Into Bolivia
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Sucre,
Bolivia
Saturday, June 30, 2007
After gorging ourselves on piranha in the Pantanals, Marge and I felt sufficiently prepared for our foray into Bolivia. So after our dawn walk through the wilderness we took a bus to the border, crossed over into Bolivia and jumped onto the infamous 'Death Train' that links Quijarro to Santa Cruz.
Apparently it became known as the Death Train because of the Yellow Fever epidemics spread through both Bolivia and Brazil by passengers in the early 1900's, but Marge and I discovered that it might as easily have been named for the bone crunching ride that does its best to shake the very life from you. (we found out later that the train derails on average of once a month. Oops)In between fitful snoozes, we passed through some extraordinary countryside and at every stop, kids jumped onto the train to sell oranges, soft drinks or empanadas.
By the time we arrived in Santa Cruz, we'd had our fill of railway food (surprisingly good) and checked into our Lonely Planet recommended hotel. The first thing that struck us about Bolivia was how cheap everything was relative to Brazil. A quality hotel room set us back around Eur12, a steak dinner around E2, and a pint around E0.80. Suddenly our budget looked over-generous....We waltzed around Santa Cruz for a day or two, and thought it was a great introduction to Bolivia. Some extraordinary colonial architecture, a really safe feeling in the city, and as we tried to switch out of our pidgin Portuguese to our very basic Spanish, we came across some very friendly people.
After a couple of days refueling on cappuccinos and chocolate cake, we headed off to the town of Samaipata, around 2.5 hours by taxi from Santa Cruz in the foothills of the Cordillera Reals. On the recommendation of an Irish couple we met in a bus station in Brazil (yep, that seems to be how things work) we were going to stay in La Vispera, a sort of bed and breakfast sitting 15 minutes walk outside the town. And it was....perfect. Sitting on a small farm that seemed to grow only herbs and vegetables for their in-house restaurant, it's run by a Dutch couple that set it up more than 20 years ago, and our room had a kitchen area, a couple of deckchairs and a mosquito net hanging over the bed.
In the area, there were a couple of things of note that we had to go and visit. First off, the ruins of El Fuerte, a pre-Incan monument carved into the sandstone rock on the top of a mountain. We met a great guide (a loud German guy who took us under his wing and walked us through the museum before we set off up the mountain) who explained the significance of the area and the carvings on the rocks. Apparently, it was the eastern-most outpost of the Incan empire, and played a huge part in the security of the empire, protecting the land from the cannibal tribes from what is now Paraguay. We had the whole Unesco protected site to ourselves for the afternoon, and it set us up very nicely for the trip to Cusco and Macchu Picchu in the coming weeks.
The following day, we took a guided tour of the Fern Forests of the Amboro National Park. Apparently, this is one of only 5 remaining fern forests world wide, and the atmosphere in the park was both pre-historic and other-worldly. All around us were these enormous ferns, 15-25 metres high, that apparetnly only grow 1m every 100 years. The light in the forest was bizarre as it was filtered through the fern fronds, and the view from the top of the mountain we climbed was extraordinary.
We finished the day in bizarre style. The town of Samaipata is tiny, but its inhabited by a large number of Europeans. So that night, we were invited by the owner of our hostel down to the local school hall for a musical evening aimed at giving the locals a flavour of what native Bolivian music is supposed to sound like. Beforehand we went into a restaurant for dinner, and after only 3 days in the town we felt like locals, as we seemed to know half the people in there. Afterwards (we had to leave the concert early as muggins kept falling asleep) as we trudged home from the musical evening, we both agreed we were sorry to be leaving this little Swiss style idyll.
However, we had bigger fish to fry. And those fish went by the name of Joanna and Dave, two friends from home who threatened to hook up with us in Sucre. And not knowing what lay in store, Sinead and I went willingly to our alcohol fuelled dooms....
