Back in the countryside

Trip Start Jan 09, 2007

Trip End Jul 18, 2007

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Flag of Bolivia Samaipata, Bolivia
Sunday, July 8, 2007

Caught a 'Trufi' to SAmaipata, a collective taxi. You have to wait for 4 people to fill the taxi, which took about 30 seconds. Samaipata is a beautiful little village about 3 hours drive from Santa Cruz through some spectacular mountain scenery. We're on the elbow of the Andes here, where it bends to the south. The altitude isn't so high and actually dips as low as jungle but for the most part it is a very pleasant climate with diverse vegetation. We arrived on a Friday and I was anxious to get there and find accomodation in case swarms of people arrived from Santa Cruz for the weekend. I needn't have worried, there was absolutely noone around. We spent Friday wandering about and generally relaxing. We looked at some tour agencies in the late afternoon. This wasn't as easy as it sounds as most of them were closed, asleep or generally not around. Quite a contrast to Uyuni. We got talking to a bloke who gave us some options on what to do with our time, with hardly any people around a tour would involve just the two of us. I got as much information as I could about the Che trail. All the agencies do it but for one person it's expensive. I didn't want to do a tour anyway, I just wanted to get there under my own steam. Unfortunately this was going to be difficult. Rain was forecast for the next few days and this limited our options, we finally decided on hiring a couple of pushbikes and exploring the region.
I was quite looking forward to getting on a bike again but when we turned up the next morning to get the bikes they weren't as good as they looked the night before, how many times have I heard that? In fact they seemed downright dangerous. New plan. Get a taxi to El Fuerte, a pre Inca ruin, and walk back. There were also some waterfalls I wanted to see about 20 km out of town and we could try and get there for a swim. We got a taxi to El Fuerte and I was glad we didn't go on the bikes, it's a bloody big mountain. There's an interesting rock there with lines carved in it the Von Daniken claimed was a launch pad for rockets, people actually believed him. The ruins were interesting and we spent more than a couple of hours there. It was a long walk back back but we managed to get a lift in a camionetta for half of the way. Had a drink in Samaipata and caught a taxi to Las Cuevas, the waterfalls, my third swim in Bolivia. A very good afternoon and manged to flag down a camionetta late in the afternoon for a lift back. Been very lucky like that.
Found a Dutch pub up a side street in the evening, the guy there ran tours and the pub seemed a bit of a sideline, did nice vegetarian meals though. Got the best information yet on getting to La Higuera, the bad news is that there doesn't seem to be a way of getting back. Maybe it's part of the Che experience, you can go to La Higuera but can't return. Despite the Dutch guy waxing lyrical about how beautiful it was travelling to La Higuera. Rahel wasn't convinced, she couldn't understand why anyone would want to see where someone was killed. Just sad old men with an obssesion. She's heading back to Santa Cruz and beyond, I'm about to start the final stage of my pilgrimage to La Higuera.

Samaipata hotels

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