YMAINALLA??

repuesto es.. allillan. ymainalla is quechua for ¨como esta¨ and allillan is ¨bien¨. i was so impressed that all of the people on the bus spoke with quechua that i decided to learn it as well. my guide Emilio told me that its not that hard.. well it is. but i think i´m more a audio/visual learner rather than a reader. but anyway its long time ago that ive wrote a long article, so right now i want to write a really long article about the centre altiplano of Bolivia.

After a long bus ride started in Concepcion i finally arrived in Cochabamba, with the statue of Cristo de la concordia welcomed at me. the city of cochabamba is surrounded by hills and it´s so green and very different with santa cruz it`s much more fresco. although it is a city of 600.000 inhabitants it still preserve the colonial feel, and it´s kinda remind me of San Telmo a barrio in BA. around the city there are plenty things to do, but i came here to get some information about Parque nacional Toro Toro. And yes if you decide to visit bolivia this one is absolute MUST SEE.

To arrive at the parque it´s kinda complicated (the terrestial transport in Bolivia is a chaos, but organised one) . but i finally arrived in Toro2 at around 3 am. after like 6 hours of good sleep (sleeping in the bus is almost impossible), i went to the office of tourism to registrated and to hired a guide (not allowed to go by yourself). My guide is 20 years old but already worked as guide for 4 years and he is really brilliant, knows alot about the birdlife in surrounding area and the plants aswell. the first thing we saw was the cerro wayllas with the footprints of dinosaurs. and there were HUGE and small footprints. the big ones belong to the giant herbivor and the smaller ones to the carnivors. they were very distinctive because the herbivors have a rounded foot and the carnivors have a distinctive three toes print (with claws). after the cerro we walked to the nearby canyon. Dios mio, the canyon is huge... 200 m deep it was really incredible. I was really amazed about the size of the canyon because I really thought it was a small one (the canyon started nearby the village and it was really small). also great to see was the Frente Roja.

a Arara (big parrot) with colours of bolivian flag, and this species is endangered. after that we take a turned to see the cavern Ciflon- qaqa and the Vergel waterfall. because it was raining it is a bit dangerous to go down to Vergel and thus we stayed on the top of the hill. This canyon is reminder to Iguazu falls but it´s much bigger (and i must admit it`s much more fun walking around here, than walking around Iguazu). To enter the cavern of ciflon is also not possible because of the rain, its better to go to toro2 in dry season i guess. after the ciflon cavern we went back to the village but before that we went to see the walls painting. the painting is not yet researched very well, thus it is not really clear how old the painting exactly is. after that we walked to the turtles cementery where fossils of 60 -65 millions year turtle could be seen. the great thing about toro2 is, everything here is really cheap.

second day we went to umajallanta cavern. uma= water and jallanta= lost in aymara. it was the people of aymara who found the cavern for the first time. before the cavern we waded through the mud (toro toro is a abreviation of T´uru t´uru which means ¨mud¨in quechua), to carrera pampa where there are a distinctive carnivors dinosaurs footprints fossils. the prints are caught when they were on the run thats why it called ¨carrera pampa¨. arrived at the cavern again i was amazed by it`s size but sadly this cavern is kinda destructed. people came here and they cutted the stalagtites and the stalagmites and also the graffities around are kinda ruined the cavern. but it`s still fun to walked through it. we saw vampiers bat´s, stalagtite with strange form, crawled through very small channels.. it was one big adventure. probably the most fun Parque Nacional around. I really enjoyed Toro2 because it has so many things to do: palentologic, archeologic, spleoncologic, rockhopping and crossing some river..

which reminded me, when i went back to cochabamba we were stuck for about 2 hours because a car was stuck in the middle of the river. also the trip back was amazing. when the bus crossed the river water was splash around and the roads were really muddy. This is Bolivia, exactly what i was imagened about it.

back in cochabamba i went to the terminal to buy ticket to Sucre. but i was kinda confused because the lady said ¨veinte y treinta¨ so i though i have a ticket for a 20.30 but when i wanted to get inside the bus i founded out that it was for 20.00 so i ran for the bus but it was already gone. so i need to spent another night in CBBA. but maybe Cristo wanted me to visit him, now it`s sunny so it`s perfect to go to the hill but the hill is rather unsafe.... but tonight i`m going to the officially capital of Bolivia, Sucre. and after a day i want to go to Potosi. this time i need to do it right because carnaval is next week-end and i need to be in Oruro on time.

Entonces.. if you go to Bolivia dont miss Parque Nacional Toro Toro.

Salud

ch´