Santa Cruz sits in the low country at kind of a cross roads for ecosystems. To the west is the “Elbow of the Andes” in which sits Amboró National Park which is one of the most biodiverse parks in the world with 3000 different plant species and 830 different birds. To the south is more desert region which includes these massive sand dunes that you can sandboard down.
Though the stay in Santa Cruz was cost effective, booking tours was not. The budget wouldn’t allow us to do both Amboró and the sand dunes and Amboró seemed more interesting to us (plus we were unsure how Julia’s ankle would do in the sand and boarding down the sand). In the end, we discovered why the tour cost what it did: we got both a driver and a guide and we needed both. There was just no way you could do this yourself without local help. Our trip was two days, with a night stay in the town of Samaipata.
Before heading out, we decided that we would try out K Tape on Julia’s ankle and just have her brace along in case. This allows her to use her better hiking shoes and we thought it would be a good trial run for future hikes. A few videos and a consult with Grandpa, and we were ready to go. Her ankle is doing much better and the hiking we did this weekend was more strenuous than we originally thought, but the taping (and all those exercises Julia has been doing) did its job.
On our way out of town, our guide asked “Would you like to see some sloths and monkeys?” This wasn’t on the description of what we were supposed to be doing, but we quickly learned this is the advantage of a local guide. Santa Cruz borders a river and there was a small park there that he took us to. We found the sloths (but only heard the monkeys) and there is no way we could have found them without him.
The other advantages of a guide? Local snacks! He asked if we would like to try some Bolivian snacks and along the way, whenever he or the driver would see someone selling something that they thought would be okay for us, they would pull off and grab some. Featured above: brown sugar suckers, plantain chips, packets of honey, and a cheesy bun.
The drive to Samaipata is about 3 hours and the scenery changed from plains, to foothills, to this. The road also changed from flat paved, to windy paved, to under construction and definitely not paved.
Samaipata is famous for its European flair as numerous waves of Europeans settled there, primarily Jewish people and Germans. We had lunch at a nice restaurant, got to do a bit of shopping, and visited the city plaza. Our guide had Annika stand on this small circle and told her to talk and she discovered that she could hear herself. One of those interesting feature that we would have just walked by without a guide.
El Fuerte
About 20 minutes outside of Samaipata is UNESCO World Heritage Site called El Fuerte de Samaipata or just El Fuerte by the locals. It is a large sand stone rock on which there are numerous carvings and settlements. Like many archeological sites, this location has changed hands a number of times as explained by our guide. The earliest carvings were from the original indigenous people of the land, long before the Inca. He also said there was evidence that Amazonian people also settled there. As the Inca empire expanded, this became one of their administrative and religious locations. Lastly, the Spanish also setup a settlement for a while, however in the fighting with the Inca and other tribes, it was eventually abandoned and got covered over with forest. It wasn’t until the 1970s that they started to excavate it.
The first lookout on the way to the top, looking out towards Samaipata. El Fuerta was right at the point where it changes from more drier/desert landscape to more lush trees and standing at this point and looking in both directions, you could really tell that.
On the dry side, there was this echo point that Annika ran up and gave a very week “hello?” and claimed it didn’t work. I replied with a “no, you need to really shout it like this” and as you can tell by her huge smile, that worked!
The sand stone rock had many carvings and hollows cut out of it, mostly for religious purposes by the original Indigenous people. The Inca and Spanish added walls out from the rock.
Looking out from the rock to the dry side you can see all the terraces and buildings that supported a community.
The terraces were pretty big and they think this location could have supported a couple hundred people. We could see that there are still walls and structures buried in the woods, but the Bolivian government has decided not to excavate any further.
The view from the top looking towards the greener, Amboró National Park side.
El Pueblito
We haven’t really posted many pictures of the hotels we stayed in, but this one was so unique it was worth including. Our hotel for the night was up in the hills overlooking Samaipata and it is organized like a little village. We stayed in the “Blacksmith House” and there were other little houses in the village. It was fun and the girls liked the peahens and peacocks.
Giant Ferns of Amboró National Park
When we were first looking at the itinerary from the tour company, this is probably the part that caught our eyes the most. Little did we know what an ordeal it was to make it happen. We at first thought the road to Samaipata was bumpy and windy, and it was. However to get up to our hotel, we had to go up a really steep washed out road and we thought that was pretty bumpy. Little did we know, we were just getting prepped for our travel to the park. Let’s just say quite a few prayers were said as we went.
Even though this was considered a National Park, our guide explained that it is very political. According to him, Inca farmers have been moving down and claiming land inside the edge of the park as their own. The government has basically let this happen, so our entrance into the park was a two part process. First, stopping at the little hut on the road up and paying the entrance fee and registering our names. Then walking up the entrance road and meeting the farmer who let us in by a gate through his barb wired fence. Julia asked our guide about the original “entrance fees” and what the government does with it and the guide kind of laughed and said that, no, that goes to the farmer too. Nothing is really marked, so there is no way we could have navigated those roads, found the entrance, or negotiated an entrance with the farmer without our guide.
Seeing those giant ferns was worth it though, especially given that the farmers are now clearing the national park and cutting down the giant ferns, so there sadly might not be many left in the future.
They are super unique and it feels like you’ve stepped back in time and that a dinosaur could step out at any moment.
I felt that I should include pictures that show a little bit of the reality verses the more tourist type of pictures. These were wonderful lookouts that we hiked to while in the national park but you can see what our guide was talking about, the park is being cleared for farming. I took the last picture as we were driving back to Samaipata while at the outskirts of town. The reality is that a lot of what you see is more like this.
Las Cuevas Waterfalls
Our last stop before driving back to Santa Cruz was a set of three water falls. Having seen so many waterfalls now, they were in some sense, just another set of waterfalls. However, each is unique, and with these, we could go swimming in them which was definitely the main draw for the locals.
We had a wonderful two days learning and exploring and were thankful for our guide and driver. We also gained a newfound and deep appreciation for paved roads, guard rails and Gravol (and if you add Bolivia traffic in general to this – we also have a new appreciation for lanes, stop lights, rules about passing, rules about following too close, and rules about emissions (which become especially important when there are no rules about following too close!!)). What better way to finish it off than with one last stop for snacks – juices we’ve never heard of!
