T'uru T'uru

We set out for Toro Toro mid-afternoon on a Friday.  About halfway there, a Quechua woman waved at us to stop and then asked if we were going to Toro Toro and if we would give her a ride to her village on the way.  A storm was gathering and there wasn't much traffic on the road, so we agreed.  She turned back to where she had been waiting, returned with two wriggling sacks, and squeezed herself and the sacks up front.  There were 5 or 6 chickens in the sacks!  Matias was intrigued, and kept hoping they would cluck or make noise.  When we took a bathroom break, he eagerly came around the passenger's side to peer into the sacks at the chickens.  The only downside was that chickens very quickly produce a lot of waste, and by the time we let Doña Wakina out in her village an hour and a half later, the plastic floor mat was full of an unsavory mess...  Fortunately, river mud and sand do a good job cleaning off chicken poop!

The valley of Toro Toro itself is a fascinating picture of ancient geology with a syncline fold right where the town lies.  It's some of the most unique geology I've ever seen.  Toro Toro is a distortion of it's original name in Quechua, which is T'uru T'uru, or "muddy muddy".  It sure lived up to it's original name while we were there.

On the first day, we went to Ciudad de Itas, but getting there proved to be more of a challenge than we first thought.  Once the grade of the road steepened, we saw several large trucks stuck in the thick, clay mud.  They'd been abandoned and it appeared there was no way past except a narrow, car-sized space through the mud.  With the help of our guide, we started to ease our way past the truck, only to realize the mud was pushing us up against the side of the stranded vehicle.  Several others who were stuck came to help and several men tied a rope to our bumper, pulled the car away, and laid a path of rocks to help guide us through.  After only a few minor scrapes, we were through and were able to pass all the other trucks and stranded cars without problem.  Yeesh!  Nothing like the threat of getting the car stuck on the side of a mountain to get your blood pumping!

The area of Ciudad de Itas reminded me a lot of Arches, a National Park in Utah I grew up spending many spring breaks at.  Victor, our guide, pointed out a lot of different animal likenesses in the rocks we passed.

snail

iguana

"man lost in thought"

elephant or anteater

"Illimani"

I even found one myself that I think looks a bit like Illimani, the tallest peak in La Paz:)

Victor pointed out some pre-Incan rock paintings, remarkably still intact after thousands of years.

We learned the names of some of the local plants, like p'enga p'enga, or "scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat", that we've seen before in the mountains around Cochabamba.

trying to catch cave drips:)

One of the caves had a spot of natural lighting that becomes a spotlight around midday when the sun shines directly down in.  We missed the phenomenon by about half an hour.

Our second adventure that day I have no pictures of because it required getting wet and fitting through tight spaces...  We went down into a cavern, entering about 1,000 ft into a cave of at least 7km of chambers and routes.  They normally only allow kids 10+ to go on the route, but Matias got an exception and was thrilled.  To my surprise, we even had helmets, headlamps and rope for our tour!  We saw stalactites, stalagmites, and army crawled through small spaces.  The return climb out of the cave was alongside the river that carved the cave out and the noise was deafening, adding to the thrill.

The rock formations of Toro Toro and the surrounding area are impressive, with lots of layered rock, arches, natural bridges and fossils.

Matias seems to get along well with our guides whenever we go hiking in Bolivia.  He and Victor went ahead at some point and were chatting away by the time I caught up.

We hiked down 700 steps into the canyon and back up over 800...  The waterfall and sandy beaches below made the climb well worth it.  We spent a good three hours playing around in the bottom, with the huge boulders, pools of water, and sand perfect to make castles, holes and all sorts of creations.

Matias is in a phase where he doesn't like pictures taken of him if he realizes it.  This is the best picture I was able to get...

Once we popped out of the canyon and headed back towards our car, I looked back and realized the canyon is almost completely concealed until you get close to the edge.  What a hidden gem!

one of the many sets of dinosaur tracks we saw