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!