Out of the smoke and into the wine
Dodging Bolivia's wildfires, vertigo in Samaipata, the many bodegas of Tarija.
It would have been easy to continue living a completely bland and comfortable life in the shiny tower blocks of Santa Cruz – swapping the pool for the café for the bar and back again – but the real world beckoned. After a few days of quiet luxury, it was time to leave the big smoke of the city for the smoke of a small hippy town a few hours west called Samaipata.
Yes, the wildfires in Bolivia and Brazil continue. You may have seen Brazil in the news for it recently – 5.65 million hectares were burned in Brazil in August alone, 1.22 million of which were in the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland (and a supposedly protected region) that is home to thousands of rare species of animals.
I think there’s been a lot less international coverage given to the situation in Bolivia, but the smoke has covered huge swathes of the country. Even in Santa Cruz, hundreds of kilometres away from the fires themselves, we woke up every morning to the thick smell of burning and a dystopian haze across the sky. This video report from DW is in Spanish, but you can get an idea of what it’s like.
It certainly made the host of our Samaipata hostel furious. Jade was an emotionally volatile French woman who had a habit of switching between silence and screaming without warning – about the injustices in the world (wildfires) or just at the kitten trying to climb onto the breakfast table (lack of discipline) – but she had a kind heart. Along with the kitten, the hostel was full of all the sick and abandoned dogs and ducks she has adopted or taken in from the street – and she made excellent crêpes for breakfast as I imagine all French people must.
Jade told us that the wildfires are a problem every year in the dry season, but this August has been particularly bad. The worst thing is that they are often started on purpose by local landowners and farmers who want to gain more land – the local government seems to allow this if the jungle or forest becomes cleared, thus creating more space for cattle and soya production, etc – and things get completely out of control. Here’s another video report from DW (this one’s in English) which backs this up.
[A small and bitter aside: I pitched a story about this to a UK national newspaper, with whom I have a good relationship and have written plenty of news features for, but they told me they weren’t interested and asked instead if I had anything more “uplifting” or health and wellbeing related, for example to do with “millennials and superfoods”. How utterly depressing.]
Samaipata is a very tranquil town with a pretty central plaza surrounded by cafés and bars. Almost every wall is covered in colourful murals honouring nature, since this is a place that pulls in artists from all over the continent (many of them millennials growing superfoods, no doubt). It’s also known for its ruins, and so Dave and I took a taxi out to go and see them one smoky afternoon.
In this instance, taking a taxi meant scratching our heads for a bit in the main square before buying a coffee and casually asking the café owner where the taxis could be found. He said he knew one personally, he’d phone him and summon him – and within seconds, Alexander swung around the corner in a people-carrier held together by duct tape and a smashed windscreen he’d “learned to live with”. He was great, and so were his prices.
At first glance, Fuerte de Samaipata doesn’t look like much more than a big lump of rock on top of a hill, because that’s exactly what it is. But once your eyes adjust to see the sculptures carved into it, it’s a very impressive lump of rock indeed. You can see huge carvings of a jaguar and a snake, and 18 little seats cut into the rock for priests to sit on – very thoughtful. The site is unique for its vast size (220 metres long) and unusual for the fact it was occupied at different times by the Chané (around 300 AD), Incas (late 1400s) and Spanish (late 1500s to early 1600s) – and traces of all three cultures still remain, despite the Spanish often doing their best to destroy the Incas’ work around the Andes where they could.
History aside, walking up to the fort and around the surrounding hillside is just a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon, and I’m sure when there’s not a sky full of smoke there are some mad views from the top, too. Unfortunately we had to use our imaginations this time.
On the way back down the hill, perhaps in an attempt to make up for lost views, Alexander dropped us at the house of a woman obsessed with hummingbirds so that we could walk around her garden with her and look for hummingbirds, which was wholesome experience and quite charming.
The following morning, we fancied a walk. The mystery illness that had been plaguing me for weeks before meant we hadn’t done much in the way of hiking in a while, but I was feeling better and so we investigated trails. There are plenty around Samaipata on account of its favourable location between the Amboró National Park and the lower Andean foothills, but most of the tourist information in the town and online claim that the landscapes are only accessible with a tour guide – and at quite a hefty price for Bolivia.
Not so, said Jade – she knew a guy who would take us to the start of the Codo de Los Andes hiking route and leave us to go it alone. If anyone questioned us, he’d tell them he was our guide. Everyone did it, apparently. She made her calls and who should roar up outside the house a few minutes later but our trusty driver Alexander – never in doubt.
The two of them discussed the likelihood of us getting into some kind of trouble – either with the authorities (slim) or through our own incompetence at hiking (high) – and a team meeting concluded that we should get dropped off at the start of the route and that Alexander would meet us five hours later at a place called Cuevas. Until recently, Cuevas – a site of natural beauty with caves and waterfalls – was a popular spot for swimming, but it was closed indefinitely earlier this year after two men drowned. Great news, Jade pointed out, since we wouldn’t be charged the entry fee.
We were joined by our new friend Jeff, a friendly Australian who was also staying at Jade’s madhouse before embarking on a 13-day ayahuasca retreat in the north. The three of us agreed we’d make a day of it, stopping for snacks and water supplies on route, which meant ham and cheese toasted sandwiches for me, Dave and Alexander, and a bag of fruit for Jeff on account of his strict pre-ayahuasca diet (designed to make him vomit less when it came to it).
What we didn’t anticipate was Jeff’s incredible level of fitness, even on a diet of grapes, having recently dominated Machu Picchu and all of the intimidating routes around Huaraz that had scuppered Dave and I completely back in May. Jeff could easily have done the Samaipata trail in three hours or less, but unfortunately he was stuck with us and my Elvis legs, which made a reappearance many times on the way down some of the precarious mountainsides – loose rocks and wind rushing past me as I wobbled and skidded, hunched in all sorts of unflattering positions. But he was an excellent guide and a very good sport.
The views may still have been smoky, and I wondered just how healthy it was to be gulping big lungfuls of ash as we climbed up to 1,866 metres, but the landscape was still very beautiful. We crossed several peaks followed by valleys and rivers – one with a disgruntled cow guarding it – and eventually it made it to the waterfalls with plenty of time to spare. We did unfortunately come across a troll on the short path between the pools and the main road, who insisted we pay him 10 Bolivianos each (£1.10), despite my pointing out that the pools weren’t even open, but it was a small price to pay for an off-the-books mountain adventure.
If Alexander was relieved to see us (he’d asked several times on the drive out if we had a map) he didn’t so much show it, as his main concern was the danger of us bringing ticks into his car. The path is riddled with them, we learned, and that night I found 12 feasting happily on my ankles, legs, neck and back. Much like those tiny angry ants that had a habit of dropping from Fede’s thatched roof in Uruguay, these tiny critters happened to be a similar size and colouring to my freckles, which made for a paranoid few days – and rightly so because both Dave and I found more of them hiding in unmentionable places several days later when we were safely back in Santa Cruz.
Fortunately, a childhood in South Africa prepared me well for this: all you need is a cotton wool pad soaked in alcohol to give them a toxic bath with and then they’re easy to tease out with tweezers. Funny though, it hadn’t ever occured to me that the trick works just as well with hand sanitizer as it does with gin. But then I guess my parents didn’t always have sanitizer to hand while out in the car.
From Samaipata we headed back to Santa Cruz for a few days to shamelessly enjoy some more sterile luxury and make an onward plan. We’d had such a fun couple of weeks travelling with Alice, but since her departure back to the UK the previous week Dave and I were suddenly left without any kind of deadline or time constraints. For the first time on our trip, we have no visitors scheduled to come out and see us – which is both liberating and a little sad – and suddenly we were both feeling a bit untethered.
Bolivia is big, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was still plenty left to see before we moved on. But with the wildfires continuing to spread, a lot of the area to the northeast wasn’t passable – or if it was, it wouldn’t be pleasant to sit in the residual smoke. To the east of Santa Cruz is a loop known as the Jesuit Missions route, made up of six 17th-century Jesuit settlements that are now UNESCO World Heritage sites. While there’s not a huge amount of tourist information about these places, we were intrigued by them and the presence of a train line that runs between Santa Cruz and San José de Chiquitos, the largest of the settlements. But again, it wasn’t clear if the trains would be running or if the area was affected by the fires – and even in ordinary times, it seems the train only runs once a week.
We made the executive decision to head south and avoid the smoke, taking an overnight bus down to Tarija for a few days in Bolivia’s wine valley. Obviously I was very excited for this and as soon as we’d made the decision I wasn’t sure what the hell I was ever thinking by entertaining the smoky church route alternative.
Winemaking in Bolivia dates back just as far as that of Argentina – ie, when the Spanish arrived in the 1500s – but while Chilean and Argentinian wines are drunk around the world, Bolivian wines are still relatively unknown. I don’t think any of my friends or family back in Europe had any idea Bolivian vineyards existed (and nor did I until I came here) let alone that they’re so tasty. They’re also very highly regarded in Latin America for the fact they’re among the highest altitude vineyards in the world (Tarija sits at around 2,400 metres), which makes caring for the grapes more challenging but ultimately makes for a finer quality of wine (apparently).
Dave have done our fair share of wine tasting on this continent: Mendoza and Cafayate in Argentina, Santa Cruz in Chile over Christmas and Ica in Peru – I never miss an opportunity to sample the local stuff. And so when Miguel Angel handed us a flyer for a half-day tour of five vineyards in the local area we figured, why the hell not. We’ve seen plenty of fancy bodegas and nodded along to all of the historic information given on cellar tours, so a whiparound tour of all the big hitters in Tarija and knocking back “more than 25 different wines” before lunch sounded like a fun way to do it.
We were picked up shortly after 8am the next morning and taken straight to Bodega Masia Guerrero for a double shot of Bolivian cognac in lieu of breakfast, followed by a five-wine tasting. We were the only non-native Spanish speakers, not that it mattered much, and almost everyone else on the tour was from Santa Cruz, including one family who had appeared fresh off the night bus (we literally picked them up from the bus station on route to the first bodega). Eight-am drinking didn’t seem to be a big deal for any of them, and when we were handed sombreros and ponchos to pose in, we were already feeling mellow enough from the cognac to oblige.
From Masia Guerrero we were shuttled along to La Concepción, one of the oldest and highest altitude vineyards in Bolivia, where we were given a cocktail to try along with four more generously-poured wines.
In the tour van, I’d become worried when our tour guide asked everyone on board what their preferred kind of wines were and every single person apart from me and Dave replied “dulce”. It’s interesting – Peru was the same in that most local people preferred and drank sweet wines, but that made more sense in the context of Pisco grapes and the fact the climate in Ica produces sweeter wines by nature. In Bolivia, most wines are not made to be naturally sweet, but smaller producers will manually add sugar into the mix before completion (industrial producers are not allowed) – which seems completely mad, but clearly suits their customers’ tastes.
Luckily for me, La Concepción had some delicious dry wines more suited to the European palate and we opted to buy a bottle for later in the week – which for reasons unknown earned us another shot of cognac from the bodega’s owner. By this point it was about 10.30am.
Our next stop was bodega Doña Vita, where we had I honestly don’t know how many more wines. The sommelier guiding our session made quite a lot of jokes that I suspect were quite culture-dependent, and relayed some local legend about how if a women drinks a particular wine in a certain way she’ll have twins. We were all encouraged to clap and jeer at three of the Bolivian women on our tour while they chugged back extra servings of the alleged fertility wine, and then suddenly it was once again time to move on.
Tierra Chapaca: a lovely setting for a vineyard, just a shame some of the wines were blue. This place specialises in novelty fruit-based wines, hence the lurid colours. Maybe it was because we were at least 25 drinks deep by this point, but do you know what? They were actually quite nice! I got into a tipsy Spanish conversation with the bodega owner at the end of this tasting and didn’t know how to escape without buying something, so Dave went for it with a bottle of the blue. To be fair to him, he finished it all over the following two nights.
Our final stop was Bodega Daroca, which specialised in singani, a Bolivian brandy distilled from white Muscat of Alexandria grapes. Mercifully, this tasting came in the form of cocktails rather than more straight shots of the stuff. I remember chatting to the owner’s son, who spoke many languages on account of the fact he’d studied wine courses all over the world, including a master’s degree in winemaking in France (meaning he “had to learn French quickly”, as one does). It was a charming place, but to be honest with you the main thing I remember from this point in the day was that there was a very good dog who lived at the bodega who did tricks.
The most popular singani-based cocktail is called the Chuflay, made with ice, ginger ale and lemon – a winning combination. But the best thing about the Chuflay is the story behind it: the drink was invented by English engineers when Bolivia’s railways were being built in the 1870s. When the Brits inevitably ran out of gin, they subbed in singani, and, according to our tour guide at least, the locals wanted to know what the drink was called. As the story goes, the Brits were overheard saying “shoo, fly” while swatting flies away from their drinks (which is exactly how I picture Victorian men reacting to the impediments of nature). This was interpreted to mean the name of the cocktail, Chuflay, and so it stuck.
You might think we’d had enough wine after all of this, but the beauty of drinking in the morning is that you have all afternoon to recover before the evening session. The following day’s wine consumption was a much classier affair at any rate, with a six-course tasting lunch at Hacienda Kohlberg, a beautiful vineyard set in the Tarija hills. The lunch was exquisite and included crocodile ceviche (an unexpected surprise) and of course five glasses of different Kohlberg wines – all delicious. And yes, the following day I had a night off.
Travel bits and tips from this week
In Santa Cruz we stayed in this shiny apartment for a few nights with Alice, which was very relaxing and well-located for bars and restaurants. When Dave and I returned to the city later on, we stayed in a different but almost identical skyscraper: this one had TWO swimming pools and a sauna but the surrounding location was pretty bleak and we got told off for drinking beer by the pool.
To get to Samaipata we took a colectivo across the hills for pennies, then stayed in Jade’s hostel. It was a bit of a hike up the hill from town, but came complete many lovely pets and a very good breakfast for an absolute bargain.
We did this hike from Codo de los Andes to Cueva. There’s a small entry fee (about £3) at the start of the route and we paid 90 Bolivianos each for the taxi ride there and back (£9.75). There are tours going but they charge a racket and the guy taking the ticket fee at the start of the route certainly didn’t seem to care that we were operating solo. As long as you’re not going alone, I’d recommend doing it independently like we did.
In Samaipata we had dinner at Latina (nice pasta), La Cocina (seriously good meat and veggie burgers), and La Mexicana (awful). We enjoyed drinks and a sharing platter at Café 1900 and we frequented the happy hour at La Boheme bar on the plaza (so much nicer than its online photos suggest).
Tarija was an overnight bus away. We stayed at Miguel Angel’s Airbnb (nice pool, very funny dog) and enjoyed excellent Japanese food around the corner at Yamamori.
The agency we took our wine tour with was called Ruta del Vino Tarija Viva Tours. It cost less than £13 each for a half day of lashing and was an absolute riot.
Like a lot of businesses in Bolivia, the Kohlberg vineyard doesn’t go out of its way to advertise itself, but it has a fantastic restaurant with a view. We knew it was possible to have lunch at Hacienda don Julio Kohlberg (not to be confused with the Kohlberg bodega shop in town) because we’d read it somewhere online, but they weren’t responsive when contacted them through their website or through the number advertised. Our Airbnb host had an alternative number for them and we arranged a time to visit via Whatsapp.
In Tarija town we stopped at Brood for a coffee, Verde Qué Te Quiero for a banging vegetarian lunch buffet, Belen Restaurante for dinner (nice atmosphere, small portions), MIA for another lunch, Café Mokka for a lemonade and some people-watching, and Gattopardo for a very fine coffee and cake indeed. But not all in one day.
I so enjoyed reading this. Your posts and Dave’s Insta bring me a lot of joy. And sometimes relief, given the alarming treks/ticks that I Would Not Like