26th April - Sorata in the Cordillera Real and an Aborted Walk

Having seen the Cordillera Real in the distance we got an early bus out of Copacabana and headed for the small town of Sorata which lies under Mount Illampu (6368m) and Mount Janaq'u Uma (6,427m).

The 'big breakfast' in Copacabana

Waiting for the bus in Copacabana
We caught the La Paz bound bus which at one point stops by Lake Titicaca. You have to get out and catch a motor boat across while the bus goes on a different ferry to join you on the other side. We were a little bewildered as to what was going on at first, its not quite the Dartford Crossing.

The bus crossing the lake



Landing the bus

Around the bus landing station
We asked the driver to let us out in Huarina where we were to get our connection to Sorata. Needless to say he forgot and so when we gently reminded him he hailed a bus going the other way and we had a dash across the road to get that one back and then changed in Huarina without any problem.
We were in Sorata by late morning and so, after booking in to our hostel and dropping our gear off, we went down to the market to buy some food for our hike.



Sorata is considerably lower than Copacabana (2695m) and is in the Yunga area of Bolivia - the hinterland between the high Andes and the Amazon basin. So it was rather warmer than we had been used to. The town has 2,200 inhabitants and used to be on an important route between the Bolivian gold fields and La Paz. The town gained notoriety in 2003 when a blockade on the road out to La Paz, formed to express the dissatisfaction of the campesinos (the native farmers) led to the downfall of the government and trapped hundreds of Bolivians and tourists inside the town. The army stepped in and one person was killed starting a riot.
It also figured during the uprising against the Spanish in 1791 when the indigenous leader Andres Tupac Amaru and his 16000 soldiers dammed the river above the town and let it fill up dykes they had constructed. They destroyed the walls of the dykes and the water washed away the town.
It was a lot quieter when we were there.

We set out on our walk. We had planned to go to the caves of San Pedro, about 2 hours away. Here there is an underground pool and bats live in the caves, quite exciting we thought. 
The way takes you by the road which was unpaved and very dusty. Every time a car came by we were covered. So we decided to try and cut off the road on to a path. 
We crossed a little stream


The path itself was very dry and filled with wild flowers. We had great views over the mountains.







We eventually reached the road again. There was construction machinery on it and in one place it had been ploughed up and heaped to a height of around 2m which we had to climb over.


The traffic had all now gone and the road went down into a gorge on the one side with the mountain going up on the other.






We passed some crosses marking where a car had gone over the side (the car was still there, hopefully the passengers had been removed).


And a little further on we came to a sign saying that the road was closed due to rock falls. The summer rain must have washed sections of it away. We were going to carry on regardless when we saw and heard some rocks falling down over the road a bit further ahead. Discretion proved the better part of valour and Mairi managed to pick out a footpath going back towards the town. It followed the course of the river which, for the first part, ran in a gorge beneath us.





We came across a house with a small pig resting in the shade in the front garden.









A flock of green parakeets seemed to follow us - they chattered as they flew.
Eventually we came down to a shady path running alongside the gardens of a hotel. Aloes were growing on the earth sides. We came back down to the stream and walked to our hostel.






By the hostel
Late afternoon we walked down to the centre to get something to eat. The main square had a rather unusual water feature in it and was shaded with palm trees.





We ate in the Colonial Restaurant and then went back to sleep - another early bus tomorrow. This time to La Paz.











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