Samaipata

We had greatly enjoyed our stay at La Bolivianita and, after blobbing around for the remainder of the previous day, we were ready to move on to Samaipata. Here it’s possible to go and see some giant and very ancient fern forests, but we had heard the tour was somewhat expensive and overrated. Once again, we planned on the budget option, driving out to a free little hike through some rough back roads. As it was a little late in the day to do everything, we drove the short distance to the town.

Since we had decided we wanted to live in South America, we were constantly on the lookout for potential spots, and this would be one of them. It ticked most of our boxes: within a few hours of an international airport, nice altitude, good weather, a small village with some tourism. We got into town and had a drive around. We wanted to find a spot to camp and explore for a little while. The free camping here mainly consisted of a football field, with not many paid options either — a gap in the market, perhaps.

As the afternoon was still young, we decided to drive up to the local vineyard “1750”, which boasted some nice views out over the valley. After navigating a particularly steep, rutted and horrible dirt road up to the gates, we were disappointed to find them shut. As I let the engine cool, Lee leaned over the fence and attracted someone’s attention. Despite the closed gates, they were open for business and let us park up at the side. They were also very relaxed about letting the cats out to roam freely, even when they made a beeline straight inside to all the places they shouldn’t go. In the meantime, we ordered a bottle of their white wine and sat in the sun overlooking the valley. I could think of worse places to live.

We probably could have stayed there if we’d asked, but we decided to settle our bill and head back down into town to get a feel for it. We parked up on the cute little main plaza and went for a drink in the local bar. It seemed like a nice enough vibe here, and as it was late by now we decided to grab ourselves a burger rather than cook. Food here is really very cheap and we had a hearty meal before heading back to Ruby and moving her around to the free parking spot near the football field.

The next day, after a pretty quiet night, we were ready to ascend to the fern forest. Lexi, on the other hand, seemed to have reached the teenage phase where she started to enjoy running away from us. She ambled down the fence on the other side of the football field, a matter of feet away. With its high chain link and locked doors, there was no way for us to get her until she eventually wandered back of her own free will. A little later than planned, we set off.

The route to the Helechos Gigantes is a well-worn dirt track. You climb over some steep, rutted sections as you leave the main road on a broad swathe of mud cut through the hillside. This is the route that the tours take and consequently it is probably in the worst condition due to the large amount of traffic. When the main road forks and continues to climb, we carried onwards on a smaller but more gradual ascent. In sections it was steep, and we crossed small rivers that present no issue in the dry season but that I wouldn’t have wanted to encounter at other times of the year. It was passable, but slow. After around an hour and a half we reached the end. Apparently the track after here was not good for 2WD, and while it didn’t look too bad we opted to park and walk the remaining kilometre.

It turns out that the road had recently been surfaced and we definitely could have driven. Still, it was an easy enough short hike to the start of the real walk. As previous reviews said, it was pretty run down — the sign marking the start slowly degrading past legibility. Supposedly there were two trails, but the longer of the two loops was not maintained and would have required a machete to navigate. We stuck to the main, shorter trail, which was still fairly overgrown. The walk meandered through a pleasant little forest past the occasional giant fern.

At the furthest point of the hike is the main fern forest. It had a somewhat otherworldly feel. We walked alone through the huge ferns on rotten walkways that had been nearly entirely reclaimed by nature. While in previous years they probably stopped you sinking into the soft leaf mulch, they were now more of a hazard than a help. We padded through the forest floor, climbing in and around the old path and taking in the scale of the giant fern trees that surrounded us.

It was only a short walk, and so when we arrived back at the van we still had a few hours of daylight left. To start with, we drove up to a nice level spot beside the road, but the wind suddenly got up and it was clear that it was going to be way too noisy to do the podcast interview we had planned for that afternoon. As we still had the time, we packed up and headed back down the mountain. We went for another nice spot on the side of the reservoir Rio Quirusillas, just a short distance from the main road we’d be continuing along tomorrow.

A few people came and went, but the main disturbance was from an incredibly noisy cat that didn’t seem to be impressed with our arrival. Sitting on the bank above us by the bridge, it howled its indignation out across the water — a particularly strident sound that left both our girls a bit confused and reluctant to go outside. I was happy to see it trot off a little while later; my night’s sleep didn’t need that kind of soundtrack.