Torotoro... Wheezy, Weeble and We-ers walking weekend!

Going to skim over the past week as it has pretty much been the same, and talk about an amazing weekend! This week Will arrived and that is basically all that has changed.

This weekend a couple of other volunteers and I decided to go to Torotoro. So at four on Friday afternoon (actually 4.30 due to Bolivian time) we set off on our epic journey through the mountains on cobbled roads (whoever invented them should be shot) into northern Potosi, four hours south of Cochabamba. After a few hairy moments, one in the dark where we almost hit a bus, we arrived at our hotel at 8.30 and after checking in, we unpacked and went straight to bed!
The next morning, we had an amazing breakfast where we stuffed ourselves as there is nowhere to have lunch on the moutains. We then set off with our driver Vicente to the tourist information office to pick up our guide for the weekend. Justino took us to the caves on Saturday. The first caves were more open and light and were used by ancent civilizations as temples. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of them and have lost my map so can't see their name. To get to them, we drove 21km away from the village up more bad roads (we got stuck once and had to push the car up the hill) with amazing views from every direcction. We then walked (and walked and walked) up and down the hills through mini caverns alongs dusty paths, occasionally having to get out a rope and pull ourselves up sheer cliffs. We walked pretty much non stop here, up and down (impressed mother?) in a giant circle until we reached the car again.

After these caverns we drove 10km back down the mountain to an underground cave called Humujalanta. This cave is massive - approximatly 7km in total - with 8 rooms and an underground lake, and to walk (or crawl it) you need to make sure you have a head torch, a hard hat and clothes than you really don't mind getting dirty. We had everything except the clothes, as despite the guide saying in the morning that the clothes would be fine, they really weren't. Even so, we got down and saw 3 rooms. We descended into darkness down a ridiculously slippery bit of rock (using that same rope that we pulled ourselves up the cliffs on) into the first room. This one was big, with many stalagmites and tites, but nowhere near as impressive as the next room, nicknamed the concert hall because of the rock formation (photo is of us giving our own concert here). The third room was enormous, with a giant pile of vampire bat poo in the middle, which was the first thing the guide pointed out to us. Priority! After this room we made our way back up to the surface and walked back to the car which took us back to our hotel. After a massive bowel of spag bol, which I ate in my pjs in the restaurant, we collapsed into bed.

The next morning we rose at 6 to fit in everything we wanted to do. We met the guide at 7 and drove a couple of km to the spot where we'd begin our walking for the day. We walked down a dry river where we saw velociraptor and brontosaurous footprints, both amazingly preserved. After about 20 more minutes we reached the canyon viewpoint. It was like stepping into Land Before Time. It was amazing. All the different rock layers and the difference between the dry top and leafy bottom was beautiful. From here, we walked a bit more to where we could go down into the canyon and see a waterfall. It was about 1km away, down 800 steps (which we had to walk back up, more on that later) and over hundreds of boulders in the river at the bottom. The waterfall was pretty, and also freezing, but as I'll probably only ever go there once in my life it was on with the swimming cossie and into the water... just like I'm A Celebrity :L

When I'd dried off, we had to make our way back up 'the devil stairs' (as named by Julia). At 3000m this is no easy feat! Up we went, huffing and puffing as if we smoked 40 a day, Julia saying every so often 'necesito un momento para respirar' which earnt her the nickname 'Wheezy'. Surprisingly to me, I made it up the stairs without needing too many stops but every so often swaying a little from lack of oxygen so I was christened 'Weeble'. Lauren was named 'We-er' for her constant need to use the 'baño natural'.

At the top, and after a big rest, we walked along the top of the canyon to see more dinosaur footprints and paintings in a slightly smaller canyon. We ended up walking back to Torotoro town, had a quick change at the hotel (into pjs again for me) before starting the mammoth drive back to Cochabamba.

It was an amazing weekend and I'm looking foward to even more travel at the weekends now!