Tupiza

They say things come in threes... hopefully this was the last dumb thing for a while. I managed to set my alarm on the old time meaning we got up far too early, oops :( This was after a fitful sleep - our room is nice but there is an unexplained square hole in the ceiling and it sounds like there are wild animals in the roof, plus a constant dripping noise started at some point and drove us nuts, but we were too cold to get up and look for ear plugs.

Breakfast was served to us on a tray so no helping ourselves. It was plenty though: fresh oj, 2 fresh rolls, yoghurt and banana.

Our mission for the day: get money out, buy llama stuff, water and loo roll for the Jeep tour. Shouldn't take long you'd think. After 5 hours and a zillion laps of the very small town that is Tupiza, we finally accomplished this.

We were distracted by a huge band parade through the square to mark the town's centenary (we think). Everyone was dressed up in band uniforms or smart suits. We had some fluorescent ice creams - at 50p each for 2 scoops and a waffle cone I'm liking it here.

The ATM wouldn't work with either of my cards but luckily Anna's debit card worked slowly, only allowing 5 lots of 500B, which was just enough for now, phew.

Anna ordered some street food and was given the most ginormous plate of food, however she is fearful of more food poisoning and the majority of the dish was reheated chicken and rice so she wouldn't touch it :( I opted for marshmallows dipped in chocolate, an apple and some lovely sweet puffed rice things (3B).

We had waited for Bolivia for our llama goods thinking they'd be cheaper but there isn't much here. In northern Argentina there were stalls after stalls but we had to search hard here. Eventually we found a pair of llama socks (20B each) and Anna got a llama top (90B) to keep us snuggly. They are amazingly effective!

There was another evening parade which we watched  from our hostel window which was all lit up, but with no traffic control so a bit crazy.

For dinner we went to The Alamo, decorated along the lines of hard rock cafe with cheap food. We went for Mexican which was lovely but too huge for us to finish...we could have shared easily. The place was packed due to the celebrations. Afterwards we saw the parade on TV and would likely have seen our debut appearance on Bolivian TV if not for the small and fuzzy picture!Read more