Sucre, Samaipata and Cochabamba!

Took few pix in these towns, so it’ll be a quick post.

Sucre

Original plan was to stop at Potosi, apparently the worlds highest city (add that asterisk again) but it was a mining city that looked terrible and had no camping so we went straight to Sucre.

Sucre started great. The major highway was getting majorly rebuilt, so I had to make my own map going up vertical narrow streets. The very first one had two cars pouring out black smoke and rolling backward cause they couldn’t do it. Luckily, I’ve driven the hills at proven grounds and Hubi had no problem, until the last street were I stalled at the top and the hand brake couldn’t hold us. Funny how the smoke limit is different at this altitude, I should know this.

We had a great campsite right in the middle of town during carnival. Was mostly bands playing and kids throwing water balloons and using super soakers on girls. And the girls using shaving cream on the guys. It wasn’t the kind of party you thought it would be. Hit up a few museums, good food, and on our way we go.

Best part of Sucre was when we left. Since the highway was outta order, the Navi took me straight through the market. Average speed of zero for hours. Was kinda funny.

Samaipata

To get here we had to take a death road, not THE death road but an insanely dangerous one. Pure serpentine, barely 1.5 lanes with drops of over 50 meters on the side. Semi trucks all over the place going both ways so people just passing them blindly. Gotta be at least a dozen head on collisions here a day. We made it.

First stop was El Fuerte, ancient Inca site.

Second stop was Cascadas Cuevas, set of waterfalls where you can swim. Until they make a 100% waterproof iPhone, no water pix.

Finally on our last day we took a trip out to see the Bosque de los Helechos Gigantes. Basically Jurassic Ferns. For every meter they are 100 years old. Some are 12 meters tall.

Cochabamba

So we head off to Cochabamba. Everything starts off pretty and green.

My lifestyle of no news, info, radio etc. almost took a backlash. The brand new highway connecting Samaipata to Cochabamba was closed for a couple days from massive landslides. Heavy heavy rains. As we drove it, we saw tons of landslides. Some on the road…

Took forever till we finally reached Cochabamba. More time added as I missed the turn and once again drove right through the middle of the market. We arrived in Cochabamba to find streets closed and the military everywhere along with baggers and earth movers. Looked like a war zone. Apparently the day before the city flooded big time. Exhausted, we went to the next possible camping area and finally got some sleep.

That’s it for this region, up next, La Paz is awesome and some jungle adventure!