Sitting in a beautiful organic garden overlooking rolling hills, we were beginning to relax after a very bumpy bus ride which ended when we were dumped at the roadside in the early hours of the morning. We opened the hatch to retrieve our backpacks, and struggled to find them under a good inch of dust that had been sucked in from the road. On the map we had hardly moved at all, but with poor and indirect roads we knew that was an important section of the journey to get behind us.

We ordered a salad, and rather than heading into the kitchen the waitress went off into the garden and came back with everything she needed to make our lunch. Like Vilcabamba in Ecuador, this is another popular ex-pat hangout, and there are a few eccentric people around. A very entertaining German called Frank took us for a hike in the Serenía Volcanes region. These hills are at the edge of the widest section of the Andes, so it was an appropriate place to visit this vast mountain range for the last time, where we saw several condors and found some of the giant tree ferns that are typical of the Amboro National Park.

But the highlight here had to be the visit to a refuge for rescued wild animals of the region. In keeping with the residents of the town, the animals in here were a little different. There was a deer and a pig which both enjoyed following people around, but best of all were the monkeys, and it was a spider monkey called Simon that took a shine to my head and shoulders. Every time I put him down on the floor, or back in a tree he would jump or climb back up again. I was beginning to think that we had a new companion for the rest of the trip, where he would certainly have felt at home as we head deeper into the jungle.

From this remote region where Che Guevara met his end, our journey should start to get easier. From nearby Santa Cruz de la Sierra, we will take the ferrobus all the way to the Brazilian border. This interesting concept of an actual bus welded to bogies will be our transport along the railway line which is virtually the only means of travel eastwards from here.

Posted from the UK, 12th August 2012.