Climbing up to the Calvary and trekking through the jungle to the waterfalls

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At breakfast we learned that the transformer which delivers electricity to this town carries electricity all the way from Cochabamba, Ronald’s home town and is susceptible to getting damaged any where along the line due to bad weather. This time there had been a strong wind in one of the regions and the transformer had burnt out. Somebody heard on the radio that at 6pm this evening it will be turned on again. Of course all the electricians were in bed, drunk after celebrating carnival so couldn't fix it any sooner.

We ate well today. Breakfast was included at the hostel – banana and papaya, bread with butter and jam, nescafe with hot milk. Then, we went down to the local market for lunch and ate eggs, meat, rice, bread and fried banana.

We climbed up to the Calvary together to get a viewpoint over Coroico and we hiked through the mountains, over the odd waterfall and through a lot of big green spiky plants. It took a few hours to find the first waterfall, and another while to find the other one with a swimming pool. The views were beautiful but by the time we got to the pool we were too tired to swim. We got the trufe back, Ronald went to find someone to repair his broken shoes and I fell asleep for most of the afternoon until the lights came back on at 6pm and woke me up.

At the Calvary we had met a guy from Lavapies, in Madrid. It was brilliant to meet somebody from my second home. Ronald chased away a dog by making funny noises at it. This dog had followed the guy all the way up the Calvary, barking. He thanked Ronald and it sparked an interesting conversation. Ronald seems to know the best way to deal with all wild animals, especially wild and tame dogs as he grew up on a farm. He’s completely at home with Alpacas, llamas, dogs, falcons, hens, chickens. Any animal he sees he tries to get a photo of it and comments on how beautiful it is, or makes me have a photo with it.

The madrileno seemed to be a hippy, he was a university lecturer at Complutense in Madrid and was away for his holidays. He was camping up the hill in a caravan where he had a beautiful viewpoint. He gave us a biscuit to help us on the way to the waterfalls. It was a nice biscuit but if I had have known how long the trek was I would have bought an enormous packed lunch, litres of water and insect repellent to ward off mosquitos.

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