Waterfalls and Wanders
Trip Start
Jun 06, 2005
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Trip End
Jun 05, 2006
Samaipata, Bolivia
Monday, August 8, 2005
Monday we decided to see some of the countryside around Samaipata before getting a bus to Sucre. At breakfast we get a stroke of luck when we overhear a ginger Canadian lad mentioning his bus ticket to Sucre that evening. We had tried to book tickets, failed, and had intended to stand on the roadside trying to wave one down. He kindly pointed us to Amborro tours who booked our tickets for B$110 each, which struck us as a bit expensive.
Our bus tickets secured, we got a taxi the 20km to a series of waterfalls called Las Cuevas. Our plan had been to hitchhike back to Samaipata but our cab driver was unable to change a B$50 note so he waited 90 minutes before taking us back.
The three waterfalls were canny and we got some decent photos of them. Unlike the bright green flock of parrots that kept flashing past which, like kingfishers and humming birds, are nigh on impossible to photograph.
Back at Samaipata we went on an enjoyable 13km circular walk up the hills south of the village. We took the stove and cooked our lunch (pasta, again) on the hillside.
We had to be at the road side by 18.30 to meet our coach. Here we met the ginger Canadian as well as an Italian who was flagging down anything remotely bus like in the hope of getting a ride.
Our experience of Bolivian buses had been fairly poor and I was voicing my usual pessimism. Fortunately I'm usually wrong and our bus was only 30 minutes late. I steeled myself as I got onboard, expecting the usual cramped and dusty conditions but I was wrong again. This was a high fidelity first class executive coach. It even had great big fold down foot rests that allow you to take your shoes off and so they can explore the bus by themselves.
Unfortunately it still rattled as much as the crappier buses we'd been on. It was still like trying to sleep in a giant tool box atop a titanic washing machine on a spin cycle.
