What day was that day trek again? Sunday I think. Uhm..what else. Ah, the bus trip to La Paz! So, Thursday morning we were due to fly from La Paz via Lima and San Jose into Guatemala City. All the buses Sucre to L.P were overnight so on Monday we decided to try our luck at 'not same day' travel again and headed to the bus terminal to get tickets for Tuesday night. Ha. Trans Copacabana were meant to be the best so we went there first. The very nice saleslady said nope had to come back the next day. They open at 7am so she recommended being there earlier as there would be queues. We tried 3 or 4 other companies, all of them said the same thing so, a bit irritated but fatalistic, we went back to the hostel.

Bright and chirpy the next morning we got to the bus terminal about 6.30ish, queues already fairly long overall but the one at Trans Cop wasn't too bad, maybe a dozen or so people ahead of us. The saga beings.

First- they opened late, maybe 7.15. Then, the lady spent over half an hour (I kid you not, we timed it) with the first customer…not sure what they were doing but it took time). Nick went for a wander and came back saying almost no queue at El Dorado and should we try them. Hindsight is always perfect and we should have just done it but I said I'd prefer Trans Cop as they seemed to be a bit safer etc. Fair enough. Ages later, maybe 8.30, the sales girl had served perhaps 6 people in total maximum. The lady in front of me was cranky as were we and most of the others in the queue, with men often heading to the counter to find out what the hold-up was. Then right when it looked like the queue might actually start moving there was a nasty rumour- they'd sold out. No one believed it and there was a minor stampede for the counter to see if it was true. Yup, there were no more tickets for that night's Sucre- La Paz bus. Fruck! Of course we then went to El Dorado- sold out. Every single bloody frigging stupid bus company all seemed to have sold out of La Paz tickets at the same time, and I mean there were still hundreds of people in queues waiting to be served… I was fully expecting a riot or somesuch but after a lot of shouting and complaining people got down to the fixing of stuff.

Our lady at the Trans Cop counter broke the good news, she was selling tickets for the next days' travel (hang on, what happened to the 'same day only' spiel she'd told us before??!). Travelling the next day wouldn't work for us as we had to be at the airport in La Paz around 6, 6.30am the following morning, so the bus wouldn't make it. We went back to the hostel tired, hungry, angry, out of breath and a little bit worried. Back in free wifi land we jumped on the laptop searching flights out of Sucre- nothing. Hoping for better luck we braved the travel agencies. The national carrier, BOA said they had flights the following week. Grand. But suggested we try just down the road at a non-airline-allied agency as there were maybe other options. We tried there, the Nice Man said we could get a flight Thursday afternoon. s***. He took the details of the hostel we were staying at, said to go there and relax while he looked at other options.

Again back in wifi land we jumped on the computer to look at something- anything which could work. There were flights from Santa Cruz to La Paz and we knew we could take a bus to Santa Cruz (or at least, we knew buses went there. Whether we could get tickets for that night's trip was a different story). We figured a bus ticket would be maybe 100 Bolivianos, the flights were just over 700, so about 800 per person- $160NZ/GBP80 each. Stupid expensive and would be a big chunk of our Bolivia budget gone. The other option would be to change the Bolivia- Guatemala flight which again, would have cost a fair amount.

We took a taxi back to the bus terminal to see if there were any tickets to Santa Cruz…which happened to be a 15ish hour ride it turned out. Bus company counter hopping from one to the next, first question was "Any tickets to La Paz tonight?", answer every time "No, there are no tickets anywhere tonight, everywhere is sold out." "Even Santa Cruz?" "Yes, everywhere". Crap.

About the 7thish counter we tried, there was the young lady at the counter, a guy and another woman also behind the counter having a chat. We went up to them and I said "I'm sure you don't but do you have any tickets to La Paz, or even Santa Cruz?". The girl was "Santa Cruz, you want two people?" and the guy behind her butted in "Where do you want to go, Santa Cruz or La Paz". Focussing on him I said in a perfect world we'd prefer La Paz but as it was sold out, we were probably stuck with Santa Cruz… he reached into his pocket and pulled out a bit of paper

Him: "Hmmm, La Paz you say. Two people, for tonight…?"

Me: "Yes."

Him: "Hmmmmm. Well, I have a ticket here for tonight, the seats aren't next to each other."

Me: "A ticket to La Paz, for tonight, for two people?"

Him: "Yeeesssss. I'll sell it to you."

Me (to Nick): "Getyourwallethe'sgotticketstoLa Pazfortonight!"

Nick: "What?"

Me: "Wallet, he says he's got 2 tickets for La Paz for tonight that he'll sell to us."
The Guy: "I paid 138 Bolivianos. I'll sell it for 200."

Me to Nick: "200 Bolivianos and it's ours. He paid 138. Who cares!"
Nick: "s***, wallet. 200- here's the cash. Done."

So, to the delight of all, we handed over the 200 and got in return a priceless ticket for 2 people to La Paz, leaving that evening on some bus we hadn't heard of. The guy then told us to follow him and we headed outside to a counter for a different bus company to the one we'd just been at. The Dude then jumped behind the counter, we think it might be he actually worked there, and proceeded to tell us the bus leaves at 5.30 in the afternoon and be here at 5. The ticket had someone's name on it so we double checked if we could still use it, he said no worries.

So back to the hostel to hurry up and wait. Nick was craving Chinese, or at least some kind of Asian noodle soup so we headed to a nearby Chinese restaurant. I was "woohoo, wontons and sweet and sour!". Turned out the wonton soup wasn't available that day. Damn, well they still had sweet and sour pork and chicken on the menu so get me one of them, yum.

The waiter popped back a couple minutes later. Really sorry, they don't actually have any sweet and sour pork. Or chicken. Sorry. So I ended up with fried rice, which was pretty damned nice actually.

We headed back to the hostel to pass a few more hours then at half 4 jumped in a taxi for our third trip to the bus station that day. We got through, found the bus, put our backpacks in the storage bit, got the luggage tag in return and got on, heading for our seats. One was behind the other but we figured we'd hopefully be able to swap with someone and sit next to each other. Luckily it was a dad and son who were more than happy to do a swapsies and all was well. Maybe 6pm, half an hour after the bus was due to leave, 5 locals got on, hey, we were in their seats.

Eventually (and skipping the dramas in the middle) we had it sorted- the bus company had sold the correct number of tickets but had written 2 seat numbers twice, forgetting a different 2. All was sorted, everyone was as happy as they were going to be, and the bus got underway. To La Paz. That night.

Freezing. I have never been so cold on a bus, it was mental! We eventually got underway and around 8.30, 9pmish the bus pulled over at a little roadside shanty selling food etc. A couple of hot burger like things later and we were busing merrily towards La Paz.

Tossing and turning all night we stopped somewhere else for about 10 minutes before carrying on. The night eventually passed, it seemed to take ages to get anywhere but eventually the sky lightened and dawn slowly made her appearance. We stopped around 6am just after a service station and stayed on the roadside for ages and ages and ages. Eventually the driver came up to us and told everyone to get off, the bus was broken but we were technically in La Paz, so grab your luggage and b***** off. Me and Nick grabbed our bags and along with 3 others took a taxi into the train station.

We mosied up back to the Adventure Brew, arriving maybe 8ish, the only beds they had were in dorms. We just didn't care at that stage so took them on the spot. Breakfast was still going on so we told the lady that as we would be leaving around 6 the next morning would we be able to have food then. For some unknowable reason, that wouldn't be allowed, stink. But she would see if perhaps they could save some of that day's pancakes for us to take with us the next day… (uhm…?).

We done not a hell of a lot that day. Went to the Vertigo biking office to pick up our tshirts (Yay, clean clothes!!) and dvds of the Death Road; had some food somewhere cheap; took a nap which lasted a good few hours; had some free beer; had some food; watched a dvd. Basically bummed around for the day.

Ha, the flight to Guatemala. We had asked the hostel to book us a 6am taxi to the airport as we'd already checked in online, and just needed to drop off our bags. We reconfirmed the times at night before heading to bed. Snuggled up nice and warm and having probably lovely dreams I was woken up at 5.20 by the guy from reception- our taxi was there. Of course. We threw clothes on, biffed the bags in the taxi and headed off on our way.

Check in was normal, did we have any knives or explosives in our luggage type thing. Going through security the guards pulled my bag out and grabbed stuff from it- toothpaste, face cream, lip balms…. Both me and Nick had remembered the 'less than 100mL' rule but had forgotten that things needed to be in a clear plastic bag. So they confiscated all the stuff. Dammit.