Our Great Adventure: Cordillera de los Frailes Day 256 01/06/2015

A new day and a new month started with us having breakfast at 0730 before walking through the Plaza to Jaku Tours, the company we had booked to go on a day trip with. Arriving bang on time we found the offices shut and no answer to the bell. However 5 minutes later our guide, Angelica arrived, followed 10 minutes after that by a young Canadian couple, Matt and Kirsty, who were also on the tour. Our driver, Irwin, soon appeared and we drove out against the busy Monday morning rush hour traffic, heading north west passing the airport and into the hills. We had to go through 2 police checkpoints (Angelica explained that as Bolivia was the second highest producer of cocaine and we were near the main production the checks were necessary to try and limit the drug trafficking). After about 90 minutes we arrived at the top of a very beautiful pass at Chataquila, with stunning ridges either side of us. This was to be the start of the couple of hours trekking, along an Inca trail that was part of the Potosi to Cusco highway in the 14th and 15th century. This section of the trail covers 6km and 700m, luckily all down hill as we were starting to feel the effects of the altitude again at 3850m. Before setting off, we went to a local chapel and also visited the statue of a local, famous 19th century independence fighter, who was killed by the Spanish at this spot. We then commenced our hike, with fantastic views down and across the Cordillera de los Frailes and with the impressive Maragua Crater coming more into view. We stopped quite often for photos and also for Angelica to tell us about the many different herbs and plants along the route. She also explained that this route was used by Inca messengers, who often walked 12 hours a day with their messages, which the Inca's used an elaborate number of strings with beads on as writing. At the bottom of the path, we crossed one of the many aqueducts (again from the Inca times) and came across the road, where we paid a lady the fee for using the path which was B$20 each (£2). The water from this valley feeds into Sucre and we were told that due a landslide the water was cut off in the city for 7 days, causing mayhem; glad it didn't happen when we were there. After a 10 minute wait, Irwin arrived in his Mitsubishi jeep and we headed along the dirt track for another 45 minutes arriving at the village of Maragua. About 10 minutes before we got there we stopped to take pictures of the stunning red and violet crater, which swept around us in a 270 degree arc. It was huge (over 8km wide) and had amazing rock lines and markings almost scallop shaped all across it. Lonely Planet describes it as 'one of the most visually striking places in Bolivia'. There are many theories as to how this was created with the local people but the common scientific one is that all this was under the sea and the underwater volcanic eruptions and the water movement created this fairly unique lines. On arrival at the village, we saw many children out playing as this is the location of the main school for the whole area. Angelica and Irwin had brought lunch and we tucked into a very tasty spread of bread, avocado, two different types of local cheese, boiled eggs, tomatoes and cucumber. After lunch we travelled further into the valley before alighting in order to walk into the countryside, criss crossing over old lava and moraine fields, passing shepherdesses and local villagers in the fields. Our destination was to visit a side of a hill that had dinosaur footprints preserved in the hardened mud. We had been told before had we would need to pay the local village B$20 each. Just before we arrived a couple of villagers greeted us; we thought them to be mother and son. However as they engaged with Angelica it became clear that the man was acting on behalf of the local community and was the one to pay, not the older woman who we initially thought was loco but found out she was drunk. Another party of 6 'gringos', as the man kept saying, had paid her the fee incorrectly and she had used it to get plastered! After paying the guy our money we walked around the corner to view the footprints. Archaeologists have excavated the ground on the slope and there were over 150 footprints, from what they believe to be over 8 different species. They could only identify 2 of the species, being the T Rex and Brontosaurus. We wandered around the site looking at some of the impressive footprints created by creatures over 65million years ago, trying to imagine the scene of the climbing the slope out from what was believed to be a watering hole. They have been preserved by the lava flowing from what was a nearby volcano and then buried until 1999 when one of them was discovered by a local farmer. We then retraced our steps to the jeep, and then returned to Sucre over the spine jangling roads, to arrive back at the tour offices at 6pm. We headed back for to the b&b for a quick shower and then went for dinner at La Florin, where we had gone the first night. We enjoyed a fine last meal in Sucre, washed down with a pint of local beer, reflecting on how enjoyable our stay has been here in this very beautiful city. It is definitely a place people should come to if they visit Bolivia.