Easter in Bolivia 2010

Samaipata

There was a slight tinge of regret about the Samaipata trip. Firstly, this is a Catholic country unlike any I have been in before. I would have loved to have stuck around and observed Cochabamba during Easter. Secondly, there were significant elections going on in Bolivia and I would have liked to have been more active in following it over the weekend. I can only say, somewhat fatuously (I guess), that this is the bane of living in a country that you are interested in.

Our plan - Sarah, Hester and I - was to head to Samaipata and do some day hiking. We were successful in this. After a 15 hour trip via Santa Cruz we spent three good days in the town and, at the expense of sounding monotonous, enjoyed every moment of it.

I went berserk with the camera and took a lot of photos. We ate at some nice places and enjoyed strolling the dusty streets in the evening while locals revelled in carnival like festivity. The popular games in Samaipata were of the gambling kind and were modest in their invention. Flipping coins onto targets. Spinning Wheel of Fortune-type arms against buffers made with metal door handles. That kind of thing.

The Bush (Central-eastnortheast Bolivia)

The highlight over the weekend was when we got to see some monkeys. I will not hold it against you if this sounds typical and therefore boring. But what made this experience so cool was the atmosphere. In this bush (Bosque Nubaldo) there are barely a handful of birds and it is very quiet in this regard.

To see the monkeys our guide, Saul, was calling the monkeys up on a hilltop. None came. Great work Saul. With some keen hearing he established that they were in a ravine just ahead of us. So we made our way down. To call the monkeys a whistle, not unlike a bird call, was used. As we descended into the bush we all began creeping. The whistle continued. Then suddenly a distant response echoed back. We all froze in our spots. Slowly but surely the monkey’s began to emerge. At first all you could hear was their cooing responses followed by silence and then the rustle of branches high above as they jockeyed for position.

After several more rustling branches, some sustained silence and flashes of tail and hind-leg they emerged in front of us. About 200 hundred metres away, high in the tree tops. Their dramatic entrance combined with their enquiring expressions (looking straight directly down at us) was a really special moment in the park. And their appearance, hoary faces and nimble bodies through the trees, being in their world as opposed to a fucking zoo. It was really great. The one on the right kind of looked like Abbath Doom Occulta from Immortal, too. Cool. Muchas gracias Saul.

Besides monkeys we saw dozens of caterpillars, multitudes of butterfly’s, spiders, “Boatman”, a giant slug, a Toucan and a “Jae” bird, fresh puma and bear prints on the trail, strange fungi, familiar ferns, and our first proper condor sighting (so immense) on the way home. An awesome day in the bush from start-to-finish.

Getting Home

It has now become very normal to get on a 12 hour bus which arrives at the destination at 3AM in the morning. This kind of thing does not suck up the same amount of psychic energy as it did three months ago, which is a big relief (this is the kind of bus ride we had to take to get home).

On the other hand the adventure of taking 10+ hour bus trips is on the wane. Not only that, the bus we were on broke down at 02:30AM in the morning. I awoke feeling nauseous and had to step out into the night to get some fresh air. I felt like vomiting but annoyingly could not. The fresh air was also icy and commonly unwelcoming at this hour. I stared gormlessly at the conductor replacing the rare-left tire and felt sorry for myself.

To balance this negative it was very nice to get into Cochabamba with house keys in pocket and know that I would have a bed and a shower and food and familiarity with next-to-no bother. Just a 10 minute taxi ride across town. This is how life is poised at the moment: domestic comfort, time and monetary flexibility to go to new places tempered with mild discomfort and the unreliability of a country that has only been to be politically and economically stable in the last twenty odd years.