Torotoro National Park

Trip Start Feb 10, 2006
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Trip End Feb 01, 2007


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Flag of Bolivia  ,
Monday, July 31, 2006

Decided to try to escape the usual tourist routes and head out to a lesser known national park called Torotoro. Caught a bus at the ungodly hour of five thirty (it left at six thirty - Iīve still to get the hang of Bolivian time). Stopped at a wonderful Sunday market on the way, for breakfast and I quickly realised that our bumpy old bus is in fact luxury compared to the trucks full of goods and people that we trundled past. Guess itīs not so bad if youīve something soft to sit on but the dust clouds must get a bit wearing.

Arrived at a nice sociable afternoon time and sussed out a guide to take us to the nearest cave the next. Iīve not a great fan of taking guides - feel a bit like a sheep sometime but there are times when you just canīt go it alone and this was one of them. The cave entrance is huge but it quickly shrinks and we found ourselves crawling and slithering on our bellies many times as well as hanging on to a rope for dear life over a freezing cold underground river populated by little blind fish Canyon
Canyon
 . Itīs possible to follow the cave back for 7km but we stuck to the first one kilometre and that was quite enough. An amazing experience.

Next we trundled off to find a fantastic canyon - full of fossilised shells and viscachu (a kind of rabbit crossed with a squirrel with a pigs body - something designed by a committee as the guide book put it).

Sorry, canīt get computer to uplift photos will try again in a week or so.

Before we left we managed to find the elusive Turtle Graveyard - set in a band of amazing pink earth. A dodgy old guy tried to get us to buy a turtle fossil that heīd stolen from the site then his equally dodgy dad suggested we pay him and jump over the (barb wire) fence instead of paying the guy with the key. We politely declined both suggestions and were shown the 50 million year old fossils by two very sweet girls.

Finished off by heading back to the dinosaur footprints and what a variety there were - the guide thought the idea of veggie dinosaurs to be very funny indeed. Spent a few hours walking round trying to guess what was a footprint and what was just a hole in the ground - almost got there!
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