Samaipata and beyond

So there we were in Samaipata, having made it up the track from Villa Serrano - the first to do so since last dry season. After the remote territory and small villages we had been through to get there, Samaipata seemed positively civilised (not the outpost it was reputed to be) and we made the most of it ... banana smoothies, hot showers, a double bed ... etc.

And our shock absorber had held out to the end - now there was nothing but asphalt between us and it's replacement. We decided not to try our luck, and so had to give the nearby national park a miss (a bit of shame, but plenty more to come), opting instead to visit the local museum - all about the nearby ruins - and then the ruins themselves.

Here they are behind me, our only photo as our batteries chose this moment to run flat (by the way, we charge our batteries on the bike ... there's no excuse for throwing these toxic things out willy-nilly, even on a bike). The site (now carvings in a huge rock) is considered to have been built in pre-Inca times, and also used by both the invading Incas and Spaniards, as a ceremonial site and becuase it commanded a good view over the main pass between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. Much to my pleasure, the ruins were also surrounded by rainforest, giving us a pleasant taste of things to come.

Ruins visited, smoothies drunk, and we were ready for the next adventure. We found this in the ride to Cochabamba - again, the road took us to heights over 4000m, and we got to experience something I had only read about in an otherwise pretty stupid novel we found in a book exchange (The Gringo Trail - has some redeeming features, but not really recommended) - a cloud forest.

Just the sound of such a place had excited my imagination, and as we were riding through the clouds, in the forest, I realised we were probably living the dream. Really quite beautiful, it appears the trees are used to living among precipitation, and so they made these wonderful shapes to suck up the moisture - each branch resembling something between that of a trufella tree and a sea plant. They made for great silhouettes looming out of the mist, but unfortunately, not so conducive for photos (and anyway, our batteries were still charging), so I only managed to snap this one out when we got to the other side.

One more night (in a quite unfriendly satellite town - it's not all smiles and bowler hats 'round here) and we were in Cochabamba in the morning ... picked up the new shock (it's purple!) by midday (nice one DHL), and Andy had organised with a Hubb community workshop to put it in by the afternoon .... flying.

Next stop, La Paz.