Villa Tunari

Hopped on a bus/van from Cochabamba to Villa Tunari last Monday. I told the driver a few times that I wanted to get off at Villa Tunari, but he went a mile or two past it anyway. I was able to get a taxi back after multiple questions and an hour or so of waiting. Spent the rest of the day wandering around the town, taking some pictures. I had a permanent layer of sweat on my skin because of the heat and humidity, which was a nice change from the frigid cold of the mountains.

View from my hotel. I spent a lot of time here reading or doing nothing.

The next day I went to Parque Machia, an animal refuge that has lots of young backpackers working/volunteering there, including a couple of friends I had met in Arequipa. (Wasn't ever able to meet up with my friends, and got an email from one of them telling me he had gotten bit by a monkey -again- and that's why he couldn't come meet me when I came by the park...) It was a beautiful area, I hiked around the park where they had monkeys jumping around from tree to tree and also some beautiful macaws. They charged extra to bring your camera in so I decided not to. So no pictures, unfortunately.

After a lunch I took a ''trufi'' (shared taxi) to a resort hotel that you could pay to take a hike down to the natural swimming holes on their property. It was a beautiful, relaxing hike, but not quite hot enough to swim. It started raining on my way back and ended up pouring for 20 minutes or so, luckily not until I got to my hotel.

The trail on the way to the swimming holes.

One of the swimming holes

The next day, after asking around a lot about how to get to Santa Cruz, I set out with my backpack to wait on the highway. The sun had come back out and I was drenched in sweat after just 5 minutes of waiting for the bus. After about 10 buses passed me by without stopping, I started to get a little nervous. But every time I asked someone, they said just wait there and a ''flota'' will come by. They said a flota is a big bus but I thought the big busses had already gone by. But once the flota arrived I knew which one it was. (it was huge compared to the others) I hopped on and got the last seat on the bus. It was a sweaty 5 hour trip to Santa Cruz, and it had started raining by the time I got there. I asked the taxi driver if this weather was normal (it's supposed to be the dry season) and he said no, it's only today. ok phew. I didn't leave Seattle to spend days in the rain.

I stayed at one of the best hostels I've encountered on my trip, and met a couple of other travelers. We tried going out that night, but after the first bar it was absolutely POURING down rain so we called it a night and went back to the hostel for a few beers.

The next day the weather continued. Freezing, windy, and pouring down rain. I felt like I was in a minor hurricaine. Not an inviting climate to wander around a city in. So I plopped myself down on a beanbag in the tv room and watched about three movies. Stepbrothers was a hilight. We braved the weather for lunch at a Bolivian-Mexcan restaurant and bought pasta to make for dinner. I didn't leave the hostel again that day. Unfortunate about the weather because the hostel had a great-looking pool.