Took a taxi to the Samaipatha taxi rank at 4pm to get the last taxi there. How it works is that one should wait until there are 5 or 6 people (in a car) before the taxi leaves. We were obviously 3 and another local guy so we waited an hour before we left. The driving was hair raising, it seemed like cars were driving on both sides of the road. We finally arrived at 8pm and booked into Anastasia guest house, an Italian run place with a lovely atmosphere.

The reason for coming to Samaipatha was almost jeopardised by the rain they had as no taxi was willing to go up to the reserve. We got an agency with 4x4's with an English guide to take us. The run I did in the morning was rather hard work which I wrote off to being unfit. However when walking up to see the ruins the guide pointed out that we were at 2000m altitude. The ruins were rather interesting as it was used by the Amazons and Inka's/Cetchuas used the area as sacrificial site to the sun god. The rocky ruins were almost like a temple with a "calender" on the top - 365 zig-zags on the top of the big rock to indicate the days of the year and probably to help with the dates of the ceremonies. An image of a Puma and snake was visible and seats carved out the rock for the various members of the community to view entertainment in the field below. There were ruins of baracks where the military was trained and rather private sacrificial stone area which had limited seating which was probably meant for the higher class of the time. Condors are native to the area and we witnessed a few of these majestic creatures circling above us.

There is immense beauty in the surrounding areas of Sammaipatha too. After our day trip I found a stable about 3km's out of town at their local zoo run by a French family and had an out ride on horseback through the mountains to explore some more.

As I got handed my empenada by hand at the restaurand we were waiting for our bus, I just realised that we were moving into poper 3rd worldd countries now. After a bit of a wait our cama bus for sucre finally arrived at 9pm.