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| The view from our hostel in Samaipata. These smaller hearts were made by children from the town. |
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| Me drinking papaya juice on our first meal in Samiapata. |
I was even more excited to find out that I was going to a small mountain town about 2 1/2 hours away from Santa Cruz. I had said yes to the trip before I even knew where exactly where I was going... just trusting my friends to figure it out, well at least the destination. There wasn't much planning after that. We didn't find a hotel beforehand, so we were told that if we went up there we might be able to find a place to stay. With that glimmer of hope we got a taxi (well the taxi was supposed to be filled with 8 people, but we bought the whole thing out for just us 3) It was still only around 40 dollars person to drive over 2 hours, not too bad.
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| Outside of our hostel :) |
As we drove into town we asked the taxi driver to suggest somewhere to sleep and crossed our figures hoping for an opening. A cute little hostel was presented in front of us and the best part was that it was right off of the main plaza. Which was all decorated with hearts. I guess we were up there for lovers weekend lol. It made it feel very fancy for some reason, surrounded by trees and walkways filled with hand made hearts might have helped. The only problem with being so close to the plaza was that everyone was looking to party the long weekend.
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| Us with the guide after our hike in the cloud forest :) |
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| Hiking in the forest. It was a warm day, but we needed the plants because most of the plants had thorns. |
One other thing that we had no idea about... that there would be no ATMs in the town we were going to. We didn't think that it would be a problem since pretty much every where you look in Santa Cruz there is an ATM Between the 3 of us we were able to have enough money to make it threw the weekend if we used my US credit card for the large day trips.
With Samaipata being a small hippy mountain town there was plenty to do when it came to outdoor activities. The group decided to do a short hike through the "cloud" or "fern" forest. The name would change depending on who you talked to. It was a nice short hike through a pretty lush forest. The best part was the ferns. They just look so ancient, like something frozen in time. Their trunks aren't make out of wood, they are the old fern palms fused together to make the trunk. Our guide could stab his machete almost through the whole trunk. He would also point out all these different plants that were helpful for many different ailments. It was so nice to be hiking and out of the city. I am sure that I was all smiles through out the day.
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| I don't know if you can see the line done the center, but this is the older part of the ruins. |
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| Side of the ruins |
The second day we went to El Fuerte. "A fort" that first was settled by a pre-Inca culture. Then built upon by the Incas and the Spaniards. It was inspiring to be around something that old. I have been to old castles in Germany and Scotland, but nothing compares to pre-Inca.. Although our guide kept talking about how these 2 lines in the middle the fort might have been made for space crafts. I am pretty sure that there are lots of people that come by with that belief. He was almost set on that it might the real answer. I have tried to do more research on El Fuerte since going there, but there really isn't much out there. It really isn't that big of a site and the longer I am done here the more I am noticing that there is a ton of Inca ruins all over the Andes. I was still in awe of it.
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| It was a much needed and loved weekend get away :) |
I will hopefully be better about my up dates. We have our SACS accreditation coming this week, so we were extra busy getting all of the paper work and classroom together. Hopefully after this week I can get back to a normal routine.
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