Old Piles of Words Because the word is mightier than the stone.

Cerro Tunari

According to our (in?)famous Lonely Planet, Parque Cerro Tunari, just out of Cochabamba and up the hill, is a great day outing from the city, with pick nick tables, play areas or kids, and nice trails for walking around. Our guide, alas, dates all the way back to 2007. Another age entirely...

As we got off the bus under the old, run down sign that welcomed us t the National Park, we started walking up the hill, periodically asking locals if we were on the right way, and getting the unavoidable hand gesture with a "por alla" vaguely pointing up the hill. After spending a while wandering through fields and what were probably private property, we decided to head back down and start over.

A kid finally showed us the right way, and we go to the fairly abandoned-looking park entrance. We found the trail up, and started to follow it, although it was well on its way to being reclaimed entirely by mother nature. We got to a little playground at the same time as two kids leading a flock of sheep, and played on the slide while the sheep grazed nearby. The minigolf nearby was clearly abandoned.

We continued our way up a pretty good paved trail, and arrived to another play ground. A ghost playground, more precisely, with broken swings and slides, surrounded by spooky vandalized buildings that probably were nice little restaurants and lodgings not too long ago. Broken glass laid everywhere, and the place's water supply had also been vandalized.

Feeling depressed and thinking about how sad it is that so many good things just don't work in this country, we continued our walk up to the mirador (lookout). We found it broken too, slowly falling apart under the beating sun. It was time, we decided, to head back to the nice, modern, lively city down below.

Enjoy the pictures - for all its depressing aspects, it was stil a nice place to walk, with great views of the smoggy city.

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