Vacation to Villa Tunari

Feb 14-Feb 17, 2017

Our Valentines Day Cruise

We just returned from 4 days in Villa Tunari during the Temple break. Villa Tunari is 4 hours (162 kilometers) from Cochabamba over high mountains. We went with Carl and Joyce Glaettli from Nampa. They will return home in 4 weeks.

We went in a van with a driver and our tour guide Marvel. They took us everywhere, and took very good care of us. About halfway to Villa Tunari we hit the jungle. This is quite a change from Cochabamba. Cochabamba is cool and not humid. The jungle is much hotter and humid. There are very few bugs in Cochabamba, and many bugs and animals in the jungle, especially mosquitoes.

We were blessed while we were there. There were very few mosquitoes out during our stay. It was hot the first day and night. Then it cooled some and we had lots of rain. It rained a lot at night, and seemed to let up in the day time just when we needed  to go somewhere. The only thing the rain prevented us from doing was going into the monkey reserve. We still went there, and saw a couple monkeys on the outside.

The rivers are full of fish, some of them gigantic. We saw a picture of a man with a fish about as big as himself. We ate some of the best fish we had ever tasted in Villa Tunari. We ate fish every day. We also had cooked sweet bananas, yucca, french fries, and rice. We also had some interesting fruit juice and ice cream.

Our first meal in Villa Tunari. The fish was called Pacu, a relative of piranha. It was delicious.

This was a very nice restaurant. We ate here a couple times. This was on the wall.

This was a neat waterfall on the restaurant grounds.

On Tuesday after we ate, we went straight to Parque Nacional Carrasco. We saw lots of trees and bushes. One kind of tree (Palo Santo or Palo Diablo) is hollow and has ants living in it. If you want to kill someone, you can tie them to the tree, and the ants will come out and eat the person alive. I think I remember seeing that in a movie when I was a young girl. We went in a bat cave, and a bird cave, and crossed the river in a metal car which our guide moved by hand. Our guide had to hook himself to the line and go and get the car and then bring it back for all of us to get into. It was a bit of excitement for old people.

Learning about the Jungle

termite nest

the man eating ant tree (Our guide told Martin to not lean against the tree??)

these are actually part of the roots of the tree

This is the entrance to the bat cave. You can't tell, but there is a crevice that drops about 20 feet into a creek. It was scarier than it looks. There were 4 kinds of bats in the cave. I can only remember 2 - fruit and vampire bats.

We bravely crossed creeks..

This tree had vines growing from it. We asked our guide if he could swing like Tarzan.

This is the metal box we got into (twice) to cross the river.

A view of the river crossing

One of the many beautiful flowers that we saw on our trip.

We didn't see any nice hotels in Villa Tunari. The one we stayed in wasn't great, but compared to what we saw, was probably on the higher side. You certainly don't go there for luxury. The first night I got a big surprise of having a cockroach share my shower.(No picture available) I watched it closely to make sure it didn't decide to crawl on me. They say you can't kill a cockroach, but I think I killed that one. 

This was the entrance to our Motel. The grounds were lovely. They fed us a nice breakfast in the morning before we left each day in the main building.

This was a four plex. One day as I was taking pictures, one of the tenants walked over to where I had been standing, pointed to the ground, and told me I couldn't take pictures from there. She was very friendly.

I decided to not go swimming. In fact I didn't see anyone swimming in this pool.

On Wednesday we went to a small zoo. Some of the animals were in cages and others just ran around. The crocodiles and turtles were in cages, and the coatis were just running around They were very friendly. One climbed up on Elder Glaettli’s shoulder, and then peed down his shirt. Good thing he was a farm boy. He just laughed. I was glad it wasn’t me. We had seen coatis in Iguazu Falls. In Argentina there were signs up saying they could bite and were dangerous. They had a picture of an arm with a big bleeding wound. Everyone kept petting the coatis as they followed us around the zoo. So, at the end I got brave and tried to touch one. I ended up touching it’s tail. It turned around and scratched my leg and tried to bite me. I backed up fast because I had seen those pictures of a gaping wound in Argentina. Luckily, I just got scratched instead of getting bitten. That was the end of any friendship I might have developed with a coati.

We saw interesting trees and bushes. We saw a cinnamon tree. The bark did smell like cinnamon. We saw palm trees with coconuts, a coffee bush, , a tree that produces chocolate, and coca (unrefined cocaine) bushes. We joked that there was coco (coconut), cacao (chocolate), and coca (cocaine leaves). You could be in trouble if you get them mixed up. “I’d like some coca please”. The two biggest crops of this area are the coca leaves and bananas. There were banana plants everywhere. Many people in Bolivia suck on the coca leaves to give them “energy”. They carry heavy loads on their backs and work very hard. I guess the coca leaves deaden the pain. Many of them look very old and their teeth are black and falling out. I do not know what the process is to turn coca leaves into cocaine.

very interesting flowers

Don't the coatis look very tame and nice?

Our young guide showing us the coca plants

Coca-one of the biggest crops in the area (no we didn't try any)

We only saw these crocodiles in a cage

Cinnamon tree - Canela 

Rubber tree (goma)

There were some really long roots from some trees, many of them on top of the ground.

This was another interesting tree. I guess you can't see much of it because we are blocking the view.

My injury from the friendly coati above. (Yes mom, I cleaned it well.)

Another one of the beautiful flowers

Next ,we went to La Jungla. They had a wooden swinging walkway, swings that you had to climb up to get on, and some zip lines. They weren’t scary to ride on, just scary to climb up and get situated. They wouldn’t meet OSHA standards, and I was a little afraid I might get hung on the highest swing because I had trouble getting the “noose” underneath my armpits. We had fun though, and no one died. I wondered if someone might have though. We then walked down to the river and had something to snack on.

Here I am getting to swing off the platform. It was fun once you got the noose under your armpits.

This is a higher one. I loved the ride, but I couldn't get the rope under my armpits. My helper kept telling me to move closer to the edge. I finally got it on without falling off first. There were no safety precautions taken here.

The four of us at the entrance to La Jungla

One evening we visited the city plaza. It was very nice. There were some cool carvings.

Fish are a very important industry for the people here. 

A mother monkey and her baby.

This looked like it was carved out of a big tree.

Some more monkeys

On Thursday we rode for about 1 ½ hours to another river called Rio Ichilo and rode on an old rickety boat. Almost everything looks old and rickety in Bolivia from what we have seen so far. The houses, the stores, the boats. You don’t go there for the beauty of the structures, you go there for the beauty of nature, and it is beautiful. We didn’t know what we were supposed to see on the river. We didn’t go very far. The captain started whistling very loudly. Our guide told us he was trying to call the dolphins. At first we thought she was kidding, but I guess there are pink dolphins that live in the river among the monster fish. She showed us some pictures of the pink dolphins, but that is all we saw were the pictures, because they didn’t show up. They said you have less chance to see them when it rains. (I'm still wondering if this was anything like Snipe hunting?) So we only saw pictures of the pink dolphins and the monster fish, but we ate some of the best fish I have ever tasted. The fish was called tambaqui. If you ever go to the Bolivian jungle, try some. We still had a good experience. It's a good thing we didn't fly clear to Bolivia to see pink dolphins. We would have been really disappointed. 

These kids had backpacks, so we wondered if this was their transportation to school.

Enjoying the breeze.

Nice day for a boat ride. It had quit raining for awhile.

The boat we road on. Not the fanciest boat I've ever been on.

Friday was our last day. I didn’t put on any mosquito repellent because it had started to make my neck turn red and itch. We hadn’t been bitten by any mosquitoes, so I thought we were okay. Unfortunately, Martin decided to wait to put it on, also.

We went to the monkey reserve, but it wasn’t open because of the rain. One of the guides there told us about the monkeys. Many of them were abandoned. We did become friends with a mother monkey and her baby riding on her back, and could see the alpha male watching them and us from a distance. I wouldn’t have wanted to make him mad. Monkeys have sharp teeth, too.

Marvel made friends with the mother monkey. The baby on her back was asleep.

We were able to go into this building, but not the reserve.

This sign speaks for itself. Don't have a monkey for a pet.

The monkey climbed on top of our car, waiting for a ride.

We stopped at an old abandoned resort. It was pretty, but things were falling apart. When we got back to the car, I had to use the “outhouse” there. It was terrible. It was dark inside and there was about a 4 inch cockroach in the toilet. Martin and I both used it and we both got about 30 mosquito bites on our arms, which we didn’t know about until they started swelling up. I was glad to have not been bitten on a more sensitive area, but we were mad at ourselves for not putting on mosquito repellent.

One of buildings at the abandoned resort

Martin's bites hardly hurt at all. He did catch a cold, though. Of course, I'm having an allergic reaction to them. I looked on line for remedies. So far I've tried benadryl, a hot spoon, ointments, tea tree oil, lavender, deodorant, vinegar,  baking soda, toothpaste (really), honey, and of course long sleeves.  This is the third day. I guess they are a little better. (I can't see them very well through the dried on toothpaste)

We stopped for lunch at a trout farm. There was a lovely stream and they had made a few waterfalls. They fed us trout (trucha) for lunch. By then my stomach was really bothering me, so I didn’t order any. I had a few bites of Martin’s fish, and it was really good. It reminded me of all the trout my dad caught and cooked for us growing up.

The stream that feeds the trout farm (trucha)

The view at the trout farm from our eating table.

We always had a dog or cat waiting for scraps. At the trout farm we had chickens.

The owner wasn't very happy to have chickens eating on the abandoned table and came to chase them away.

It was a little frightening coming home because of all the trucks on the windy roads. Luckily our driver was pretty careful, so we made it home okay. (no seat belts)

As we drove along on our trip I saw women sitting on rocks, washing their clothes in the river. You see them bathing in the rivers. There are so many beautiful streams coming down the mountainsides. They rush over rocks smoothed by time. In one of these streams I saw a woman among the rocks washing her beautiful, very long black hair. She had it flipped over the front of her head as she rang the water out. Her child was sitting on a rock watching her. So many of the things we see just have to be “mind” pictures. It would be hard to describe it all. There are hundreds of little mini stores all along the roads. They sell about everything you can think of. The Chollitas sit on the ground, or a small stool. They may have a baby on their back, in their lap or near by. There may be several other children around her. Few have cars. They walk, ride a bus, or a motorcycle. There may be up to 5 people on a motorcycle. We passed one with a father driving with about a 2 year old sitting in front of him. The mother sitting behind him had a very small infant in a sling squished between them. It’s hard to get pictures, and so hard to describe it all.

all kinds of bananas

driving by a banana stand (sorry for the reflection)

We stopped at some little shops. This woman had ordered some meat and the shop owner handed her the little whip on a stick to keep the flies off while she waited for her meat.

This whole truck is full of bananas

It rains a lot here, so the taxis have umbrellas.

Taxi drivers waiting to get gas.

They use a lot of propane here. Everyone had to get out of our car each time they filled it up with propane. This is our tour van being filled with natural gas.

Our guide told us there are over 300 kinds of potatoes grown in Bolivia. We saw a lot of potatoes growing on the mountains. It was hard to imagine how they could get to some of the areas to plant, take care of, and harvest the potatoes without falling off the mountain side.

This is a big potato warehouse that we passed.

This isn't a very good picture taken from the car, but if you look at the blue tarp, this is how they dry the coca leaves.

One of the many beautiful waterfalls and small streams coming off the mountains.

It is very humbling to see how little many of the people have in this country. I was reading the Relief Society lesson today. President Hinckley was talking about all the sacrifices the Pioneers made to join the church and to go to Salt Lake. He stated that there are still pioneers today. There are pioneers in many of these countries. They ride buses on winding, dangerous roads to come to the Cochabamba Temple. They ride overnight to get to temple in the morning, or a whole day, or two days. They come from Chile, Peru, Argentina, and all over Bolivia. Many of them carry their belongings on their backs in a blanket. If I start complaining, I try to think of these people and thank Heavenly Father for my blessings.

 We have a great place to live here on the temple grounds. As I listen to so much complaining back home in the USA, I wish more people could experience how much of the rest of the world lives. The Lord has blessed our country. One woman asked me if my husband was retired. She said that she will never be able to “retire”, but will have to work the rest of her life. So many of them work until they die. Quite often I look at some of them and think they look like they are about ready to die, but they are still carrying huge loads on their back. May we appreciate the blessings we have.

Tomorrow- off to La Paz and Lake Titicaca. It's is very high and  cold there. Can't wait!