Inca Ruins and Wilderness Donkeys

We're back.

The trip to Samai Pata was interesting and a very much needed break from the heat and the day to day of teaching in Santa Cruz.  About an hour out of Santa Cruz, the altitude starts going up and the temperature starts going down.  The drop in humidity and temperature was enough to help get rid of my heat rash that had developed on my arms for the last few days of last week.

On Saturday, we drove for a couple of hours up to a resort with cabins on top of a volcanic mountain with a small lake called Laguna Volcanic.  If there is any place that I would sell it all, pack up the family and stay forever, that is the place.  There are 7 cabins next to the little lake and a small hotel with 12 rooms.  Each cabin has two hammocks, a kitchen, two bedrooms and a small living room.  Each hotel room has a bedroom and a living room and a balcony overlooking the pool and the lake.  The hotel has a small restaurant and bar area with a ping pong table.  On the other side of the hotel from the lake is a small 9 hole par 3 golf course.  Just to add to the whole South American feel, there is a rhea (South American ostrich like bird) that wanders around the property freely.  There are also a whole bunch of other birds that come by the lake to keep you company as well.

The restaurant gave us the opportunity to try some more of the local ingredients, but unfortunately the supper was not as good as we had hoped.  I did manage to try out an iguana steak, but I would not recommend it should you have the chance as it was very tough.  Breakfast the next morning made up for it however as they brought out two baskets of baked goods ranging from local breads to croissants, lots of fresh fruit and different cheeses.  We hung around all morning after breakfast until we had to check out.  We all wished we could have stayed there longer.

We hit the road and continued along the road for about an hour until we came to a spot with waterfalls where we had some buns for lunch and cooled off a little.  The water was very cool, and there were orange trees growing near by so if we wanted a snack, we could just pick one at will.

It was a nice break from the winding, very bumpy mountain road, but we had places to go so we continued on our way.  Our next stop was a place that I have wanted to go to since we got to Bolivia.  As a matter of fact, it is one of the places I have wanted to go since I was a kid.  The place is called El Fuerte and translates to the fort.  It was an Inca ritual fortress site which was then taken over by the Spanish when they arrived.  The Incas carved a giant stone with all kinds of their spiritual symbols and little alcoves for their offerings to the gods.  The Spanish arrived and assumed that the Incas had hidden gold in the monument and of course, dug into it looking for the gold that was never there.  The Spanish stayed however and used the site as a fortress.

The road up was really poor and was always a long ways down on one side or the other, but it was worth the terror to get to the top.  It was about a 5km hike from the parking to go through the site, everybody was certainly tired when we were finished, but it was a terrific experience.  After we braved the drive back down, we finally continued on to Samai Pata and stayed in a small hostel type hotel run by an elderly Dutch couple.  It was very peaceful and had some beautiful gardens.

This morning, we got up at a decent time and had breakfast, then we decided to do a little back road exploring in the truck before we started back for Santa Cruz.  We ended up on the top of a mountain guarded by what I liked to call wilderness donkeys.  Everywhere you go in the mountains here, you run into packs of donkeys or cattle on the road who usually don't like to get out of your way.  Here is one such gang.

I have no idea how anybody tells who these animals belong to as they are not chained or fenced and just seem to wander wherever they want to.  They are not threatening and they do like to pose for pictures as you can see.

The ride back to Santa Cruz was a little more exciting than the ride out because we ended up getting rain most of the way which made the road a lot more interesting since there was water running over the road in a few places and it was all quite muddy.  We made it back and are all tired and probably a little more touchy than we should be, but all is well.