We were woken from our uncomfortable sleep by the shout of "Kevin, Samaipata!" It was just after 4am on Tuesday 27 March and it was pitch dark, freezing cold and drizzling outside - a fitting end to the worst bus journey we had yet undertaken. We were hurried off the bus, where we waited outside a 1-pump petrol station for about 30 minutes to get a taxi to our hostal, La Posada del Sul, about 5 minutes drive out of town. We then waited outside for another 2 hours until the first staff arrived. We couldn't check in until after 11am, but we were able to enjoy breakfast which was big and delicious. After that it was more waiting around for our room to be ready... We eventually got to check in and were initially a bit dissapointed in the room - bathroom wasn't quite what we were expecting :-/ We enjoyed some yummy burgers for lunch and then bunkered down in the room (it was still raining - about the 3rd day of bad weather we've had so far on our trip.) We were exhausted and skipped supper in favour of sleep - got to sleep about 16 hours :-)

Wednesday we woke up feeling well rested. By now both of us were pretty much over our colds, which felt great! We took a short walk into town with another dutch girl, Emma, who we had met. We found the internet cafe and tried to do a bit of admin, but it was too slow so we left and went to the local market instead. There we bought some fruit for the 30min walk out the animal sanctury, where abused animals from the area are nursed back to health. We got to play with a whole bunch of tame monkeys :-) who liked to sit on your shoulders and be fed popcorn. Afterwards we meandered back to town and shared a burger at a cafe on the main plaza. Then it was back to the hostal for a shower and a nap. We had a nice dinner of chicken pasta and burritos at the hostel restaurant, before comming back to the room for some wine and chocolate and reading.

Thursday morning we were up fairly early to visit some sights. We walked into town with Emma and together we shared a taxi for the day. Our first stop was El Fuerte (which means The Fort in Spanish) It wasn't actually a fort, but rather an ancient religious site founded by the indigenous people of the area (pre-dating the Incas by about 2000 years.) The main thing to see is a massive rock (about 180m long x 60m wide) completely covered in carvings. There were also numerous other Inca and Spanish ruins. Afterwards we got back in the taxi and drove to a nearby set of waterfalls. We had a great time playing and cooling off in the water and then relaxing in the sun. We got back to Samaipata in the late afternoon where we had a quick shower, grabbed some food and then walked into town to try and organise a flight from Santa Cruz to La Paz. We returned to the hostel and just relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Friday after breakfast, we walked back into town to confirm our flight. We then tried to do some admin at the local internet cafe, but again left without achieving very much - the internet is so incredibly slow! Luckily we found another internet station which was a bit better. We wandered around the town a bit more and then stopped in at the El Fuerte museum on the way home. That evening we enjoyed some wine and a game or two of backgammon out on the porch, before heading inside to pack for our trip to Santa Cruz, 3 hours away...