Stalled Along the Dinosaur Tracks

Google is now available in Quechua, in case you were waiting for it.

At 4 am this morning when our taxi finally began the descent from the mountains into Cochabamba, knowing that I'd be in my bed by 5:30 was a very pleasant surprise. At some point in our 13 hours of driving, stalling, and van pushing, I stopped expecting to make it back to Cochabamba that night. I had basically resigned myself to sleeping in a barn the night before.

That was the conclusion of my weekend trip, so I'll turn this back at the beginning. I went with a group of friends to Toro Toro, a national park and tiny town known for its dinosaur tracks. It's these tracks that inspire signs proclaiming, "Toro Toro...the land of the dinosaurs!" hundreds of km away. They also inspire what seemed to be every other house within a 50k radius to paint dinosaurs on the side, and the municipality plopped a big dinosaur statue in the middle of the plaza. It doesn't make for a traditional colonial plaza, but it was a fun change of pace from the usual fountain and flower patch center piece.

The first day we set out on a hike down a canyon to some waterfalls. It is amazing to walk from barren mountains into a green encalve in a ravine where we could partake in some waterfall frolicking.

This is already my favorite part about being in Bolivia: the ability to reach an entirley different landscape in a matter of hours. You could see snow capped mountains in the morning and be in the jungle by nightfall.

The next day we set out for Toro Toro's main event (for me, anyways); caving! I was excited about having a completely new experience. The last time that I was in an underground cave, I was on an elementary school trip and completely terrified just to stand in the elevator that would take down us into total darkness. This time the trip would involve some crawling and squeezing through infamously small crevices. I didn't end up feeling claustrophic. I much prefer crawling and climbing to activities that involve jumping and sliding. I feel much more in control, and it's easier to keep my clumsiness in check. Of course, just when I feel that I've crawled my way deep into the earth, we find ourselves in a space with a graffiti covered wall.

When we emerged, two hours had passed in what felt like less that a half hour. Maneuvering around the rocks occupied my mind and body more than I had expected. Our guide had done overnight trips in the caves, and I heard about people that go in for days at a time without lights. I enjoyed my couple of hours, but I feel no urge to spend a night listening to potentially rabid bats flutter there wings and rain drops trickle into stagnant pools of water.

Post caving things stopped going so smoothly. Like any trip in Bolivia, the real adventure lies in the way to and from your destination. We ended up renting a van to take us back to Cochabamba, because in order to fit in all of our activities, we would miss the daily 6am bus. The van we rented was a mess, though a very well decorated mess (see picture that I'll post soon). Just after we left town we came across a motorcyle burning in the middle of the road. Clearly a bad omen. No one was seriously injured, and it was startling to our little crowd of foreigners that the two men involved in the accident didn't even call for help when we pulled over. They just sat along the roadside, quietly nursing their injuries. A truck full of teenage boys pulled over a few moments later and a small team assembled to smolder the burning motorcyle, and pull it out of the middle of the road.

Once that scene had cleared, we were on our way, for a little while. Within 30 minutes of our departure, we had stalled for the first time. By sunset, our driver was taking out the seats of the van to essentially take apart and put back together the mechanics of the vehicle. We weren't going to get very far. None of us had cell phone reception to call back into town when the van ceased to move at all. Our driver at one point received a call, and confirmed, to our horror, that he would be leaving Cochabamba for a return trip to ToroToro the next morning. It seemed unlikely that the van would make it to the next pueblo. Unfortunately, our driver didn't have enough credit on his phone to make an outgoing call for another taxi. I went with a few others to wander the road in search of reception. It's one of those things you do when you are fairly powerless in a situation, but want to take some sort of action.

By nightfall, we had all given up on the car making it back to Cochabamba. Our driver negotiated us a spot in a barn while two other attempted to ride into the next town. They didn't make it that far and ended up getting a ride with a truck full of goats the final stretch where they met a different driver who agreed to take us into town. At that point, wearing every article of clothing I brought with me to fend of the mountain chill, I couldn't help but drift off. Awakened by a different taxi honking its horn on the roadside, I jolted awake and ran toward the car.

7 people squeezed into a 5 seater, it was a comfort to know that we were back on the road again.