this trip was one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life.
day 1: Soraya takes forever to get out of the house! hahaha we finally get into an overpriced cab to villa fatima, and into a minivan on its way to coroico. A very short 40 minutes later we get dropped off on the side of the road at "La Cumbre". Then we start a steep ascent to the top of one of the highest passes in the Cordillera Mountains. Up, up, up, up. the scenery looks otherworldly. there is snow around and very few vegetation. At the top, the view is unreal. The mountains are beautiful and we were proud of our first accomplishment. There were lots of people at the top, families and school kids. They all wanted to take pictures with us! pretty cute. Then we headed down the Incan paved trail. A pack of llamas were our leaders! down, down, down, down. Around 1 oclock we came upon some really awesome ruins where we decided to have lunch. Already the scenery was changing. the streams ran through lush grass. As we continued to walk, a bit down hill, we passed a very tiny village with straw roof huts. Then we passed a larger town where we payed a small fee to an old man, with no teeth, who barely spoke spanish. He also had what i think was a cat skin on his stoop. we were definitely not in the city anymore! around 6, the fog started to roll in. you could barely see 20 feet in front! it was like being in some lord of the rings shire, so bizarre. Soraya, who by the way has never been backpacking or hiking for more than 4 hours before this trip, started to loose it. But i encouraged her to push on and at 645 we crossed an indian jones style bridge to our campsite for the night. I cooked us dinner in the dark and we fell asleep immediately after!
day 2: we got a late start because we slept so long! with no time to cook i made a quick sandwich and we were off. into the jungle we went. This was a day of butterflies. I have never seen so many different kinds of butterflies in nature. I was walking through huge groups of them, bright blue and yellow and orange and red. The scenery was so lush we little waterfalls coming down the side of the mountain. Then we happened upon a HUGE mama cow with HUGE horns. she was feeding her tiny baby in the middle of the trail. there is very little room to go around them, and they didnt look like they were moving. a cliff on both sides! so, we quietly inch our way around the hill not looking her in the eyes and hoping she doesnt charge at us! safely we continue. then we happen upon a small horse in the middle of the path giving birth! only one foot was out, it didnt look like it was going smoothly... I had no idea how to help so we had to just move on :( We had lunch by the river where i played in the cold water. The trail continued up and down and up and down and up again onto the mountain side where we found our next campsite. And we arrived in the daylight! we cooked our dinner with a group of israelis, one even happened to work at camp newman this past summer! off to sleep.
day 3:wake up make DELICIOUS banana pancakes. this was a day of waterfalls. we started to make our way through the mountains, weaving though the ins and outs of each mountain. after our first long descent to a river, we decided we needed to go for a swim. best. decision. ever. the water was freezing but felt so good on our sore bodies. the sun was shining and the jungle vegetation was beautiful. we were definitely in the middle of no where. it felt amazing to be that deep into nature. we were hours walk from any roads, and yet i felt extremely calm, serene and safe. After saying goodbye to our swimming hole, we started "devils hill." For me it was one of the hardest parts of the trip, the neverending uphill was tough on the muscles. finally we reached the famed japanese house. supposedly there is an old japanese man who lives there but we didnt get to see him! we did eat a nice hot lunch and rested before starting off again. When I looked out onto the mountains, I had no idea where a village could be! It looked like we could have walked for another 4 days before finding a real village. Finally around 430 we spotted a road! we just had to hike down switchbacks for about an hour to make it to chairo! Since there is no public transportation in Chairo we had to hire a car for a ridiculously expensive price to go to Coroico. Neither Soraya or I had planned to spend that much money on the trip with paying for campsites, or pay to use the trail and then this car ride!
Finally we were in coroico, exhausted and smelly. We met up with Freddy (a friend of our landlord and a new friend of ours!) and he took us to his cabin. He made us an amazing hot meal and we drank fresh caparinas.
Day 4: Seeing the property in the daylight was a whole new picture! there are 3 cabins on the hillside overlooking the mountains we just hiked. a pool, a pizza oven, hammocks, fruit trees, pinapples, flowers. also Jose (the property owner, and the most famous charanga player in bolivia) has 2 cats who just had kittens! they were 4 days old when we arrived....never seen such cute tiny animals.
We went into town with the intention of getting money. well the bank didnt accept just the copy of my passport and the other bank was closed and no ATMs. so we just headed back to the house to lay in the hammocks and swim. not bad. Soraya had to leave to get back to work, but I wanted to stay to see the waterfalls the next day.
day 5: back to town to try to get money. Fred had troubles with his account so that didnt work. Finally i had to ask my amazing brother to wire money to fred so i could even get back to La Paz! after spending all day doing this..... i didnt get to go to the waterfalls :( I will just have to go back again!
day 6: spent the morning in the hammock getting a tan and finishing my book. after a quick swim, it was time to head back to la paz. just in time for the rain to start....
