A weekend in the foothills
I spent most of this week meeting with government officials to discuss project specifics and timelines … tedious stuff. But this weekend was a different story.
One of the best parts of my already awesome job is that I am “required” to investigate ecotourism potential at project sites. This invovles going to some of the most beautiful landscapes in the country and “sampling” the existing ecotourism infrastructure. So I went to Samiapata, a retreat town in the Andean foothills southwest of Santa Cruz on the border of the Amboro National Park (our project site).
I went with a group of people who work at our local partner NGO, Fundacion Natura Bolivia. It took us about three hours to drive from Santa Cruz up into the foothills. About an hour into the drive the paved road dissapeared and we drove on a dirt road that frequently required us to drive the SUV through shallow rivers and creeks. All along the way we stopped to buy fresh fruit from street-side vendors, giving me a chance to sample some Amazonian fruits that I had never seen or heard of before.
Before we arrived in the town of Samaipata, we stopped along the Rio Pirai (which also flows through another one of projects down in the valley). We hiked about half an hour to get to a series of waterfalls (which were beautiful but not as dramatic as the 100 meter high waterfall I swam in on Tuesday when I visited the other side of our project site).
After the waterfalls we drove into the town of Samaipata for the night. We stayed in a small colonial-styled hotel just off of the main village square. At dusk we walked around the village, visiting an NGO that sold handicrafts made by the local indigenous women. For dinner we went to the Cafe Latina - a quaint organic restuarant on the side of town where everyone seemed to know the owner, including everyone on the trip with me. Sitting next to the fireplace (at 1,650 meters, it was a lot cooler than Santa Cruz), I had a dish of local beef covered in a mushroom sauce with a side of wild rice, pasta and a small salad, which was delicious. After finishing dinner and a bottle of wine, we moved out onto the balcony to drink cups of Mate de Coca. Mate de Coca is a popular tea in Bolivia made from the leaves of the coca plant, ie the plant used to make cocaine (important note: Mate de Coca is legal in both Bolivia and the US, and it does not have any drug-life affects, it is simply a tea and is drank after meals to help with digestion).
After dinner we wandered over to what I might call a dive-bar where we sang a few karaoke songs (I can’t escape it no matter what continent I’m on) before heading off to bed. The next day we woke early and had breakfast by the main square (dulce de leche and banana pancakes for me) before we headed back to Santa Cruz. All in all, a pretty great weekend after several weeks of work and meetings.
