little while. We wandered for a couple hours and found some plazas, some cute dogs, and a salteñaría. Having heard that salteñas are the best food in Bolivia, we decided we had to go in and get some. We got two filled with pollo semipicante and they were DELICIOUS. Salteñas look like empanadas but are a little different: a savory pastry made of corn filled with a sort of stew (meat, spices, potatoes, one olive, and one quail egg), then baked. I cannot even begin to describe how much I loved my first one (hence the name of this post), and want to try every flavor from every salteñaría in the city. The best news is that the best salteñaría was closed today, so we have even more delicious food in our future!

Here's a cutie I found lounging in the shade:

El Cristo de la Concordia

After a quick nap, I met up with everyone to drive to the big Jesus statue. The road up the hill was a little scary - not wide enough that two cars could comfortably pass each other and full of sharp turns, bu we made it safely! The statue was very impressive; it's made of cement and weighs over 2,000 tons!

The views from his hill were simply unreal - I used the panorama picture mode on my phone for the first time to try to get it all!

There was a really adorable puppy visiting the statue at the same time we were, so of course I followed it around for a while to try to get a picture. 

Here's my attempt at a selfie with the statue (needless to say it went well):

I had Alexa take a better one:

Alternative methods of transport to the  statue were hiking (which was too dangerous for our group) and cable cars! I can only imagine the views from those. 

El Cementario General

After spending some time with Jesus, we went to the city's big cemetery. The place was beautiful and full of family crypts. Apparently, owning a lot for one of the crypts costs about half of a year's wages! We saw flowers and gifts everywhere; people generally visit their loved ones' graves once a month or more. 

Here's the main entrance (the people in view are Johnny from the Oxford group and Alexa, my travel buddy from day one):

Some of the plots:

There are a ton of these walls, each filled with rows of windows where visitors create little shrines for their loved ones:

I thought this was a good quote - in English, it says, "Simply because a person is a conscious being, he has a Supreme Purpose for his life: to be and to do something useful in it."

La Cena Maravillosa

We all returned to the Mano a Mano offices for an amazing dinner prepared by some of the staff (especially Blanca). Everyone mingled and got to chat a bit, although the language barrier was a little tricky. 

Here's a picture of all the meat we had cooked for us:

And here's my plate: (clockwise from the left) yucca, quinoa, cholca (a mix between steamed corn and popcorn) with cheese, vegetables, plantains, and steak. I also had chicken and got seconds, of course! If you've never tried yucca, make it a priority in your life. It's a starch similar to a potato, but with more fibers and a little sweeter. 

Nate gave a presentation giving an overview of the entire Mano a Mano organization, and Blanca spoke to us to say gracias for our time and effort. She also gave us presents!

Day Three Begins

This morning (I wrote this post in two installments), I was awoken by the sound of a marching band playing outside my window! I actually really like waking up when the city wants me to - it feels more authentic than listening to Marimba on my iPhone alarm clock. I got dressed and went to check out the parades on the Prado; here are some pictures:

This is the police band before they began marching. 

Some wreaths that were around the statue of Simon Bolivar. From what I could gather, each is dedicated to a different department of the government. 

I was the only gringa there, so I decided that I should probably leave sooner rather than hang around. I was walking back to the office and, to my surprise, the cafe I wanted to try was open! I got a frappeina (an iced espresso drink - delicious!) and used their wifi to write this post. 

(The journal is a present my friend Nick made for me out of a record - it's very Pinterest and I love it a lot. I've been using it to practice Spanish while drinking coffee...)

Today, we're going to garden at the CEA. Lots of sunscreen will be used. 

Hasta luego!