How to visit Torotoro National Park, Bolivia

Torotoro National Park, west of the Bolivian Andes, is one of those places that has to be seen to be believed. Known for its dinosaur footprints, it’s home to diverse geology, fantastical landscapes and an array of caves and caverns, which make it appealing to travellers wanting to experience everything Bolivia has to offer.

I visited Torotoro in March 2023 and mostly enjoyed it. I stayed at a particularly bad hostel which somewhat ruined my experience, but the days I spent in Torotoro National Park were fantastic.

However, I struggled to find information about Torotoro when planning my visit. Therefore, in this guide I’ll sum up my experience and what it was like, as well as how to organise your own visit.

By the way, I wrote a separate guide on how to plan and organise day trips in Torotoro National Park – the place to go if you’re looking for practical information on finding guides and people to go with!

About Torotoro National Park

Torotoro National Park is the smallest national park in Bolivia. You’ll find it in the centre of the country, tucked in on the east side of the Andes. The nearest city is Cochabamba, four hours’ drive away.

Torotoro National Park is too well known to be a “hidden gem”, but it’s definitely off the beaten track. Visiting the main town (little more than a village), also called Torotoro, gives the impression of being in a local’s town, with tourism being only one of the main industries in the area.

Most people who visit come for either the hiking or the geology. The national park has many interesting rock formations and unusual landscapes, which make it a good stop for those who like walking and want to see all the sides to Bolivia.

For me, the draw was the range of dinosaur footprints that you can see within the park, as well as the wider geology. To be honest, most of the geology went over my head – not in the least because the guides of the park only speak Spanish. Whilst I can speak some basic conversational Spanish, my geological Spanish just wasn’t good enough to get into the details. As a geology graduate, I’m a little embarrassed by my poor understanding of the area!

Requirement for a guide

Torotoro National Park is a bit unusual in that you can’t enter it without a local guide. As almost every area surrounding the town forms part of the park, I’m not entirely sure why.

I, and basically everyone else I’ve spoken to about this, have found the requirement for a guide annoying. It would make sense for sensitive or dangerous sites to require a guide – however, some areas of the park would be absolutely fine to visit on your own.

For example, there’s an area of quite impressive dinosaur footprints right on the edge of Torotoro village, which can be accessed by a short (maybe 15 min) walk along the main road. However, they’re hidden behind a giant fence which you can only get past with a guide!

I can understand that the use of local guide services is important to local industry. But still, this seems pretty excessive when the dinosaur footprints are out in the open with no special preservation efforts, and we could touch them on our tour.

Anyway, the requirement for a guide means that you can’t explore on your own, and my experiences of the park are limited to the areas of the park that are offered on tours. That isn’t to say you can’t explore further – you’ll just need to do so on a private tour, which will be more expensive and difficult to organise.

The town itself

So, what is Torotoro town like?

Imagine a village with just a couple of dirt roads. The main area has a range of street vendors and several mini markets open to the street. There are plenty of hostels and guesthouses as well.

To be completely frank, there is nothing to do in the town. We struggled to kill a couple of hours here. Still, it was nice to get a taste of life in an Andean village.

As a base for exploring Torotoro National Park, the town does a reasonable job! Read on for my top hotel and food recommendations.

Ratings

As part of this blog, I give every place I visit a rating so that I can easily compare destinations and decide whether they’re worth a visit. Those are the scores you see at the top of the page!

This is how Torotoro National Park rated:

• Safety: 3/5 – the village feels very safe. However, I felt quite unsafe on vehicles getting to and from Torotoro and its attractions. I’m really not convinced by the safety standards within Torotoro National Park.
• Accessibility: 2/5 – Torotoro National Park is not easy to get to and requires a level of determination. Most of the activities involve hiking or scrambling.
• Enjoyment: 5/5 – I loved my visit to the park!
• Value: 4/5 – Torotoro is generally very cheap. However, as almost everywhere you’d want to visit requires a guide, this makes each activity more expensive.

Overall score: 3.5/5

If you’ve already visited, let me know if you agree with these ratings! Just to note, the ratings are my personal opinion based on my visit, so you might have a completely different experience.

Should you take an organised tour to Torotoro National Park?

You’ll find that several tour operators have organised tours to Torotoro National Park. As part of this, you’ll pay a set fee for all your transport, activities, food and accommodation.

If you’re wanting a stress-free trip, an organised tour is worth considering. However, it works out significantly more expensive than organising all the aspects of your trip yourself.

When I was looking at the various options for my visit, I got a quote from Magri Turismo. For a three day, two night trip inclusive of all activities, transport and food, this was $380 (£300) per person!

The cost was the main reason why I chose to go to Torotoro independently. It worked out less than half this cost to organise the whole trip myself.

What to do in Torotoro

There are a range of places to visit within Torotoro National Park. Some of these can be visited on public tours, and others must be done privately.

Some of the most popular tours are:

• Hiking to El Vergel, a pretty waterfall in Torotoro Canyon
• Climbing through Caverna de Umajalanta (definitely not for the faint hearted!)
• Exploring Ciudad de Itas, known for its impressive rock formations

Many of these have dinosaur footprints nearby, so you’ll undoubtedly see them on the way!

I’ve written a separate guide to planning day trips at Torotoro, as it isn’t the simplest of exercises. It’s a possible place to begin if you’re looking for more things to do or the practical aspect of organising your tours.

Where to stay

There is a surprisingly large range of places to stay in Torotoro. Don’t have too high expectations – this is not the place for a boutique hotel, and most of the options are pretty rustic; but you’ll be able to find comfortable lodgings for sure!

We stayed at Hostal Wilma, which I do not recommend at all. Our dorm was literally a garage; the metal door was still on and had just been covered up by a curtain. There were no social spaces and the entrance was used by the family of the owners for a variety of purposes. For example, their son was out there doing his exercise regime at 10 pm! It was noisy from these activities, and we just felt uncomfortable.

Plus, there was work being done to half the hostel and one of the workers wolf-whistled at Lou on her way to the toilet. When she mentioned it, the owner shrugged it off.

I know that catcalling is unfortunately super common across Bolivia, but even so: no one should be catcalled walking to the toilet in their hostel. For the manager to disregard Lou when she mentioned it was so demeaning. We were not impressed!

But enough about that! You can find much nicer accommodation in Torotoro. Just make sure to check out the reviews in advance.

Where to eat in Torotoro

I’m not going to lie – in no way could Torotoro ever be described as a culinary destination. The number of restaurants and bars was disappointing; whilst there are a couple of places which serve beers and food, I wouldn’t give a glowing review to any of them.

The good thing is, there is a large market hall with permanent food stalls, all operated by friendly local women, with meals costing 10 bs ($1.50 / £1.10). There are ten or twelve stalls, but when I was there, only 3 or 4 were open, and it was very quiet. Expect simple but filling food: I had chicken, rice, salad and plantain for both meals I had here.

We also had a meal at Torotoro Restaurante, which was dinosaur themed with stalagmites and a dinosaur hanging from the roof. Interesting decor… The food was good but came out cold, and at 30 to 40 bs ($4 to $6 / £3 to £5) for a main, compared to the hearty 10 bs meals of the market, it just wasn’t worth it.

How to get to Torotoro

The only affordable option to reach Torotoro is by colectivo from Cochabamba. It’s also possible to take a private car from Cochabamba or Sucre, but this will cost a lot more.

Getting to Cochabamba

If you’re already in Bolivia, it’s fairly easy to get to Cochabamba. There are domestic flight connections to La Paz, Sucre, Santa Cruz and Lake Titicaca. Oddly, there’s also one international flight, from Sao Paulo in Brazil.

You can also take overnight buses directly from La Paz, Sucre, and Santa Cruz, plus there are plenty of shorter buses running throughout the day. As Cochabamba is one of the biggest cities in Bolivia, there are many buses available. Just note that most overnight buses to Cochabamba are 7 to 8 hours long, so you might end up arriving at 3 am!

Personally, I flew from Sucre to Cochabamba, to cut out the overnight bus. Domestic flights within Bolivia are generally quite cheap – mine cost around $25 / £20 – and for me it made logistical sense to do this.

By colectivo from Cochabamba

From Cochabamba, you can get the colectivo from the minibus station on Avenida Republica – just look for “Parada Torotoro Trans 21 Noviembre” on Google Maps. My taxi driver knew the location and took me to the right spot.

The colectivos run throughout the day, from around 6 am to 6 pm. Online, it isn’t clear whether these run all day or just in the morning, so I was a bit nervous about getting the colectivo after our flight. However, there were no problems.

The colectivos leave once full, so expect there to be a wait. From Cochabamba, arriving at the bus company around 10 am, it took 1 hour for the bus to fill. On the way back, we took the last seats in the bus.

Just to note, the colectivo picks up passengers en route so it’s normal for there to be spare seats as you set off from Cochabamba; you’ll just be stopping along the way! Tickets for the colectivo cost 35 bs ($5 / £4).

Make sure to go to the loo before you catch the colectivo as there are no toilets on either end.

The colectivo journey

The journey from Cochabamba to Torotoro takes around 3 to 4 hours, including stops to pick up and drop off other passengers. When I was visiting in March 2023, the road to Torotoro was being paved, and had been already for the first two or so hours of the drive. Those roads were fresh and new. There was the odd debris on the road from cliff falls, where the road cuts through the cliff face, so the colectivo had to go on the other side of the road a fair few times.

The final hour or so was very bumpy as we steeply ascended up a thin dirt track to reach Torotoro village. It was a pretty scary journey and I feared we might end up over the cliff. Expect to be shook around – bring motion sickness tablets if you suffer from this!

The colectivo itself was quite cramped, with leg space and seat room at a premium. The bags were stuck on the roof, with a waterproof cover pulled across them. I was scared that my bags would fall off the side. My bag has an Air Tag, and, at one point, my phone gave me the alert “backpack left behind” – I was so scared that it had been flung off the minibus! But it was fine; it hadn’t gone anywhere.

By private car from Cochabamba and Sucre

The only alternative option to taking a colectivo is to hire a private car with driver.

On this journey it’s possible to travel directly from Sucre to Torotoro, which cuts the journey time down to around 8 hours. If not, you’re looking at an 8 hour overnight bus on top of the colectivo.

However, taking a private car from Sucre costs around $200 (£160), so it doesn’t come cheap!

Are there ATMs in Torotoro?

I prepared for my visit to Torotoro as though there were no ATMs available – this is what most articles say online.

This was a good thing. I saw one ATM in the village, but this only accepted Visa. All the cards I had with me were MasterCard, so this would’ve been a major problem! As the only ATM in a remote location, I suspect it’ll regularly be empty too.

Therefore, I’d definitely recommend bringing all the cash you think you’ll need to Torotoro. There are plenty of ATMs in Cochabamba, so stock up!

How long should you spend in Torotoro?

Depending on your interests, you can construct day trips in Torotoro National Park. There are around several half day activities which I’d recommend doing during your visit, making two full days of activities.

As such, I’d recommend you stay for two full days. For a comfortable, relaxed visit I’d recommend visiting for three nights. However, if you’re time-strapped and need to get an overnight bus, you could leave on the last colectivo to Cochabamba. Depending on when you leave for your tour, it could be a difficult transfer, but entirely doable.

Conclusion

Torotoro National Park is a super interesting place to visit when in Bolivia. I’d thoroughly recommend it to you if you’re into small towns, hiking, geology or dinosaurs: it’ll be a dream!

What do you want to know about Torotoro National Park? Let me know in the comments!

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