South & Central America

NB 10B = £1 (ish).

It's time for our third country! Bolivia! And what an interesting trip it was...

We set off around 11am on the Panamericano bus (80P), which was 10 pesos cheaper than Balut which we'd previously been with. It seems that the extra 80p might have been worth it. Our bus was a bit shabbier, no seat belts, no movies and most importantly the toilet was out of order. Now Anna had sensibly consumed 2 cups of coffee, coke and a lot of water before the journey and after an hour had to convince the driver to let us off for a quick loo break. Fortunately he waited and Anna stopped squirming. She swore never to go with this company again...but fate had other ideas.

About 3 hours later we arrived in La Quiaca, the border town. Since it was hot and at 3,700m we caught a taxi to the border bridge. At 20P it was a blatant rip off for a 3 min drive but we had some pesos left and was definitely worth it.

I had read all sorts of horror stories about the border crossing involving long waits and bribes so we were pleasantly surprised how quick and easy it was - apart from us being idiots! We got our Argentina exit stamp no problem and I hurried off to catch up Anna who had wandered off ahead. We walked across the bridge but couldn't find the Bolivian side for our entry stamp. After a few minutes of confused looking a lady pointed us back over the bridge on the opposite side. So we joined a queue only to find out that was for leaving Bolivia, and were pointed across the road. At last we found the place, about 5 metres ahead of the Argentinian point - d'oh. Forms filled in, we got our stamp no problem :)

We slowly made our way up the hill to the bus terminal via the ATM to get some bolivianos. As soon as we neared the terminal we were bombarded by around 20 people shouting Tupiza?? (Except it sounded like pizza, which may have subliminally influenced my dinner choice). We fought our way through inside the terminal and got some tickets to 15B; then realised it was with Panamericano, hehe. Anna was assured there were working toilets onboard - we never sampled them but judging by the rest of the bus I doubt it.

3pm came and no bus turned up. Anna got annoyed after 10 mins and I told her we couldn't expect all our buses to be punctual. After another 10 mins and no bus she stalked off to the ticket office - Donde es el bus??! He apparently looked confused and said it wasn't time yet and pointed to his clock which read 2:20pm. We had crossed a time zone and both forgotten about it. D'oh again! Made him laugh at the stupid gringas though.

Whilst we waited we watched a pack of dogs patrolling the roads. We've seen dogs everywhere but not as many as here. They don't look starved but appear to be mostly strays and all crave attention, which Anna willingly gives - glad we had those rabies shots.

The bus did turn up on time and off we went. Soon after we went through the tolls for the new road (used to be dirt tracks not so long ago apparently) and then to a police checkpoint - where the fun began...

No idea what was going on but a guy came onboard and quickly poked at things in the overhead storage spaces; not what I'd call a thorough search in the slightest. Then he got off and they started going through the hold luggage. They pulled about 10 big bags off the bus and called for the owner. A lady went down and there was a long argument. At no point did they seem to ever look inside the bags but when we got off later some apples rolled out of one box - hardly illicit substances?! After 20 mins or so of waiting a young boy of about 10 came from nowhere and got on the bus and walked up and down the aisles "singing"/screeching at the top of his lungs then put out his hat for money. He wasn't too successful and was shooed off the bus as we were finally about to go. This had Anna and I in hysterics which didn't seem to please the man sitting next to us who was somehow involved with the dodgy lady. The dodgy cargo was loaded back on, the lady reappeared and off we went none the wiser.

The bus was old (though to be fair not as bad as expected), you had to jump up waist height to get in (no idea how the old women manage) and spluttered like a small airplane up the hills whilst the brakes hissed as we headed downhill. Every time we rounded a bend the whole bus tipped and I was sure our illicit cargo would tip us over the edge of the narrow bridges.

The scenery wasn't as dramatic but still kept me entranced the whole way...mainly flat with small bushes with the mountains off in the distance.

The journey took about 2 hours and we arrived in Tupiza (3,200m) and checked in to La Torre hotel (185B). After booking a tour for the salt flats we got some dinner in a very cute but cold place showing wrestling on TV. Anna had steak and chips whilst I opted for pizza. We also tried pisco sours - 2 for 1, very nice with unknown fluffy white stuff on top. This and a big bottle of water came to 95B - cheap, but not dirt cheap. Once again a young boy walked into the restaurant, played his pan pipes and sang. We decided he deserved a few coins as he had slightly more talent than the first and wasn't so obnoxiously loud.

Then it was back to our room to update our blogs - well for me, Anna is yet to write more than one entry in hers; however she is keeping a funny paper diary with drawings. Our room is freezing and there isn't a heater like the last one. Time to go llama goods shopping tomorrow!Read more

2 more hours of Spanish this morning but I feel we still have some more work to do...during the marking of our homework, I'd written "the door is bored" and Anna wrote "I'm speaking to a lettuce because I'm on a diet". Hmm.

After school, our teacher Vicky took us to a locals place to eat where we had quinoa soup and some veggie dish. We paid for hers too and total was 30B! Bargain. However these places don't look like restaurants so we'd never have gone in on our own. We also picked up some amazing carrot juice and carrot cakes from the man next door for next to nothing.

Then we went off to Parque Cretacico where they discovered a load of dinosaur footprints in a quarry in 1994. We got a public chicken bus (on the third attempt, the first 2 were jammed) for 3B for both of us. The very hyper, overenthusiastic Juan Carlos (call me JC) gave us a tour of the small park which is made up of an upright wall of footprints (tectonic shifts have moved it from a flat lake) and a load of dinosaur models and roaring noises. The best part for me was the dino-themed kiddies playground!

Another chicken bus back through the crazy, busy market and we got off at the Plaza and headed to Condor Cafe again for dinner. We shared the menu del dia - quinoa soup; chips, spicy rice and a gorgeous fried aubergine thing; and a banana-choc muffin for 25B. Throw in an amazing cup of hot chocolate for me and beer for Anna and we were nice and full.Read more