Parque Nacional Torotoro

Along with the Salar de Uyuni and Lake Titicaca, Torotoro National Park is one of the natural wonders of Bolivia. Set in a beautiful, arid rocky landscape, it is isolated and relatively unexplored, riddled with dinosaur tracks and punctuated by dizzying drop-offs into deep canyons. You can climb down into one of the canyons and clamber over boulders along the river until a sunny swimming hole appears next to a shimmering waterfall. Torotoro straddles the departments of Cochabamba and Potosí but is best reached from Cochabamba (130 km). It is highly recommended for the adventurous traveller. Torotoro covers an area of 16,570 ha and was declared a national park in 1989.

The park

Torotoro is actually a huge hanging valley at 2700 m surrounded by 3500-m-high mountains and criss-crossed by deep ravines. This is definitely an area of great scientific interest. Geologists, palaeontologists, archaeologists and botanists have all carried out studies here to investigate the discovery of dinosaur bones, fossils of turtles and sea shells, as well as archaeological ruins and pictographs. Other attractions include caves, canyons, waterfalls, and 80-million-year-old dinosaur tracks, which can be seen by the stream just outside the village and practically everywhere you walk, if there is a guide to show you.

The area also has its living attractions. Condors and red-fronted macaws can be seen quite easily and scattered throughout the valley are small traditional communities whose people are friendly and welcoming. The climate is temperate all year round and in winter nights are fresh and the days are not too hot. Ideal in fact for walking or camping.

The village of Torotorolies at the head of the valley and is in the department of Potosí. It serves as a convenient starting point for all the hikes in the area and its people are very hospitable. There is no electricity, only a generator, which runs in the evening until the village's one video cinema ends its screening.

A good one-day trip is to Umajalanta Cave, a cavern with many stalactites and a lake full of blind fish, about 8 km northwest of the village. Wearing a gas-powered headlamp, it's a tight crawl in places and definitely not for the claustrophobic. Many stalactites were taken by day-trippers before the area was declared a national park. A two-hour walk away are the Pozas Bateas, passing 1000-year-old rock paintings. Three hours away is El Vergelor 'Nariz de Vaca' (Cow's Nose), where two waterfalls pour out from the rockface and where you can swim in crystal clear water. A three-day trip from the village is to Llamachaqui, which are untouched pre-Columbian ruins in beautiful sub-tropical surroundings. It's 20 km each way to the ruins.

Siete Vueltasis an area of extensive fossils, 5 km from the village. There are also extensive areas of dinosaur tracks, and many rock paintings, close to the Torotoro river and on the many nearby walks. You can grab a clump of dead grass and be prepared to sweep out the dirt from tracks left 60 to 90 million years ago by meat-eating veloceraptors and eight-ton vegetarian sauropods. Look very closely and you may even see where the mud extruded between their toes.