The Road to Samipata

I know this post is a long time coming...blogger has been experiencing technical difficulties (or maybe it's just the Bolivian internet). Anyway, last weekend I had a grand adventure that I want to share.

Saturday morning Dana 2, Dovanna, Jarrod and I piled into Virginia's truck to make the long trip up the mountain to Samipata, a kind of "mountain resort" town about three hours from Santa Cruz. It was a pretty calm drive for the first hour or so, until we started up the mountain. Keep in mind that we've had severe flooding in Bolivia for the past three months. The towns beyond Samipata were hit pretty hard, and in fact Dana 2 and Virginia drove out last weekend to deliver a load of food and clothing to some of the people who are still without permanent shelter. For several weeks the road to Samipata was impassible. They've been working on fixing it, but it still narrows to one way in several places. Our first glimpse of the flood damage was enough to instill a renewed respect for the power of water.

This house had been well back from the river bank before a flash flood bulldozed through the riverbed. It looks like the house nearly ended up in the river! It's all dried out now, but at the height of the rains the river was flowing right past this home (they showed pictures on the news).

As we continued up the mountain we saw a lot more evidence of the rains' destruction. Rocks and mudslides had washed away the road in several places. Here you can see where the road just literally fell off the mountain.


Fortunately vegitation covered the drop-off side, so the road didn't seem quiet as scary as it probably was. There were no guardrails and it was very steep, so Virginia had to take the curves at a pretty good clip to make it up. If we met a truck coming down where the road narrowed to one way things got very exciting! Thankfully on the way up traffic was really light. About halfway up Virginia pulled over and pointed to a rather ancient looking bridge and informed us that the first time anyone goes to Samipata they have to walk across the bridge. So we dutifully filled out of the truck and carefully made our way across.

I don't know if you can really see how thin the bridge is, but it's basically 2" thick planks strung together with wire. I felt like I was crossing the swinging bridge on Tom Sawyer's Island and Disneyland, and I had to remind myself that I am in Bolivia, where building codes do not apply. I have some great shots too through the holes in the wood where you can see all the way to the river below. Have you ever seen Romancing the Stone or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Yeah, now I can say I've lived it.

We eventually made it back off the bridge safely and continued the trek. A few miles outside of the town we stopped to see some waterfalls. I was told you had to hike in to get to them, so I was expecting a scramble over rocks and through overgrown vines, dodging snakes and lizards...it was actually just a really easy walk down a very clear trail, and we didn't even see on snake, just lots of butterflies (one landed on me!). There were two sets of falls that we saw. We were going to hike back further to the third set, but it started pouring and we decided lunch sounded better.

The Danas and Jarrod posing in front of the falls - before we realized that the heavy mist was actually rain.

We finally made it into town and stopped at a delicious German restaurant for lunch (we were the only ones there, but I still can't say much about the service. The food was scrumptious though). After lunch Virginia took us on a driving tour of her favorite sights and places to stay (Samipata is her favorite getaway spot). We ended the day at a mini-resort run by a German couple. Jarrod, the only guy in a group of women, got to experience his first tea party (it was mint tea with fresh honey and warm-from-the-oven scones...it hit the spot).

Virginia, Dovanna, Dana 2 and Jarrod ending our day of adventure with - what else, tea and scones!

I'm happy to report a safe return trip (though we had a few close calls with some micros and trucks). And...I've crossed the first thing off my list of things to do before I leave! Next weekend I'll kill two birds with one stone...Laura and I are going to fly in one of SAM Air's planes out to San Ignacio to spend Easter weekend. The adventures continue!!