2 weekends ago Sandra and me spent 2 days at the Incachaca national park, about 100km or 2 hours from Cochabamba. Getting there turned out to be not as straight forward as we had expected. Since the park is property of the local electricity supplier, ELFEC, we needed to go there and ask for a permission. However, at ELFEC nobody seemed to know about Incachaca. Instead we were sent from one office to the other until - it must have been in the 10th office or so - someone told us that ELFEC is no longer responsible for Incachaca, since several months already. Fortunately they could provide us with the new adress where we finally got the permission.
The 2h trip, first by bus and then by taxi, was quite exciting, because obviously in Bolivia oncoming traffic isn't a reason not to overtake...
It was about 6 pm when we arrived at the entrance of the park, where we were welcomed by two policemen They seemed to be quite interested in who we were, where we came from, how long we're going to stay etc. I'm not sure if they took their job very serious or if they were just bored and happy for some company, because at this time of the year - during the rain period - there were not so many visitors, and checking visitors for their permissions seemed to be their only duty...
They told us we could either camp here, in the garden of the police station or next to a small pine forrest about 30 minutes from here. Since it was still more than an hour until nightfall, we decided to walk to the pine forrest, where we set up our tent next to an idyllic lake amidst grazing cows and horses (and blood thirsty mosquitos as we found out a bit later...).
We were waked up quite early the next morning, by some cows nibbling on our tent. The nearby river with its crystal clear and ice cold water was ideal for a refreshing morning bath. After breakfast, we started our hiking trip through the semi-tropical forests. Our first goal was an old suspension bridge over a deep, narrow gorge, the famous Inca Bridge. I could not help whistling the Raider's March Theme when I was walking across the bridge, even though Indy might have crossed the bridge a bit faster and more elegantly, and without shaking legs ;-)
The view from the bridge, however, was amazing…30-40m down to the rapids of the Alisu Mayu River…wow!!!
We continued our way uphill to an old tumbledown power plant, which used to be the first hydroelectric power plant in the Cochabamba region. From there we descended to the "Devil's Throat" and further to the "Baño de la Ñusta", the bath of the Inca Princesses. In the past it used to be possible to jump into the Devil's throat and slide down to the Princesses' bath, but nowadays it is too dangerous, so the devil's throat is closed.
We were back at the police station at around 3 pm had some sandwiches for lunch and a little chat with the obviously totally bored policemen, before we headed back to Cochabamba. At home I realized that my arms and neck were completely sunburned, even though we spent most of the time in the forests and despite sunscreen with protection factor 50...
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| Lake next to the camping site |
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| Grazing horses |
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| Morning Bath |
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| Cholita on the Bridge |
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| Indy on the Bridge |
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| Inca Bridge |
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| Not quite Indy on the Bridge |
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| Devil's Throat |
