Bolivia Part Uno - May 2007

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Although I am only half way through Bolivia, enough has happened to deserve a new blog entry. Think of it as a bonus track to the album
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From Copacabana I headed for La Paz, the official administrative capital of Bolivia - the political and judiciary capital is Sucre. In terms of South American capitals it is fairly relaxed, located in the foothills of the Andes, surrounded by 6km high peaks. Buildings sprawl up the hillsides occupying every conceiveable space and making a spectacular setting. At 3,600m elevation it is the world's highest capital (there's going to be a theme here) and also therefore the most fireproof.
Bolivia is perhaps the poorest of the South American countries, having suffered decades of economic upheaval. The new President, Avo Morales, has come in promising big changes, but the poverty is still more evident than elsewhere in South America. There are hundreds of street kids, conspicuous by the balaclavas they wear to hide the stigma of their position.
I took a couple of days to tour the city itself, including a short excursion to the Valle De La Lunar, which is neither in a valley nor on the moon. Supposedly the dramatic rock formations are moonlike, and since I have never been I wouldn't want to dispute it.
From La Paz you are able to take a mountain bike ride along El Camino de las Yungas - "El Camino de la Muerte" or "The Death Road" or "The World's Most Dangerous Road" or other such reassuring titles. To be honest, anything that intentionally markets itself with "Death" in the title is never going to be as deadly as its name suggests (you can disclude "Death Row" from that statement). The road is better described as a narrow mountainside track, descending 60km from the Bolivian altiplano to the rainforest. The original road was built in the 1930's by Paraguayan prisioners, although a new alternative paved road opened 5 months ago, which has reduced the motorised traffic and increased the pedalling traffic. The number of deaths should also now reduce. It is true that in recent years the number of fatalities averaged 200-300 per year, but this year only one person has perished - an Israeli tourist doing the bike trail pumped to the eyeballs with macho adrenalin, trying to be a bit too cool for school - luckily there was no way I'd be like that.
The road is becoming a popular tourist pursuit, with a number of agencies now offering the bike trip. Obviously I went with the cheapest. Afterall, all I needed was a bike and a lift to the top, although the suspension did break on my bike after 10 minutes riding. Whilst the tour company did provide all the essentials, we were given a list of additional things to bring with us - Sunglasses/ Suncream/ Towel/ Clean T-Shirt/ Extra Pants. I packed in autopilot mode, and whilst everyone else in the group brought spare American pants, I was armed with a fresh pair of CK boxers. Whilst everyone else in the group got showered and changed into a clean, dry pair of trousers at the end, I had to slip back into my sopping strides, with the small consolation of clean undies.

In La Paz I had heard about a National Park in Bolivia, called Torotoro, that is a paleantologist's playground (easier written than said) - with treasures such as dinosaur footprints and fossils, cavemanic artwork, deep underground cave networks - so I was going to be Indiana Jones for a few days. To say Torotoro is just a little of the beaten track is to say that sending Prince Harry to Iraq would have been just a little bit foolish (or to say he looks just a little bit like James Hewitt). I left La Paz on the Thursday night and eventually arrived in Torotoro Sunday lunchtime, and with no shortage of incident along the way. Compared to my 60 hour, 300km traverse of Bolivia, those Dungeons & Dragons' kids had an easy journey home. My first transit was in the city of Cochabamba. I arrived at 4am Friday morning and was about to experience my first authentic South American "hold up".
As I got off the bus in Cochabamba, there was a formal looking guy with a taxi (perhaps too formal). He asked where I wanted to go and I said I just wanted to change busses for Torotoro. He told me the bus for Torotoro went from the other side of town, and he would take me there for 40p (again, this should have triggered suspicion, were it not 4am and I hadn't just woken up). I jumped in with my belongings - my main backpack, my smaller rucksack, and the bow I had been gifted in Guyana. 100m down the road another guy got in next to me, apparently also going to Torotoro, then another 100m another guy got in the front. Everyone said "Hi" to each other and me - all very friendly. The guy in the passenger seat turns around to us in the back, flashes a police card and says he is drugs control. The guy next to me acts along with it and shows his passport. I start to wake up to suspicion and insist we go to the central police station if he wants to check anything of mine. He then smells the fingers of the patsy, then mine, and says he smells marujuana, and that he must search my wallet and bag. I said NO, abruptly, again insisting we drive to a Police Station. By now we're in the middle of nowhere. The patsy to my left is saying "tranquilo" to me all the time (calm down). Then the "Policeman" grabs for my bag. I push him back, which was easy given he was leaning around the seat. The doors then lock. I was already near certain it was a hold up, but that confirmed it. As it becomes more heated with me insisting the car stop "aqui y ahora" (here and now), the previously sedate patsy suddenly turns more serious. I saw him look at me with a whole new look and reach inside his jacket pocket. I was not going to hang around to find out what it was. Instincts took over. I leant my back into him, and busted the locked door thankfully open with my feet. In the same movement I rolled out the car, with my 2 bags, and scarpered off behind the car. They did not bother pursuing. Only when I found another person, 10 mins or so later, did I become a bit shaky. I only had a few scratches from rolling out the car, so rationally had no reason to be so panicky. Anyway, it was all fine. I sat in the bustling central bus station, then decided I needed to go online and rant my shakes away. Many thanks to the half dozen or so people who were on MSN and got the brunt of it. Once I calmed down I was far more upset that I had lost the bow, which I had been awkwardly carrying for the pasts 2 months.
The journey was further delayed by missed connections, landslides and flooding, but when I did finally set foot in Torotoro it was as if I had been transported back to a prehistoric age - beyond even the reaches of a fully capacitated flux-capacitator and a 1981 De Lorean. Torotoro is Mother Earth's very own blog on the journey of our planet through the passing of time.
One other tourist was also in the park's village - Nina, a South African born Dutchster and genuine travel guide writer. So we clubbed together to hire a guide for the 3 days of most excellent adventure. Gent's, let me make it clear from the onset of this story, that Nina was no Lara Croft to my Indiana Jones.

Day 1 - We visited a trail of footprints left over from a Diplodocus or similarly large dinosaur. These were mud trodden tracks that had petrified into mudstone. There are over 2,500 such footprints in the area, but this set is by far the most impressive entry in the diary of time.

Day 2 - We clambered down a canyon to see a set of wall paintings drawn in an era when women still had hairy backs, then up the other side to a set of sea fossils. "But Indy, how come there are sea fossils 3km above sea level and 2,000 miles from the nearest ocean?" I'm glad you ask. The area was under water pre-continental shift, and as the land masses pushed together, these giant sandstone plates got forced upwards.

Day 3 - We walked to Humajalanta cave, Bolivia's foremost cave system, via a set of prints left by a member of the raptor family. I was walking ahead of Nina and our guide, Jesus, when I spotted a snake in the path. "Snake!" I exclaimed, chasing after it ala Steve Irwin of 12 months ago. I cornered it under a rock, and pleased with myself I turned to the others, only to see Nina was having a panic attack. Much like our Dr Jones, it turns out Nina is Snakephobic. So I turned to her and explained that a phobia is just an innate defensive response to a stimuli that our ancestors probably had more reason to fear and that is now just our brain releasing these fear chemicals irrationally. One of the best ways to overcome the irrational fear would be to confront it. So she turned to me and explained that she was bitten by a Bush Viper when she was 8 years old in Africa and nearly died and was held in an induced coma for a week.
Once I had removed my foot from the proverbial "it" I had put it in, it resumed walking me to the caves. Nina didn't come in. It transpires she is claustrophobic too. I didn't bother offering my pshychiatric diagnosis this time.
The Humajalanta caves are a labrynth of underground chambers, filled with stalactites and stalagmites, blind fish and waterfalls. Me and Jesus crawled on our bellies about 1,500m inside with an extremely long piece of chord that was apparenly going to help us get out if the headlamps died, but when I mumbled "Jesus, it's dark in here" and "Jesus, please get me out of here alive", it wasn't directed at him.

Part Deux will follow as I continue my journey south through Bolivia to Sucre, Potosi and Uyuni

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