The South American Odyssey

A 147-day adventure by The Craze for Travelling Read more

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The South American Odyssey The Craze for Travelling
Lunch break on way to Toro Toro
October 15, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C
After about 3 hrs of driving we stopped for a lunch break in one of the villages.
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The South American Odyssey The Craze for Travelling
More colorful mountains
October 15, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C
After the lunch stop, we continued further. The dry riverbed expanded to fill the whole valley. The mountains around were still predominantly red in color.
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The South American Odyssey The Craze for Travelling
Toro Toro bookings
October 15, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 10 °C
As soon as we got off at Toro Toro, we looked around the main square and found quite a few hostels. We went to one and were told 50 b$ per person. The room was fine but they didn't have wifi.
So, we went to Hostal Norte just opposite. They had wifi and a place to wash clothes plus it was just 30 b$ without wifi and 35 b$ per person with wifi included.
Again we got lucky.. Just at the right time 😁
We got a private room with shared bathroom. After we told we would stay for 2 days, they charged us b$ 30 pp.
After keeping our bags, we went to the tourist information center. Of course everything was in Spanish. But, we managed to figure out that there was a fee of 100 b$ (for foreigners) entry fee to the Toro Toro National Park. The entry card is valid for 4 days. One has to go to the NP with a guide only. The tours start at 7:30 am and the cost depends on how many people there are. There is no individual fee but a group charge. So, bigger the group, lesser the cost per person. A minimum of 5 people were required for the tour to start.
We bought the NP passes and decided to walk around the village.Read more
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Toro Toro village
October 15, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 10 °C
Toro Toro is a small lovely village at an altitude of 2725 mts, stuck in an era long gone by. Its a beautiful place to walk around. The houses were made of mud bricks. Some were really broken down and delapedated. Others near the main plazas were made into big baked brick bungalows.
The whole village seemed to live off tourists and the general theme was dinosaurs. Almost everyone had converted their houses to restaurants or places to stay. Some had converted their living rooms to stores with items of daily use easily available.Read more
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Toro Toro dinosaur plaza
October 15, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 10 °C
Like the whole village, there was a plaza with the dinosaur theme.
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Toro Toro houses
October 15, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C
The dinosaur theme and the modern new houses and old mud brick houses combination continue everywhere.
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Pachamama Vupi Museum Toro Toro
October 15, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C
We had our food at one of the homes where the living room was converted to a restaurant. The lady running the place made a vegetarian variety of the meal for me by replacing the meat portion with an egg. The meal costed just 10 b$.
After the food, we went to the Pachamama Vupi Museum. It is open till 8 pm and is actually a family house decorated with stones and fossils that were collected by the person running the museum from the valleys and hills around the village.
Everything was beautifully decorated into theme corners inside the house. It almost reminded me of the Rock Garden in Chandigarh.
He even had 2 meteorites that had crashed into the sea and were hence round in shape.Read more
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Toro Toro dinosaur plaza at night
October 15, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C
We went back to the dinosaur plaza to see it under the lights. It was very nice.
After that we just roamed around a bit and eventually came back to sleep early since we would be starting the next day at 6 am to catch the tours.Read more
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El Vergel tour - dinosaur footprints
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 10 °C
We were at the tourist Information center by 7:30 am as planmed. We took the El Vergel tour that goes via the dried up river next to Toro Toro to the dinosaur footprints next to the river. They are spread all over the hillside. There are 4 types of dinosaurs that walked here millions of years ago.Read more
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El Vergel tour - more footprints
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 9 °C
The footprints are spread all over the hillside. In fact earlier, some of the top layers from the hill were broken to make the road. Its only after they were recognized as dinosaur footprints that they started fencing and preserving them.Read more
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Vergel tour - the amphitheater
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C
As we continued further we reached a natural formation called the amphitheater where they have concerts, once in Jul (some patron saint celebrations) and also in Nov (Toro Toro day).
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Vergel tour - natural bridges
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 41 °C
As we walked further, we saw nature bridge formations created by the erosion from water. We also saw the Bolivian Bandera tree, so called since it has green leaves, the flowers are yellow and the sap in the trunk is red, the same colors as the Bolivian flag.
We also saw a huge dinosaur footprint belonging to a sauropod. The animal was about 30 mts from head to the tail and the legs were about 12-14 mts long.Read more
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Vergel tour - Grand Canyon Toro Toro
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ 🌙 19 °C
The next stop on the tour was an amazing panoramic view of what is called the Grand Canyon of Toro Toro. The canyon is overall 65 kms long. From the viewpoint, one can see all the way to the bottom which is about 300 mts down. There are birds like Condor etc living at the top of the canyon, the red crested macaws live in the middle and animals like puma, vizcachas at the bottom of the canyon.Read more
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El Vergel tour - descent to the waterfal
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C
After the viewpoint, we started our 300 mts descent to the bottom of the canyon to the waterfalls. Its a very steep descent along a pre-built path that took 2 years to complete.
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El Vergel tour - bottom of the canyon
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C
The views from the bottom of the canyon were overwhelming. The cliffsides of the canyon towering 300 mts over us were a humbling experience.
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El Vergel tour - the waterfalls
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C
After a walk of about 400 mts at the bottom of the canyon, we reached the El Vergel waterfall. Its a moss covered green waterfall with many small water streams falling in that green region. Below the waterfalls is a pool of water 4 mts deep.
By now, we were feeling quite hot due to the trek and the water was nice and cool so we decided to take a dip.
It was a lovely end of the trek down. We had fun for 15-20 min before sitting down in the sun to dry up.Read more
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El Vergel tour - break at the falls
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C
We rested for 10-15 min and waited for the clothes to dry up before starting the trek back.
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The South American Odyssey The Craze for Travelling
El Vergel tour - Back to Toro Toro
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C
The trek back up was extremely exhausting since we had to climb 300 mts straight up from the falls to the top of the cliff, plus it was extremely hot as well.
After a walk of about 2 hrs we were back on Toro Toro.Read more
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Chiflon Qaqa tour - Near Toro Toro
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ 🌙 19 °C
After the 1st tour of the day we were back in the village at 12:45. The 2nd tour of the day starts at 1:30 pm, so we had a quick lunch at the common community lunch area.
We were back at the tourist center at 1:30 but we were the only ones there. We waited for another 30 min but when no one came, we decided to do the tour with just the 2 of us. We had to pay 100 b$,which was way more than the 17 b$ we paid for the morning tour, but still quite cheap.
We got the same guide Tio. We started at a different part of the dry riverbed of Toro Toro river. Here again we saw many dinosaur tracks.Read more
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Chiflon Qaqa tour - Into the canyon
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ 🌙 19 °C
From the dry riverbed, we continued into the Toro Toro canyon. The walls started gaining height on both the sides as we continued to walk further along the dried river. It was a fantastic feeling and the views were very unique.Read more
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Chiflon Qaqa tour - Pintura Rupestres
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ 🌙 19 °C
Walking inside the canyon, we came to the paintings on the canyon wall about 10 mts above the riverbed. These are paintings done by the pre-Inca people of this area called the Chaki.
One of the paintings shows a serpent, a series of mountains around Toro Toro and the entrance and exit of one of the caves in this area. The other painting shows the village location of the Chaki in the mountains.Read more
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Chiflon Qaqa tour - The river pool
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ 🌙 0 °C
Further on, we came to an area where the river passes through some hard stones which it has not been able to erode fully. Here, it swirls around and has formed amazing formations some of which are like pools within the river.Read more
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Chiflon Qaqa tour - Green parrots
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ 🌙 0 °C
We continued further deeper into the canyon. We even saw some green parrots making noises and flying in groups. Unfortunately, they were flying almost near the top of the canyon so it was hard to get a good picture of them.Read more
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Chiflon Qaqa tour - The viewpoint
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ 🌙 0 °C
Going along further into the canyon, the canyon dropped almost a 100 mts below us and we still had the rest of the canyon about a 100 mts above us.
We came to the Chiflon Qaqa viewpoint. From here, one can see the cave called Chiflon Qaqa. This cave forms the exit of the Umajalanta cave. There is a waterfall below it.
We descended towards the waterfalls to have a closer look.Read more
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Chiflon Qaqa tour - The waterfalls
October 16, 2017 in Bolivia ⋅ 🌧 10 °C
We spent some time at the waterfalls enjoying the view and the beauty of the place. It had started drizzling a little bit and the temperature had dropped a bit so neither of us felt like taking a bath under the falls.Read more
Traveler lovely smiles !!
10/20/17Reply
The Craze for Travelling 😁😁😁
10/20/17Reply
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