Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
IN. bolivia is really good, having an awesome time so far. sooo much cheaper than argentina, been paying less then 2 pounds a night for hostels, think the record so far is about 1.30! so lee and i turned up in tupiza after a really long day of travelling, both really tired and with massive headaches due to dehydration and altitude. probably not helped by the beer i had at the train station either. also hadnt really eaten anything all day except a stale bread roll and some biscuits, so decided to try out the bolivian cuisine. almost went to an italian restaurant because it had a witty name (tu pizza, HA), but eventually found a proper bolivian place which gave me loads of spicy chicken and vegetables and beer for about 80p. yessss. got woken up the next morning by loads of commotion in the street, so staggered outside only to be confronted by about 200 soldiers marching towards me brandishing assault rifles. luckily it turned out there wasnt some kind of military coup, the army had just decided to have some sort of parade round the streets with a full marching band at 7am. how inconsiderate. not mush else to report from tupiza, nice town but wanted to get moving, so left lee wandering around somewhere and went to get a jeep to uyuni.
thought this was probably a better option than the bus as they claimed it would only take 5 hours rather than 8, however they failed to mention that they were planning to fill the 6-8 person jeep with 12 people, including token screaming baby, yaaaay. was really uncomfortable but actually good fun in the end, scenery was incredible and driving in bolivia is what you might call an "experience." the general tactic when confronted by a crossroads/blind corner/sleeping llama in the road seems to be to sound the horn really loudly whilst accelerating and hoping said object moves out of the way, usually resulting in some last minute swerving and many disgruntled llamas. seems to be quite effective though as haven´t seen any accidents yet! had a running commentary the whole way from a little girl in the back, who was helpfully pointing out every object we passed and saying "aqui.............montaña.......aqui........casas......aqui.......montañas rojas..." etc etc. pretty sure i knew more spanish words than her though, felt quite smug. also met two argentinian girls in the jeep who were heading the same way as me, so we ended up travelling together for about a week. really good spanish practise, although they spoke quite a bit of english so i tended to lapse into english quite a bit when feeling lazy! eventually we arrived in atocha after about 5 hours after a couple of breakdowns on precarious mountain roads, the jeep didnt seem too keen on trying to lug 12 people and all their luggage the rest of the way so they bundled us onto a bus for the remaining 3 hours or so, also quite an interesting experience. definately feels a lot more like south america now! eventually arrived in uyuni safe and sound though, and went to try and sort our lives out for the next few days.
- comments