Chuquisaca

Less than 50 kilometres from Sucre, unmistakably seen from many streets within the city, are the serrated edge peaks of the Cordillera dos Frailles, just to the west, yet still well within Chuquisaca region. The complexity of these cordilleras with their dubious Spanish language name, should, of course, it goes without saying, be alleviated with that most quintessential of intellectual tools, a good scaled paper-based map of the mountains before setting off. However, if you’ve planned to buy an original or get a copy at the military offices in the city, you may be out of luck as there appears to be a limited quota for each year and in the summer months there may be no copies or originals available. A sprinkling of additional Quechua, which is amongst a few indigenous languages in these parts, with Aymará dominating the region, amongst the traditional linguas, may also prove useful. Nevertheless, Español is still the lingua franca and it proved useful during our incredible and unforgettable 4 days in the unrestrained highland Jalq’a communities.

ph.1 easternmost serrated ridge of Cordillera dos Frailles

From highpoints, taller buildings and upper floors in the judicial capital of Bolivia, there’s a captivating, enchanting and most resolutely epiphanic dawn that shines directly onto the easternmost sierras of ‘Los Cordilleras de los Frailles’. However, don’t be deceived by the Hispanic nomenclature, as once you’re well ensconced beyond that forgathered horizon, you’ll find yourself to be amongst the most charming and yet cantankerous of people in a seemingly god blessed place. However, getting there isn’t so easy. Firstly you’ll need to do some groundwork the day before just walking and asking, bus or taxi drivers and more pertinently, those connected with the Jalq’a communities about just how to get on a truck which will serve as public transportation. They’re open, flatback trucks that you’d imagine are used to ferry cattle to slaughter! At an open space slightly towards the city airport there is all sorts of marketeering going on and a few smallish, parked lorries. Soon after dawn, you should be there where there’s also a tiny hut from where tickets are sold. Once you’ve paid your fare or been directed within the system, you’ll join the hordes of fellow passengers who gradually begin to board the vehicle. That morning we got on together with a mixed crowd who included schoolchildren heading up to their country homes for their summer holidays, young workers, Chola traders, retired elders and a couple of ‘gringos’. You may meet the best of the region’s weavers, charming tour guides, friendly yet canny farming families along with their simply stunning land, which is truly rugged, mountainous and dangerous.

ph.2 vertiginous roads and paths

Although we were stopped at an army post heading up towards the serrated ridge, there was a feeling of relief, and amongst a few, some silent anxiety, but mostly a kind of excited rush of enthusiasm that is often brought on by a steeply inclined road heading into the hills. Little did we know that there would be a generalised extreme fear as we descended the far side down into the cordilleras along a tightly hairpinned and precariously maintained descent on the western side. If you have never been in really mountainous country, maybe picturing a spider zigzagging a wall without any thread or safety nets is how the truck would have appeared from the opposite side of the valley. When you think a little deeper, and if you know something of civil engineering in mountain zones, construction workers ought really to be far more highly valued and at least extraordinary admiration might be our perspective.

Looking through the wood slatted sides of the vehicle, I swear that the driver and his wife, who was co-driving, were driven by a god given gift to traverse several narrow bridges that simply appeared too narrow for the wheelbase. Not only were the gringos breathing with our hearts in our throats but the daring youngsters, who were sitting casually on top of the metal rollbars above us just a few minutes before, were now clinging on for dear life, trying to look brave gulping in deeply what appeared to be an elixir of life, high mountain air. Even the most elderly, who had probably ‘come down the far side’ dozens or hundreds of times, were on the same adrenalin effused rush. We all literally held our bated breath and when we had finally arrived safe and sound in Chaunaca at the foot of the valley I could only thank my lucky stars my feet were back firmly on solid ground until the driver touched down, walked in front of me grinning, apparently just to prove himself larger than life. I gripped his rotund right hand, thanked and paid him before wishing everyone who was still in the truck a safe onward journey. What else was there to do?

ph.3 truck to Chaunaca

Before hiking for several days and nights you must plan, especially if you are considering camping in highlands. You should study maps, do some routing, know how and where to traverse or avoid water and ice features, decide on campsites and measure topographical distances that you estimate your weakest companion will be capable of covering, all with an open mind or a few, possibly improvising, thus rerouting and replanning, during your trekking expedition. Improvisation may be dictated to you because of weather or unforeseen difficulties and although plural intelligence decision-making is ideal, you may just as well divulge responsibility to a geographer or a knowledgeable, resident, local ecoguide. You will also need quality equipment in accordance with all of the aforementioned planning. In practise, mountaineering usually involves single leadership or in larger groups, team leadership with an experienced elder usually taking the definitive lead. However, good, clear communications will definitely count for more, when the tough get going or if the going gets tough. Having written thus, for Thalita and I, after the truck trip, when we were amongst the Jalq’a deep in the ‘Cordillera dos Frailles’, there really wasn’t a hint of any real or serious heebie-jeebies!

ph.4 Chaunaca road sign

We had planned a four-day itinerary together, including three possible locations to stay or camp overnight. We had also already improvised because of my tummy bugginess that I had carried up from the ‘Chiriguano’ lowlands. It was originally to have been a christmas expedition but we were forced to convert it to a pre-2014 excursion. Our arrival at Chaunaca, which bridges Rio Ravello in an enchanting location, was blessed with early afternoon sunshine and an incredibly smooth, green grassed site at which having asked the nearest householder for permission to camp on, I erected our two person Chilean manufactured tent. With all the suitable equipment and strong sun rays, I delayed to strip off and take a plunge in the crystalline chilled waters just to the north of the modern road bridge and all of a sudden some summer stormclouds appeared from behind the towering near vertical mountainsides breaking a blissful, sunblest afternoon scene.

ph.5 Rio Ravello pool

We huddled down in our tent, ate some food and considered what was going to be our best course of action. As the sun shed shadows on most of the valley, late evening lightened and the rains eased off but the crystal clear river Ravello had darkened to a creamy, reddish brown carrying silt and eroded soil from upstream. I had really missed a window of opportunity to swim high in the Andes. In spite of that, as the night fell, the skies cleared and we were treated to the most spectacular starlit darkness imaginable, at least in that small proportion of the nightsky directly above that wasn’t mountainscape!

ph.6 roadbridge in Chaunaca

Despite having had acquired and bought all the suitable equipment for the trip we did find some Chinese manufactured and imported walking boots inferior to the task under foot! However, she bore on and proved herself to be a better descender of mountainsides and paths than her more experienced life partner! Therefore, Thalita was fast becoming a more than valued peer in the peaks, which is really a lot of what mountaineering is all about. I’m sure she’ll agree that we would like to always be repeating our upland adventures, wherever possible with as frequent a repetition as life will allow us.

ph.7 Chaunaca cordillera dos Frailles

That morning, having packed up our gear, we set off down the valley following the river, which was still in spate from the rain the previous afternoon. We were blessed with bright, warming, morning sunshine and followed a dirt track on the wrong side of the river! So we detoured down onto the widening riverbed and found a shallowish crossing point which involved wading waist deep in the freshening mountain rapids. Having circumnavigated that, surely it would be plain sailing from there on.

ph.8 dusking in Chaunaca

So, our timing had been altered, which is hardly surprising, and although I knew this was a kind of training for Thalita to accustomise herself to mountain hiking in anticipation of treading the traditional well trodden Peruvian ‘camiño das Incas’ to Machu Picchu, we were really both getting a feel for traditional Andean transportation without any llamas and most certainly no ‘Sherpas’. And although I stretched a good few hundred metres between myself and my partner ascending, we were both feeling the heat by the time we had neared Maragua volcanic crater several hundred vertical metres above Chaunaca. We carried our own everything and kept our eyes peeled for decent watersources but as we reached the centre of Marawa we had already found the weavers’ factory, which I had imagined is a school, and were still more surprised not to find any regular residents when just as we were losing hope of being able to find water someone appeared who we asked about a shop but unfortunately it was siesta and we had been stricken by an Iberian cultural phenomenon. Untowardly, our thirst was to be quenched and it was the same person who gave us reason to smile when they invited us to help ourselves to a couple of bottles from his personal store in his family home. We then set off up the smaller two cones which are the superficial manifestation of a dormant underground volcanic vent. The curved geological strata that surround the villages on all sides are the nearly 360 degrees circumference of what was once, a few million years ago, an enormous volcano.

ph.9 Maragua volcanic crater

I estimate that the Maragua crater is around 8 kilometres in diameter so if we are to follow the crater walls upwards to where they would have almost met at the tip of a cone, this would have been an extraordinarily large and tall volcano, maybe even a mega volcano, like those of similar magnitude in the Pacific Ocean and in the southeast Asian ‘ring of fire’. As it is in reality now, the villages are altitudinally above 4 kilometres in an idyllic curved bowl which was turning a fertile green in midsummer.

ph.10 Marawa crater

Having perused and photographed a fair bit of the old crater, whilst also trying to explain my evidentially based logical way of thinking to my tireless life partner, Thalita, we decided that there might be a more friendly place to camp for the night, so we dubbed our way downstream in the early afternoon heat towards Irupampa, with its waterfall, museums and hostel. We discovered the waterfall with its engineered trails and easily accessible viewing points and if we hadn´t been as hungry or as tired as we were, we might have made more of the spectacular site, which may be mapped.

ph.11 Irupampa falls & ph.12 Irupampa cascata

Soon after we discovered the first of at least two museums which were being run by the younger responsible members of families in the community of Irupampa, who are still more oriented towards tilling the soil, I realised the tiny boy who had greeted us wasn’t going to get an elder to lead the tour of the hut. I had my qualms with the first more archaeologically specialised museum, as Franklin, who was proven to be a wonderful guide, was only 7 or 8 years. I abhor child labour but his intellect was sufficient and he didn’t really work as he described the collection of weird and wonderful artefacts in their garden shed. He also kindly explained a few words, interpretting from Spanish to Quechua and vice versa. We learned a sprinkling of useful nouns and yet he didn’t seem interested in getting them in Portuguese, French or English! Perhaps he’ll concentrate more in Guarani and Aymará which along with Quechua are mandatory in the respective regions as part of Bolivia’s new linguistically oriented national curriculum. Primary and secondary school kids can also choose English or Portuguese in some schools.

ph.13 Ed & Franklin

We wished him well, paid and strolled on towards the southern part of the near circular inverted dome, Maragua crater, only to discover the weaver and potter’s museum on the other side of the path a few hundred metres further on. Franklin may be the younger brother of our next tour guide who charged a bit more and yet was also informative if a little belligerent towards my comments and observations. He would probably have lectured on regardless if I hadn’t broken his monologue but I got the feeling he would have heckled back at anyone if his shine-eye were even to be partially shared. There was no rudeness and my purely positive, helpful and supportive words were possibly misinterpretted. Although I did think about our vulnerability, neither of us university graduates were using our family languages and so it may have just been the beginning of a beautiful friendship and again, the Bolivianos we paid seemed really reasonable considering the beautifully kept lawn and flowered garden surrounding the rooms of the building which make it seem ever so much more noble than any other building in the crater.

  ph.14 onwards and upwards

Realising we still needed to make good progress to climb up and out of the crater before dusk to camp, we were at a fork in the path with Quillaquilla far below and Sisipunku just a couple of kilometres to the west along a flattish groove in the folds of the inner and outer crater. As we approached the gateway to Punku there seemed to be a well walled community of goat and sheep herders so we strolled in cautiously, hoping someone would appear to ask if it would be acceptable for  Thalita and I to camp in the quiet village. As I was erecting the tent some boys were corralling a small herd along a village lane and soon after a couple of middle-aged men appeared confirming that it would be no problem at all to camp there. We had also been greeted into the communities of Marawa and Irupampa by children. This added all the more charm to that incredible crater. We slept soundly and deeply that night as we had walked nigh on 30 kilometres in mountainous terrain.

The following morning we decided to try to take a more direct route towards Talula, where we had read there are hot springs. When we asked a kind person who appeared as we were leaving Sisipunku he gave us the impression that it was easy just to walk down off the hill in direction the river Pilcomayo, a famous course that eventually spills into the Mar del Plata between Montevideo and Buenos Aires and out to the Atlantic. Having walked a few kilometres and not finding any real ramblers’ path we rambled back up to the escarpment directly south of Sisipunku and discovered there is no real path other than the road down to Quillaquilla but we cut a few dozen kilometres by descending down a green vegetated 70 degree outer wall off the volcano. I had to prepare my partner and myself and when we had descended the half kilometre plus face we looked back up with our legs trembling, again thanking our lucky selves that we are as physically capable as we are. It is recommended to follow the road.

ph.15 descent from Maragua crater

We then did just that and Thalita soon stretched a sturdy lead on me passing a couple of villages in search of the Talula hot springs. I had figured it to be a hotbed of volcanic activity, as any ‘aguas calientes’ in the Andes or anywhere near them is not nomenclature for a hot shower, but naturally heated water that springs up because of the volcanically and tectonically active mountains themselves. After a few hours, far below Purunquila, on a well kept descent to the infamously polluted Rio Pilcomayo, we discovered the last few hundred metres of the road, which had been cut into the riverbank to the baths, had been washed away some years before and that the infrastructure at the end of Chuquisaca had simply been abandoned decades before.

ph.16 descent to Talula

Thalita thinks www.lonelyplanet.com ought to stop misleading readers and followers but rereading it, there’s nothing at fault with the publishers. The bathing building really just needs to be renovated and some innovative workers could re-open with enormous rewards either as a hostel or simply a day visiting site with a restaurant and café. In any case the investment would require some planning and a lot of good work including with the transportation workers, the truck drivers. In addition to the bathing possibilities, the footbridge and access to Potosi region are here. We camped overnight, I bathed and washed in the silt ridden Pilcomayo and we drank and ate the last of our tea and soup, hoping the public transport service really reached this low outpost sometime the following morning.

  ph.17 Talula footbridge plaque                                                   

As we emerged at the offices at the end of the ‘bus route’ we felt encouraged in finding an elderly woman fighting her flies and a couple of guys strangely posted behind a bush attending something like a barbecue. We conversed a little and felt reassured that the woman was also planning to catch the flatback truck back up and into the higher mountains towards supposed civilisation in Sucre. This river valley is somewhere below 3000 metres above sea level but the thousands of kilometres Pilcomayo has cut down to the Atlantic offer fishing opportunities seldom found anywhere. Here, however, near its headwaters there’s an incredible innocence amongst the people who consider it a natural waste effuse course. The elder with the flies had just eaten some chemically infused milk that resembled nuclear waste in colour and thrown the plastic packaging with the glucose, artificial colorants, etc. She didn’t seem aware that the flies had come just because of her litter bugging behaviour! I wondered about the ignorant generations of American pollutants, ... and Coca-Cola specifically as the worst of the worst.

 ph.18 footbridge connecting Potosi & Chuquisaca  ph.19 Talula

Focussing on the driver and his cohorts in the front row of the truck, I didn’t notice the guys who’d been heating the rock bringing it over and dropping it into the soup cauldron but we were genuinely hungry and bought the best fast snack imaginable, with re-usable ceramic bowls & metal spoons with nothing plastic, excepting our camping gear! I only wished I’d baked some bread! We gulped our maize-based hot soup, kala purca, down into our emptied stomachs and felt truly grateful for an almost square meal. Fast food without all the crap, namely kala purca! Who needs gas! It has been written that in a few restaurants in Sucre and Potosì they serve it up but to be honest the real thing has been produced in Talula in Chuquisaca near the politically mapped line to Potosí.

 ph.20 Pilcomayo river valley

Truck boarded, we strained ourselves back towards the capital considering what the intermittent passengers of the region were loading on to distribute in Sucre, amongst the pots and pans were bushels of very mildly smelling herbs or greens. It wasn’t coca, marijuana or any other regularly recognisable herbs, nor spinach or kaley-kale, however, the Chola traders probably had consumers in mind to sell to or provide for. The trail back up and over the serrated edge from Quillaquilla towards Sucre is a wee bit less intimidating than that between Chaunaca and Sucre but it is still more breathtaking than most European Alpine routes and if it ever is tarmacced it’d make for some good cycling. I guess Colombian cyclists have a headstart on many, if their routes are maintained with smoothish tarmac. Some rally enthusiasts had broken their sportscar and were sitting idly hoping or waiting for assistance before we passed a near perfect corrie between the peaks on the eastern side and I felt a big downer as we headed back into the suburbs of Sucre towards our chosen hostel. It was refreshing to observe Sucre’s suburbanites greeting the truckload of oddbods back into the legislative capital. I couldn’t picture anything similar in Brasilia, Canberra or Washington and yet I did think of Abuja, Dili, Kathmandu and Yamoussoukro, without developing world stereotypes but more simply because of a purer united human spirit.

ph.21 Thalita

And Thalita and I certainly felt purer having completed our 84 hour adventure in the ‘Cordillera dos Frailles’, Chuquisaca. The way we discovered them, with hindsight, could hardly have been better but most might feel better with a good geographer reading a map!