The alarm went off at 6:15 and Mike, John, and I got up, finished packing, and brought our gear down to the bus. Remarkably, we were underway, heading north, by 7:10. We drove about an hour to the town of BuenaVista which sits at the base of the easternmost range of the Sierras Subandinas and the portal to Amboro National Park . We went to the resort Hotel Amboro, which is owned by Martin Maughan, an Irishman and friend of Todd's who also owns the Irish pub we visited two nights ago.

We ate breakfast on the hotel veranda with a great view of the mountains to the west. Martin took the students on a short nature walk and talked with us about his plans for expansion.

We drove westward through the low ranges on good, flat, paved roads. We were allowed to pass through the drug checkpoints uninspected. This is the heart of the coca-for-export growing region. At Villa Tunari, we stopped for lunch at the hotel Las Palmas. It turned out to have a great environmental geology lesson. It is located at a bend in the Río San Mateo. Recent floods had undercut the veranda of one of the cabañas and caused it to fall down the steep embankment. I hope they give a discount rate for the cabaña!

We ate a good meal and then got back on the bus. Almost immediately the road started to climb into the eastern Cordillera. The road passes through a vertical-walled canyon with impossibly steep tributary streams. It would be nice to investigate this area at a slower pace. As dusk began to encroach, we climbed into the cloud forest. It was too dark to see any real detail but when we popped out of the clouds we had spectacular views until darkness fell completely.

As we approached 10,000', the bus started overheating and we were forced to pull off to the side of the road for more than an hour. For the students it was a great adventure: broken down in the Andes at night at 10,000'. For me it was just another momento Boliviano. For everyone, it was a reason to party.

We arrived in Cochabamba after 10:00 on a Saturday night on a festival weekend and began to look for a hotel. It was a slow, unrewarding process as Todd went into hotel after hotel. One was named the Hotel Bimbo—I wonder what kind of business they do there? I finally got off of the bus and went to a hotel that was full but asked the clerk to call around to area hotels. On his third try he got us rooms at the Hotel Canada. It turned out to be a great place. They opened their confiteria and we ordered pizza delivery. We ate and drank beer, coke, and water.

Everyone was dead tired after the long day so people began to head to their rooms. By 12:30 all were gone. I roomed with Strom. The rooms were the nicest we've had. Even all of the plumbing worked properly. As I started to undress, I discovered the most obnoxious Bolivian techno-music tape in my pocket undoubtedly placed there by Strom, the ever-stealthy ninja. I placed it in his fleece pocket.