Weekend trip to Torotoro

Uh...it took me a while to post this post, it was written January 18th:



Torotoro is a small village several mountains over from Cochabamba. By bus, it can take between 7-10 hours, depending on the condition of the roads. Since its rain season here in Bolivia, it would probably take about 10 hours now. But if you fly, its only 20 minutes! We had the pleasure of doing this, with a swedish man who has been flying for over 30 years. Imagine how much it would cost to get a chartered flight back home! But here, it only cost $280 for a return flight, and since it was me and 3 other friends, just $70 USD per person.

It was such a small plane, we could feel feel every gust of wind, every millimeter the plane tilted, every turn it took. On our way there, our pilot flew us through canyons, and the walls of the canyons felt so close i was scared our wings would hit. But then the beauty of the scenery soon occupied my thoughts, and i was captivated by what nature could create. On our way back, I suppose the mischevious boy in him couldn`t resist, and when we came to where the land ends and the canyon begins, he suddenly made the plane DROP!! I screamed! For a split second, I feared my life was going to end right there and then, prematurely, just at the age of 22...in bolivia. But then realizing he did it on purpose, i couldn`t stop laughing from the sheer joy and pleasure i derived from the split second of pure fear. Odd isn`t it? But i guess its like riding a rollar caoster, its scary but exhilarating!

We safely arrived at the "Torotoro airport", which is nothing more than flat chunk of land surrounded my mountains, just enough for a plane to land and take off. (If you are picturing a paved runway, you are not picturing this correctly.....just picture some mountains, and in the valley of the mountains, a flat strip of land, covered with grass and pebbles ok? There ya go.)

As soon as we arrived, we knew just from looking around 360 degrees, that there a lot of natural scenery for tourists to see and appreciate. There were smaller mountains with one side completely flat, and the backside of it is coloured with different shades of grey, red, and black, for each different layer of the earth. The plates of the earth must have moved and created these mountains, just popping up these chunks of land to about 60 degrees. If we looked to the left, we could see where the canyons began, and far away to the right, we could as see a patch of red earth so bright that it was unnatural.

First we headed into the village to look for accomodation. Its not exactly a toursit hot-spot, and although they recieve tourists, they are not tourism savvy in that sense, with not much catering towards tourists. But we found some decent accomodation, on the 2nd floor of an elderly couple´s home.

The first day we got there, we had the afternoon, so with our "guide" (it seemed like every male in the village considered themself a guide.... we ended up hiring a local boy as our guide, who said he has been a guide for MANY years, for FIVE years now....and he´s only 17) we went to the caves.

Oh they were caves all right. i think they strech for about 500 m into the mountain, but we only went maybe 100m max. In order to go further, you need professional. We didn´t think our 17-year old amigo was quite experienced enough, so we stopped there. But it was enough to understand the vastness of the cave!


At night, we thought we drink some of the vodka we had brought, in order to "disinfect". Just purely for that reason, really. But weren´t able to buy some orange juice or some other drink to mix it with, since by the time we came back, all the houses that sell some stuff were already closed. Vodka straight up! In cups cut out from plastic bottles! Mmmmm.....

Our 2nd day, we walked about 2 hours to "the turtle cemetary", where there were supposed to be turtle fossiles. After our long walk, we finally arrived. The local farmer who had the key to the "cemetary" said we each had to pay 5 bolivianos, which would be used for the preservation of the turtle. So we paid, but later found out from the tourist office that we shouldn´t have had to pay anything....huh.

We entered the cemetary, which was fenced off with some pretty rusty looking fence, and the farmer showed us the way to the real turtle. But first, about 1/2 to the real turtle, he stopped by at what to us seemed like a very random place. He crouched down, removed some rocks aside, and carefully started to scrape away a layer of sand, revealing some more sand that looked exactly the same. After making a flat surface, he said "oh, we need water....(to see the turtle)".

But we saw NOTHING, it was just SAND, at some RANDOM PLACE he selected ..... or maybe we were supposed to put on our imaginary-turtle-seeing glasses?!?!! There was NOTHING, and so we waited, but just when we thought he was gona get up to get some water so that we can actually see SOMETHING other than DIRT, he started putting the sand back to its original place, and slowly, with such care, put the rocks back how they were (which was just like how any other rock would be lying on sand). I wish I had a picture of the confused look on our faces! But hey, its Bolivia, anything can happen!!!

In the end, we did see some fossilized turtles, which was somewhat interesting i guess.....

Our last day there, we finally got some real nice weather, and we walked to the canyons, where there are stairs to walk down. The scenery was magnificent. I´ve been to the Grand Canyons, but don´t really remember it much (sorry mom and dad) so i can´t really compare, but these were magnificent enough.

After reaching the bottom, we walked another 500 meters, hopping back and forth over the river to reach a place where we can do for a dip. I hadn´t showered for 3 days, so it was quite refreshing!

I got some great pictures from Torotoro, look forward to showing you them in just TWO MONTHS!!!