The Camino del Oro

In Bolivia, there are number of pre-Inca trails that run from the highlands to the lowlands. These were important trade routes. For quite a lot of the way, these routes have original stone paving. These are amazingly well built roads, which is why they have lasted so long. The Inca and those before them, never had large animals like horses and cows. These were introduced by the Spanish. Messages were sent along these roads by runners (called chasqui). So, these road are quite narrow as they were never intended for horse and cart. They very often have stairs. The Camino del Oro runs from the highland village of Sorata to jungle. The lower part of the route has been destroyed by road building and mining. It is incredible to think that they still mine gold in this area. Camino del Oro means 'Road of Gold'. We had a route description of this in an old guide book. In Sorata, we asked Luis Demers, a Canadian who has lived in Sorata for well over 20 years, manages a hotel in Sorata, and is a keen trekker if he knew anything about this route. He said, he hadn't heard of any tourists doing it for years, but he thought that it was still open (i.e. large chunks of it hadn't slid off the mountain side or had been swallowed by jungle). We are quite experienced with these trails and so set off. Before going, I had tried to get some maps. I was told by a friend (my map supplier) at the Military Geographic Institute (el Instituto Geografico Militar) that maps simply didn't exist for part of the route. So we were going to have to rely on simply asking people along the way. For an non-Inca road experienced person, this would be quite daunting. However, as the Incas were such good road builders we were pretty confident that we could follow the trail. At bits where the trail split, we asked ourselves: 'which bit looks like it was built by Incas (or pre-Incas)'. We got to the end of the trail, so we must be pretty good at recognising Inca trails. Interestingly, the route we took is different from the guide book. At one point on day one, we were supposed to cross a river to avoid a bit of the trail that had been destroyed. This quite worried Robert. Me, standing on solid Inca paving stones wasn't worried. I said: 'Look, this was built by Incas, let's just follow this.

Below is the town of Sorata in Bolivia. The two mountains you can see are Illampu and Ancohoma. The route starts by going up and over a mountain pass which you can't see in this photo (it would be more to the left). Then you drop down into the village of Ancohoma. From there, the route is mostly downhill.

This is the view once you are over the pass and past the village of Ancohoma. The route follows this valley and sticks to the right hand side.




At times, you get quite close to the river. Below you can see how the route has been essentially built up and carved out of the sheer rock to the right side of the river. It is very narrow here, but easy to follow (i.e. where else would you go?). This is where we had our 'this looks like it was built by Incas, let's follow it' discussion.


This is the inside of the house of many insects. This is where we spent part of our first night. This is what you get for 50 cents.

Day 2 involved quite a surprising amount of little ups and down. Here are some steps on the trail. The amount of work involved in building these trails was amazing. While many of the trails were opened up before the Inca, the Inca certainly played a hand in maintaining and improving them. The Inca empire had a work tax. Every household had to send one able bodied man to spend several months working on communal projects like road building.

While this route is not used by tourists. It is used by locals. These villages are totally cut off from any road. This photo from day 2 finds us in a small village. What you can see in the foreground are coffee beans drying in the sun (this photo is for you, Bill). This place has a small shop. So you can see Robert enjoying a Fanta. Yes, they have no road, but they do have Fanata and Coca Cola.

The route description we had suggested camping at 'the place with the suspension bridge'. There was indeed a flat spot suitable for a tent and evidence that others had camped here (i.e. garbage). This was Bolivian as opposed to tourist garbage. No fancy expensive brands, just stuff that locals would use. We set up camp. Robert had to literally climb down to the river to get us water for cooking and drinking. We both looked at the bridge and thought that it looked well dodgy. However, we could see the trail on the other side and there was no where else to go.

Just as we decide to settle down and worry about the bridge the next day, a bunch of cattle drivers show up. They were taking their cattle to market in Guanay, which is a jungle town. This would involve 5 days of walking for them. These were all bulls, apart from one cow. The drivers took the cow across first. She is in the photo below. Then they tied her up and went back for the bulls. The bulls, were very reluctant, but seeing the cow on the other side, they eventually all crossed over. Clearly, these guys had done this before.

After the bridge, things started to look quite jungle like. The trail, however, was easy to follow Again, where else would you go? The trail is the only bit not covered with trees!


On Day 3, we know we are getting close to civilization when we see evidence of mining.


A couple of house later, we reached a mining town which has a vehicle road and an infrequent jeep service to a larger town with bus service. This is the end of our trail. The remains of the Inca trail have been destroyed by the road builders. The sign behind me says 'we buy gold'.

There was no transport out of this place until the next day, so we found a place to stay (thankfully insect free). I talked to locals about our 'night of the insects' and showed them the digital photo of the large cockroach looking insect. They nearly fell off their chairs laughing at us. I guess they thought that we were wimps and that no sane person would sleep in a tent if they had a house at their disposal. We made friends with the woman who ran the bar (very nice cold beer). These are her kids. I posted her back a copy of this photo. I hope it got to her.

The bar, of course, was tastefully decorated. A rather typical poster in a Bolivian mining town. I asked the girls what they thought of the poster. They thought that the girl was 'pretty'.

After this, we managed to eventually make our way to Guanay. After this, we went on a boat trip. But that is a story for another day.