Inca Ruins, Natural Beauty & Che´s Final Days

After leaving the refuge and spending a couple of days in the relatively modern town of Santa Cruz, Heidi and I headed off to Samaipata, Bolivia, a relatively sleepy town catering to tourists looking to visit any of the surrounding places of natural beauty. After a 3 hour ride on horrible roads in a cramped mini-van we found a modest little hotel for about $10/night.

Since it was still early in the afternoon we decided to hire a cab to take us to El Fuerte, an archaeological and UNESCO World Heritage site about 10 km outside of town. Although the ruins of an ancient Inca settlement are nestled around the main site, it is believed to pre-date that culture, having been constructed by the Chanes people for religious purposes. The main part of the site is a gigantic sandstone rock covered with various carvings, including animals and many other items. A History Channel series on ancient aliens gave some credence to the theory that the sandstone was once an alien launching pad. Anyways, we walked around for about an hour before heading back into town.

Our next goals were to take a guided nature hike through some part of a forest and to follow the Ruta del Che, a tourist trail following the final days of Ernesto "Che" Guevara´s life, and dream of leading a continent-wide revolution against Yankee Imperialism. After speaking with a couple of tour guides we decided to go with an outift called Roadrunner´s (for our hike), owned by a couple of friendly European chaps who loved Samaipata so much they decided to call it home. (Incidentally, one of them told us his house and land cost $65k USD and would have cost well over €1 million back in his home of the Netherlands.) For about $20/pp we were taken on a half-day hike with a four other tourists through El Refugio Los Volcanes, part of Amboro National Park with beautiful sandstone formations, but no volcanoes. (They also offered a tour on the Ruta del Che, however it was about $300/pp for a three-day tour...and that was way over our budget. Instead, we got free advice from them on how to do the tour ourselves!)

Our tour through El Refugio Los Volcanes started at the fancy Laguna Volcan Hotel and Golf "Eco" Resort. It´s a beautiful little resort which has bankrupted two previous owners, despite the land having only cost $1,000! Now it´s owned by a European consortium of millionaires as a pet project which will never realize a profit. (Inbcidentally, we learned that the "eco" in Bolivia just means the resort is in a natural setting, but there is no real concern for the surrounding ecosystem. For example, golf balls are launched from the driving range into the lagoon, since the splash allows you to better spot how far the ball flew.) Anyways, our guide Martin just took us to the resort as a jumping off point for our hike along the edges of Amboro and then along the Rio Colorado.

Along the tour we had some beautiful scenery and lovely views. While we spotted very little wildlife our guide was extremely interesting, showing us different plant life and explaining myriad things along the way. For example, Amboro is largely unexplored with many undocumented animals and bugs. (A new species of monkey was discovered there only two years ago.) Moreover, this remote part of the park has only been crossed once, and it took 20 days to hike across just over 40 miles of wilderness! We stopped along the river twice for some quick dips to cool off, before making our way back to our waiting car. The entire hike took about 5 hours and was great...with the exception of Heidi rolling her ankle four times.

There are a number of Westerners who have set up shop in Samaipata, either to operate tour outfits, or to feed the hungry tourists. As such, the gastronomic choices were much better in this quiet hamlet than in many major cities we have visited thus far. The Crazy Cow and Tierra Libre are two such restaurants, offering up excellent fare, including healthier options than your typical fried chicken with rice and potato chips, which can be found on nearly every corner in Bolivia.

From Samaipata we wanted to get to Vallegrande, in order to start following the Ruta del Che. Our first goal: wave down a bus to pick us up. We waited on the side of the road and the first bus stopped when we waved. As a number of passengers got off to urinate on the side of the road we paid our fare and hopped on the rickety, and slow moving, bus. Huge bags of rice lined the aisle, forcing half of the passengers to walk over them in order to get to their seats. The bus stopped one more time, for a lunch break, before rumbling into Vallegrande.

We arrived in Vallegrande on October 9, exactly 43 years to the day that Che Guevara was executed in the nearby village of La Higuera. As such, a number of people with Che gear were milling about, including about 50 men on motorcycles, no doubt as an homage to the fallen revolutionary hero. We checked into another modest place, running just under $9/night. After shedding our gear we headed to the main square, where we checked out a sparsely adorned, yet extremely informational, museum about Che, and booked a tour for the following day, which included sites in La Higuera and Vallegrande. (Incidentally, the tour was about 20% of the cost of the one quoted in Samaipata, covering the same historic places but not including food or lodging.)

After grabbing a salteña and some freshly made juice at the local market we met with our guide at 8am. He explained that we´d be meeting a different guide after a 2-hour taxi ride to La Higuera. Well, we never got a guide but our taxi driver was extremely nice and made some stops along the route for Che-related photos, including a natural rock formation known as the Beret of Che and at a vantage point not far from where Guevara was captured by Bolivian forces.

Guevara chose Bolivia to start his South American revolution because it was relatively centrally located on the continent. There he and 51 others began setting up base somewhere outside of Vallegrande. When a group of revolutionaries asked a local man to advise them where they could find clean water their fate was sealed, as the local informed the CIA-advised Bolivian forces and 1,800 troops were called in to ambush the guerillas the following day. Guevara was wounded and captured and taken into the schoolhouse of La Higuera, where he remained until October 9, 1967 when he was executed. Today the schoolhouse stands as a museum to the man, and an homage to the revolutionary ideals which he represented.

After La Higuera we headed back to Vallegrande, where Guevara´s lifeless body was taken via helicopter following his execution. His body was taken to the laundry building of the Señora de Malta hospital, where it was washed and later displayed to the world press...prior to his hands being severed and flown elsewhere for purposes of fingerprinting. (The launsry room stands today as a place of pilgrimage for those who idolized the man and, more importantly, what he represented.) His body, and those of 6 other guerillas killed, were then buried in a mass grave, to be lost for decades.

In the mid-90´s American author and historian Jon Lee Anderson published a book, with an account from a Bolivian soldier, stating that Guevara was buried somewhere near the Vallegrande airstrip. This led to a two-year long search, ending in the discovery of the mass grave in 1997. The legendary icon would then be moved, along with his 6 comrades, into a nearby mausoleum. This was the last stop on our tour along the Ruta del Che.

Today three of the guerillas who fought alongside Guevara are still alive, one in France and two in Chile. Despite the majority of those in the movement having met a violent death, the ideals of Che live on today in the hearts and minds of people all over the world...