Toro Toro 7 - Extreme Ali

(Posted retroactively)

On the third day, we did another hike, to this waterfall (see picture on right). We ended up going to about halfway up the photo on the right, where it looks like there might be a cave thing.

Meanwhile, that day we were arranging a camera exchange program - you trade cameras with a friend and (presumably they take pictures of you) at the end of the day you see what you got.

Well the picture below is what I got - an awesome photo that looks like I just scaled up the entire cliff (barefoot) and am now climbing over the edge!











Here is also tree ali

















and bridge ali.

Toro Toro 6 - The Crazy Dinosaur Man

(Posted retroactively)

On Sunday, we went to see a very crazy old man who had spent the past twenty five years of his life collecting evidence of dinosaurs in Toro Toro. Over the years, he had collected so much stuff that he decided to turn his house into a museum. Sounds all well and good, at first, but most of the things he collected were rocks that he thought looked like a dinosaur head, or something like that.

For example, the photo on the right is a rock he found that he thought looked like a brontosaurus, so he stuck a brontosaurus head on it.

Although I question his sanity, it was really quite impressive just how much stuff he had in his house. All of the walls of his house were mosaics, and completely covered in rocks.

Toro Toro 5 - The Cave Drawings

(Posted retroactively)

On one of our hikes, we stopped to look at some cave drawings. In the picture to the left, there are two different cave drawings, one on the left in the shadows and one on the right in the sunshine.

Unfortunately, the sun was creating a lot of glare so it was sort of hard to see. Here are closer up pictures of the cave drawings.

This first one is a map of the area. At the bottom, there are big mountains (the mountains that were close to where we were) and little mountains (ones that are far away). Apparently there is a river too, but I can't find it.

This second one is a moral code, according to our guide. It says things like "do not lie" and "do not be lazy." There are three different commandments there apparently, but I don't know what the third one is either.

Toro Toro 4 - The Canyon

(Posted retroactively)

On our second day, we headed out to a canyon known as El Vergel.

After walking down about a million and a half stairs, we came across a little swimming hole, where there were waterfalls in which we swam. We stopped and hung out for like an hour, swimming, tanning, napping, and eating.

Then was the hard part: on the way back we had to climb back up the million and a half stairs, which is hard enough in Cochabamba at the Jesuchristo statue - but Toro Toro is at an elevation of 3,600 m: a whole kilometer higher than Cochabamba, which means it was seriously difficult to breathe.

Toro Toro 3 - The Cave

(Posted retroactively)

We went spelunking, and honestly it was the coolest thing ever. This cave was apparently 7 kms long, but we only saw 1 km of it. And parts of it we had to crawl or squeeze through little cracks, or use them little ropey things to scale down ten-foot drops and stuff. Too bad I couldn't take more pictures, but I was more concerned about getting a decent grip and not breaking my camera than anything else. We got so dirty, but it was amazing fun!

Toro Toro 2 - The Dinosaurs

(Posted retroactively)

After we got to Toro Toro, the first thing we did was look at dinosaur footprints. They were pretty cool, but a little bit smaller than I thought they'd be (at first, anyways).

Not sure what kind of dinosaur this was, but it's next to my foot. They said it was probably two and a half metres tall, so I'm thinking it had pretty small feet.


This is a set of Diplodocus tracks - I think... it's a little hard to translate the Spanish names into English. Lucas or some other dinosaur expert can tell me what they are, I think. Those are some of the other volunteers sitting in the tracks.








This one is a velociraptor. They can partly tell because the middle toe is really a claw and it's all curved, hence the hand demonstrating.





This one is a pterodactyl. They figured that one out because the footprints are right next to each other and judging by the imprints, they can tell it was either taking off or landing (I forget, but I'm sure they know).

Toro Toro 1 - The Road

(Posted retroactively)

We drove to a national park on Friday, and let me tell you, the road was an adventure. We left at 4:30 am, so I couldn't see what was going on for a few hours, but when I could, wow, I was amazed.

The road was in places just a dirt road, in places cobblestone, and in some places just a track in between rocks. On the right is a picture of us following a tractor that was building the road for us.

At one point, we were driving along and the road stopped. There was a tiny sign that said "road closed" and there were some construction workers eating breakfast, and there was literally no road beyond them. They told us to go "follow the river" through a dried up river bed, and eventually we'd make our way back to the road.

Easier said than done. The dried up river bed was not so dried up, and we drove through a few little rivers. I thought the bus wouldn't make it. On the left is the river we drove through.