Day 40, dinosaur expedition

Ha! This morning we did not miss hotel breakfast! We got picked up at half past eight, and we went first to the dinosaur footprints we already saw yesterday from a distance. It is right outside town and about 10 minutes walk from our hotel, but there is a fence around it and you can only go in with a tour guide. Our tourguide was Victor, and he knew a lot about the dinosaurs, the geology and the nature in torotoro. He only spoke spanish, but we understood everything he said. The first footprints were of an ankylosaurus. Victor explained that the mountain was once flat and the stones used to be mud. The type of earth that is in torotoro dries up in the sun and gets really hard. That was also in the time the dinos made their prints, and eventually turned into stone. We also saw the footprints of meat eaters and two legged planteaters. We also understand why there is a fence around it and you can only see it with a guide. Although the prints turned into stone, the stone is made of thin layers that break off easily. It is not as stable as we thought. This site was also dug out by paleontologists, and they only did a little piece of the mountain, to preserve the other footsteps. After we explored this site, we went into the van and drove a little bit further (10 minutes) to walk to the next digging site. This was bigger and flat. Here we could walk on the site, but we had to be careful to not step on the footprints. This was not so easy, because there were footprints everywhere! Small, big, mini, meat eaters, plant eaters, everything criss cross over the site! Eike was so happy! Like a little kid 🥰 Victor explained a bit more about the geology of the valley, about lime stones and sandstones. We explored the footsteps some more and there were also tail prints dragging through the then mud, and meat eaters running over the then sea floor, which you could see because the toes grabbed powerfull in the mud. Spinosaurus!
Then we went on with our hike and Victor asked if we had virtigo, so Nina said yes, and if we would take it slow, it would probably be ok 😅 we walked down a canyon, over a rocky road and everything was easy. Down in the canyon it was beautiful! There was a river and rocks and little watterfalls that went into a little pool and from there a litte waterfall again and so on. The sun started to burn really hard, but Nina had her stupid hat, and eike made a hat out of his bandana, so it was fine. We walked beside the river over a small path and enjoying the views. We came to a cave and Eike and Victor were going in and Nina would walk around it. The cave ended at a deep gap. Victor came to pick up Nina (aparantly the cave was a shortcut) and Nina had to climb over the stones that had fallen over the gap. Under it was also a waterfall from a subterranian river. It was high! Nina's Virtigo kicked in hard, but Victor managed to keep Nina calm, and helped her over the gap 🥳 Eike had walked a bit further already, so he didn't see Nina's achievement 😅 from here the path went down, and smaller and smaller and the abyss (afgrond, abgrund) got closer and steeper 😬 there came a few times where we really had to be carefull, and had to stand with our bellies to the rock wall and go side ways. Yes, here Nina's virtigo was really tested 😵‍💫 but again, Victor, and now also Eike kept her calm and she made it! 🥳💪 she was really proud of her self! Eike too! When we were aaaalmost down, there came a wooden bridge of about 3 or 4 meters high and also 3 or 4 meters long, and about 40 cm wide. That was more of a problem for Nina than the steep wall , so she went over it on her hands and feet 🤣 then we were at the bottom of the canyon and we had to climb the rocks, which was not that hard. We came at a point where we had to take our shoes off and go through the water. The water was nice and refreshing. We put our shoes on again and climbed further, untill there was a point where we could go through the water again, or climb around it. Eike climbed, and Nina picked the water. We took a break where we ate something and Eike took a dive. Ninas pants were still wet from the water walk, so she was fine. After lunch we climbed further over the rocks at the bottom of the canyon and came to a big waterfall, also from a subterranian river, so it came out halfway the canyon. It was very beautiful. Then it was time to hike up again, but this time it was going up really fast, and Nina got out of breath quickly. Most of the path was stairs, and 300 meters high 🥵 but we all made it! We came to a viewpoint looking over the canyon, made some pictures, and walked further. We walked past, and in a river that was dry, eventhough it is supposed to be rainy season 🤷‍♂️ here there were dinosaur footprints again, the biggest so far, from a brachiosaurus. It is the 4 steps it makes, and the hind prints stepfor 3/4 into the front steps. We walked a bit more in the dry river and then finally, after 9 hours we got into the van that drove in 10 minutes back to our hotel. Our legs were already starting to hurt of muscle pain so we rewarded ourselves with a nice hamburger and fries. We sat a bit outside with Apolinar and 15 dogs came to say hello(one after the other, ok sometimes two) and then we went to sleep. We slept like babies 😊Read more