Blogs from El Fuerte de Samaipata, Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia, South America

We woke early for an 8am start with Michael Blendinger tours, only to find a note on the shop window telling us to return at 9:30am. I don't think 5 months in South America will encourage me to become more easy going about such things, despite Chris's best efforts! We were pleasantly surprised to be greeted by an eccentric English speaking German, Frank, on our return (as we had expected a non-English speaking guide plus translator). With no-one else on our tour, Frank was our private guide for the day, and full credit to him. He has lived in Bolivia for 10 years (and travelled here for some 10 years before that) and was a fountain of information on flora, fauna (especially birds) and Bolivian (and wider Andean/Inca) history - cultures, indigenous groups and politics. At ... read more

Finished Work! The final touch to the gruelling schedule of the past couple of months was to hand-deliver all the players to their connecting flights in Miami... without losing any! Sounds easy enough, unless you have a three hour delay, a surprise fuel landing in Cali and a Bolivian shopkeeper calling the airport policewoman to arrest three of them, just before take-off! That was before landing in Miami where half the group grabbed their bags and disappeared without so much as a slight gracias! Beautifully, the rest of the group were delightfully tearful in their farewells... made a lot of the headaches vanish into the Miami hurricane weather. Mission accomplished. Wait! Where is the Canadian boy? the Mexican? They are on the immigrant passport control side... much longer queue! Did they make their connections? After a ... read more

NOT really, but were very surprised to hear the owner of Hotel Italia ask me ¿Are you going out now ? granted this is in the evening. A bit puzzled sipping my tea in the dining room I told her No, actually, we are just getting back from spending the entire day in Samaipata now it's her turn to look puzzled - she continued to tell me that they (her and the cleaning ladies) thought we'd been in bed all day! We crossed paths about seven in the evening as I was enjoying a cup o'tea in the dining room...a bit embarrassing for both but what can you do? We had a great day visiting the sites in Samaipata, the main attraction being El Fuerte - a gigantic pre-columbian carved sacred stone resting on top of ... read more