Jurassic Park...

One of the claims of Bolivia is that it is a real microcosm of the natural beauty of the world. It has everything from Amazonian rain forest to soaring snow capped mountains, from fertile plains to the high desert of the Altiplano. It is a country of superlatives - the highest city, the highest lake, the most extensive salt flats (Google Earth gives a great view of these) and even the world's most dangerous road!



Bolivia boasts a number of national parks all with unique character. Toro Toro is one of these and we set off for there recently to spend a weekend in amazing surroundings. 70 miles doesn’t seem a great distance to travel but those 70 miles translate to an uncomfortable and often downright terrifying 8 hour bus ride. Memories of smooth tarmac roads are soon left behind and dust and pot holes are the order of the day. Road works on a bridge simply mean you go through the river and there are times, looking hundreds of feet down into the valley below, that a safety barrier would be a huge reassurance. Our bus spluttered its way up the hill and eventually arrived at its destination, even if it was to fail us on the way back. It was clear the driver had an ever diminishing selection of gears and the unmistakeable smell of overheating metal meant it was no surprise when the gear box totally gave up leaving us to hitch a lift back to Cochabamba with another passing tourist bus.



Toro Toro surprisingly doesn’t take it’s name from the Spanish for bull, but instead from the local Quechua word for mud. The fact the word is repeated simply makes the description more accurate as we were to find out after a heavy night’s rainfall!



The mountains are spectacular, I imagine a geographer’s paradise with multi coloured layers of rock pushing up from the valley floor and a stunning canyon boasting great rock formations.













Even back in the age of the dinosaur the valley was known for its mud and one of the great features of the area is its dinosaur footprints, moulded into the mud which then became the local mudstone which characterizes the area. These are still to be seen, including some prints of what must have been a sizeable long-necked beast.



It was also good to see rural life in this remote spot - there was day of local entertainment raising awareness of the plight of many children in Bolivia, whose lives are so often blighted by neglect and abuse. Again, as I’ve seen in other parts of the country, it’s a simple way of life and often a precarious way of living. But people still know how to celebrate.