Thanks to Jose Jordan at Hotel Aranjuez, we'd arranged everything with Gonzalo Milan before arriving in Cochabamba. The 3-day tour would cost the incredible discount price of $90 each, Gonzalo would collect us at the bus station early in the morning, after which we'd have breakfast and relax after the long flight and equally long bus ride from La Paz.
We called Gonzalo from the bus station in La Paz to give our estimated time of arrival. This was our first chance to speak to him, as thus far we'd either worked through Jose or direct e-mails. I imagined a wiry little guy who'd spent his life leading treks. To my surprise, we met an extremely fat, effusive Gonzalo in Cochabamba who hugged and kissed us on arrival.
Soon after loading into Gonzalo's jeep, we ran into our first misunderstanding. We just kept driving and driving. Cochabamba grew small in the distance. My hunger was overtaken by other pressing needs. Finally I blurted out "Where are we going?!" I didn't mean to be rude but where was my chance to decompress after the travel? Gonzalo claimed that Jose had only requested an earlier start to the tour, but nothing about breakfast or stopping by his hotel in Cochabamba.
Unfortunately, we'd gone so far there really was nowhere to stop... Gonzalo tried one random village where we received puzzled looks at the concept of a public bathroom. I was forced to wait until we got to our first tour stop, Tarata.
The main reason to visit Tarata is the town's crumbling colonial buildings and beautiful church. Our first stop, however, was a small open-air restaurant that featured awful squat toilets—no porcelain, just a dirt hole, no place to discard toilet paper. In the back of the restaurant near the toilets were bubbling vats of chicha, a strong fermented alcohol popular throughout the Andes. One look was enough to know I'd never try it.
We ate breakfast in the market, some horrible dry overbaked empanadas with a delicious hot sweet corn drink, then visited the church. Next we dropped by the small town Huaycuil, famed for its pottery, much of which involved vulgar vessels for drinking chicha. Gonzalo's amusement at the vessels was disconcerting.
We ran into the second misunderstanding at a random pit stop, over the tour's price. Gonzalo insisted that it was still $150, the same for two people as one, as the main cost was in the transport. $90 was the price for 4. We tried calling Jose from the roadside stand, but he was unreachable. There was no choice—we couldn't not go, and I'd originally expected it to be $150, but had been really excited about getting a discount.
On the road again, Gonzalo asked us worriedly if we were still amigos. Of course we said yes, it was just a misunderstanding. We certainly didn't want him or his assistants to go hungry—the price difference was just massive!
Gonzalo was very accommodating, stopping any time we wanted to take a photo. Closer to Torotoro—within 2 hours—this happened frequently. The colors of the mountains and valleys along the narrow dirt road were spectacular. The drive was heinously bumpy in parts, employing many off-road shortcuts to get to Torotoro in half the time of the bus.
Along the way, we stopped at a bridge where locals celebrated the beginnings of a new paved road. One unassuming man was actually the mayor of a few small towns as well as Gonzalo's coca supplier. He stuffed Gonzalo's pouch full of leaves before we drove off.
Once in town we hit our third misunderstanding, albeit a minor one. I had asked Jose if it were possible to buy or rent towels in Torotoro, as we didn't want to use our bath towels for swimming in the canyons. Jose asked Gonzalo, and reported back that of course we could do so. Now, Gonzalo seemed mystified by this. In a town with barely any restaurants, markets or real shops, where did we expect to buy towels? "Torotoro is hard" is something Gonzalo would say many times over the next 3 days.
We met Gonzalo's first assistant at the hotel. 14-year-old William was very sweet, related to Gonzalo in a vague way, and apparently a caving expert already. He joined us for lunch, then helped us in the cave. I was most amazed at his footwear—they appeared to be traction-less shower sandals, yet he bounded up and down the cave without difficulty.
Back when we were arguing about the price, Gonzalo told us he paid his assistants $10 each. Not much out of that $150 and it was unclear if they received $10 per tourist or total. I hoped petrol cost a great deal to justify their low pay. I suppose in rural towns like Torotoro, however, $10 can be stretched far.
The second day we met Gonzalo's other assistant, Shemputos. His unusual name is Quechua, and I'm not sure how it's spelled. Shemputos was CRAZY. Even more monkey-like than William, he also bounded around the canyons in shower slippers. At just 21 years old, he was married with 4 kids. Very hard to imagine him as a father, although he looked much older as people who work outdoors often do. Once a campesino, he had only recently approached Gonzalo about joining his crew, although his displays of affection and constant cries of "Tío! Tío!" showed they'd become close quickly.
During the hike to El Cañon, Gonzalo frequently stopped to sit, chew coca, and gaze blankly into the distance. We soon learned to recognized "coca time."
Both William and Shemputos were very helpful throughout the hike, and supportive of my need to rest frequently due to altitude. We really missed our little William on the third day, as it was a Monday and school was in session. Shemputos alone was a bit much to take, although his frantic dog-paddling and random bouts of screeching laughter were certainly sources for amusement.
The more time we spent with Gonzalo, the more odd he seemed. Certainly friendly enough, but once he ascertained my Spanish was considerably weaker than Hemmy's, he all but ignored me unless I physically needed help during hikes. When Shemputos asked Hemmy her age and subsequently began hooting and elbowing Gonzalo, I got the creepy vibe they thought she was of viable age for him. His tiny house featured two twin beds and a toilet in the kitchen; it was stuffed with dino toys and posters of his various tours and smacked of someone whose work is his whole life... it felt very lonely.
As we prepared to bid farewell to Torotoro, Shemputos followed us to the hotel under the guise of helping us with our bags. Suddenly he presented a note requesting money for soccer shoes. It was puzzling. He didn't specify a monetary amount or number of shoes needed, and the whole thing was obviously secretive so he clearly wasn't supposed to do this. We feigned language barrier and shooed him away. While Gonzalo packed his stuff to go back to Cocha, we waited by the jeep avoiding eye contact with Shemputos... we felt guilty because of course we were the "rich Americans" but why the hell should he be allowed to continue putting us on the spot?
In the meantime, Gonzalo asked us to add to his "satisfied customers" comment book. By flipping through to the oldest entries, we learned that our baby William had been helping Gonzalo since he was 9!
Incredulously, we read that all of Gonzalo's former clients outright ADORED him. We liked him, found him kind and generous, but not EXCESSIVELY fascinating or sweet or knowledgeable... sometimes a bit weird, really. We couldn't imagine calling him "Gonchy" or "Tío Dino" or even "Tío Gonchito" as so many people had over the years. I would absolutely recommend anyone visit Torotoro with Gonzalo but simply could not envision loving him that much.