It had been quite a while since we'd been out on a trek so we finally hit the trail again after a two month break. We just finished the Choro Trek, or Camino Choro. Camino means "way" or "path" and Choro is the name of a small settlement which lies along the trek. This path dates back hundreds of years to Incan and even pre-Incan times. It was, and still is, used as a trading and transport route for people travelling from the high mountains of La Paz down into the Yungas jungle region. This is me on the first day of the trek, climbing up to a pass at over 14,000 feet.
The Incans were the native people encountered by the Spanish when they first arrived in the Andes Mountains of South America in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Incans had a vast and complex civilization stretching from Ecuador down through Peru and into Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. They built amazing structures, including roads, temples, houses, irrigation systems and agricultural terraces, usually out of stone and precious metals, like gold and silver. Though the Spanish took much of the precious metals, one can still see the remains of Incan stone work throughout Peru, Bolivia and Northern Argentina.The Camino Choro is a wonderful example of pre-Hispanic engineering (pre-Hispanic refers to the time before Spanish arrival) . It was actually built by people pre-dating the Incan empire. They cut the path out of the steep mountainsides by hand and paved it with stones. The Incas eventually widened it and expanded the paving, and while walking on the Camino Choro today one can still see this paving, still preserved after centuries of use!
Because the Camino Choro is an ancient transport route, you can find the ruins of Incan structures along the way. This was a rest stop for travellers coming over the high mountain pass where they could stay for the night and prepare for the next days' long walk. You can see the path here as it heads past the ruins and off into the distance.
We walked 42 kilometers (about 28 miles) of the path over four days and saw everything from barren, high mountain peaks to lush and humid jungle. Along the way we passed through small hamlets and sometimes solitary huts where people often live much like they did in Incan times. Some of these are two days walk from any town or city! Families can live on the nearly vertical hillside, carving out small flat areas by hand and planting crops, like corn, yucca and potatoes, on the very steep slopes. These women are harvesting yucca and potatoes, a staple of their diets.
One night we camped on this small, level area where a family tends banana plants, which you can see in the left of the picture. It is a jungle environment here so the trees grow very large. The fruits support the family's diet and help them earn money from the sale of the bananas, or platanos.
Another important part of the diet and economy of rural Bolivian life is the meat and wool from llama and alpaca. At the start of the trek we saw a group of people getting their llama herd ready for the walk down into the jungle and the towns below. Perhaps they were transporting them back home from higher grazing grounds, or taking them down for sale to the communities. Whatever the reason, they look ready for the long journey ahead! 
In the coming weeks we hope to see more ruins of Incan civilizations and visit sites important to Incan history and culture. If you haven't learned about the Incans yet in school, I suggest you do a little research on your own! They had a fascinating culture and it is amazing what they could accomplish with minimal technology. Ask your teacher where you might be able to find information about the Incans in books or on the internet. 
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