Andrew´s trip to Toro Toro...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torotoro_National_ParkWhile Leigh was slaving away in Spanish classes in Cochabamba, I was able to head out for a couple of days with friends of my cousin Melissa (Justin and Sandrine, who are also in the midst of a long round the world trip) read about their travels on their website . . . It sort of puts what we are doing in perspective. . . they are visiting something like 6 continents and more than 0 countries in nearly 2 years. . . http://www.triplebridgeltd.com/TDM.html Anyway, while Leigh was working on irregular verbs I took the opportunity to go with them to Torotoro national park.
There is one road to Torotoro that starts in Cochabamba. After six bumping dusty hours you reach Torotoro a town on the edge of what was once a swampy sea. 65 million years ago dinosaurs left tracks in the mud of Torotoro (which is Quechua for muddy-muddy because of what happens here during the rainy season). Brontosaurus, Anklyosaurus, Triceratops and Carnosaurus tracks are petrified in the sandstone slabs around the town.
Our guide was a guy named Mario who has been featured in a number of TV special programs (National Geographic, etc.) and was amazing! Although he has to be in his late fifties, he easily outpaced us all over the park and even succeeded in leaping from the highest point at the swimming hole. His knowledge of the fossils, prints, wildlife, and trails was impeccable, and without him our experience would not have been nearly the same.
The amazing examples of Dinosaur prints should be enough to convince anyone still ignorant enough that they don´t understand evolutionary theory. See pics of different dinosaur prints running and walking, etc.
A few natural bridges are scattered throughout the park, see humans and goats crossing them without fear of heights.
We descended into a canyon and went for a swim in an amazing swimming hole. See our guides perched on the wall that we leapt more than 5 meters into the frigid pool. On the way down into the canyon we nearly stepped on a poisonous viper! In the stream, under a rock, I found a large insect larva - in the US they are called Hellgramites
http://www.whatsthatbug.com/hell.html which are the larvae of Dobson Flies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobsonfly but the guides didn´t have a spanish translation for me. .
We descended into the cave called Umajalanta which had a wide variety of stalactites and stalagmites including one known as the tree, another the submarine. Caving (although not something we had expected or looked forward to) turned out to be amazing! The cave in most places is large enough to stand up in, and in some is some very tight going, but we were there at the end of the dry season and most of the places that we needed to squeeze through were relatively dry. We also visited the underground lake where we saw blind catfish and also some amazingly clear pools which reflected the light from our lamps in fractal patterns. When we exited the cave, it was night and we came across a legless lizard (or glass snake)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_snake slowly exploring the desert. I am not sure exactly what it was as it seemed much thinner than anything else I have come across pictures of on the web. . . anyone out there have any ideas?
We visited the Turtle Cemetery where large numbers of complete fossilized skeletons of giant sea turtles have been discovered. In the pic look in the lower right to see a femur bone.
We walked along a stream bed crossing through many different layers of rock with Mario pointing out different fossils along the way. See the pic of a shell of a brachipod (sort of like a primitive mollusc), as well as a primitive worm.
We also saw amazingly beautiful (although tiny) flowers of a cactus.
I would recommend Torotoro to any travellers in Bolivia! An amazing trip. We arranges our trip through the following organization, who also arranged our homestay and can also arrange spanish classes! Good Stuff!
BOlivia Cultura - Volivia Cultura - Volunteer Bolivia
website:
http://www.boliviacultura.com/email:
info@volunteervolivia.org ,
boliviacultura@hotmail.com ,
mailto:info@boliviacultura.comaddress: C. Eduador No 342, PO Box 2411
phone: (591 4) 4526028
directors: Javier Molina Melgarejo Tel (591 4) 4282638, (591 4) 4426647
Lee Cridland Tel (591 4) 4539378, cell (591 7) 1712491
