Where in the world is Sue???

We caught the bus to Cochabamba arriving at 2am in the morning.  After some much needed sleep, we headed out to explore the town.  We  started at the large statue of Jesus at the top of the hill.  Taking a cable car to the top, we walked to the top of the statue. Pictures done, we headed towards town, which was quiet, more like dead.  Most places close at 1pm and we had slept late. There was no chance of me finding a tour to Toro Toro National Park so I was going to have to go on my own.   Even finding a restaurant for lunch was interesting.   After lunch, we walked through the market, where you can buy just about anything that you need.  I was offered fan belts, TV´s and much more.  Fascinating place but all we bought were mangoes.

After dinner of chicken and fries.... again.  Rose headed to the station to catch her bus to Sucre.  I was heading to Toro Toro next morning.

Finding the bus turned out to be quite exciting.  The locals don´t really know their city.  I walked the same road twice and got many different directions before stopping a taxi. I wasn´t loving walking around on my own at 5¨30am in the morning with my back pack   He gave me directions but in my bitty Spanish, I explained he needed to drive me there.  He got three different directions from locals but eventually got me to the bus stop and I bought the last seat on the bus.  We left on South American time, half an hour late and first made a stop at a local market.  I wandered a little and was fascinated with the sales of animals.  4 hours later, we were in Toro Toro.  By this time, I had met the only other gringo on the bus, an Israeli.  We had the same ideas of what we wanted to do, so after finding accommodation and llunch, we headed to the park office.  It would have been incredibly expensive doing the trip on my own as you need to pay 100 Bolivianos each time you go on a trek.  We found a French guy and he was to join us for our afternoon trek to the cascades.  We were then approached by some Brazilians who wanted a bigger group to bring down the cost so our group of three was then six.  The locals then sold us a trip on a kamino ride, picture a large dump truck to the park entrance.  By this time we were joined by a German  family who were travelling with some Bolivian family.

The park is really beautiful, even if very dry.  We saw plenty of dinosaur footprints.  The park used to be a beach before a meteor struck earth and turned the sand to rock.  It was amazing knowing that we were walking in the same place the dinosaurs had once before.  The canyon was beautiful and they had a mirador similar to the one in the Grand Canyon except, it was much cheaper and better placed than the american´s.  It is a beautiful canyon.

Down to the cascades, after clambouring over some more rocks and it really was lovely.  I declined the swim as I didn´t have enough clean clothes with me.  The walk back up was tough, not as bad as the Colca Canyon in Peru and we made good time.

Choices for dinner were limited so dinner was early and I spent some time writing in my diary while Lucio took a walk with his guitar and found our Brazilian friends. 

We had decided to head to the cave the next day.  What we had heard about it was that it was slippery in places but that wasn´t the half of it.  It was hard work getting through the cave.  In parts, we slid down rocks on our butts, we were hauled up by ropes or by hands, we were on our hands and knees at some points were the roof was low but my favourite parts were the narrow opening where we literally had to be like worms and work our way through the holes lying flat on the sand.  You can only imagine how dirty I was by this stage.  It was hard work but great fun and I managed to remain bruise free and pretty impressed with my arm strength which has improved over the last few months.

We were walking back to town but it was the hottest time of the day.  It made it a tough three hour walk as we were unprepared for it.  There were six of us in total and we didn´t have enough water. Still, we made it, though at one point the guide was diligently pointing out more dinosaur footprints and he must have missed the lack of enthusiasm from the crowd.  We just wanted to head back to town.

Another early start today, the bus was at 6am, dilapidated, I don´t think it is a good sign when you can see the ground near  the steering column of the bus, however, it was fine and we made it back to town.  It took longer than normal as there is a strike on (no idea why) but  all the entrances into town were blockaded.  A two hour detour around Cochabamba got us back onto the main road.  Tonight, I have a 12 hour bus ride to Sucre