Bolivia
As we headed into bolivia it was like a scene from the wild west, everywhere we looked there were deep canyons in all shades of browns, deep ochres, reds and oranges. The dusty landscape unfolded before us in a jagged scene with the expectation of cowboys and tumble weeds to appear at any moment. As we sat waiting for a bus to arrive we watched the ragged stream of buses arriving and joked that maybe the one dilapidated bus that pulled up in front of us might be ours. Laughing we then watched an even worse excuse for a bus pull up in front only to realize that it was our bus. The 3 hour bus ride to the next town that ensued, along unsealed roads with the dust pouring in and leaving a coating on everything, was redeemed by the amazing scenery.
When we arrived in Tupiza and showed up at the hostel to book a room, our expectations were low for what type of accommodation we might encounter as the stories of bed bugs, bland food and low standards in cleanliness came back to us. To our shock we entered a huge hallway with black and white checkered tiles, a winding staircase and a room complete with tv and a bathroom for only $17!!! We could not contain our excitement that grew and grew as we wandered the dusty town oozing with culture and nestled in between the huge Andean hills! Our first order of business was to get food and money! However the only banks in town do not have ATM’s and we quickly realized how limited our Spanish was as we tried to grasp the conversation with the bank teller. Finally we walked out with thousands in Boliviano’s in our pocket (I love it when the currency exchange makes you feel like millionaires!) Our first Bolivian dinner was fantastic, we walked into Los Almos restaurante through swinging, wild west wooden doors and into a colidascope for the senses. Music blaring Shania Twain, pictures of movie stares lining the walls, shelves with knick knacks in every spare space and animal heads looking down at us as we devoured delicious and ridiculously cheap meals. Greg’s fajitas came out as a mound of carne(meat) set ontop of French fries and fried onions. Once again a huge litre of beer was $1.50. This little town is set amongst the mountains with only a few street lights and the walk home was incredible looking up at the night sky with millions of twinkling stars appearing within reach.
We decided to tackle the hills and headed through town, past old men sitting on benches, woman with incredible outfits in a rainbow of colours carrying babies slung on their backs or huge loads of vegatables or sticks. Children were skipping down the dusty roads in their school uniforms and crops were being harvested on colourful blankets in the fields. We found a path leading into the hill range behind town and we started to climb, skirting the cactuses and slipping on the shale. The sun was bright overhead and sheep were grazing on the hills – for what I am not sure as only a few rare patches of green were visible and even then they usually were attached to thorn trees. As we climbed higher and higher, heading for the ridge line, the plan was to walk all the way back to town following the ridgeline of the hills, however the path got steeper and steeper and our feet fought to find solid ground. A voice suddenly started talking in the my head and Andrea’s voice echoed with each step “We have to realize there are consequences to our actions, we have to be more careful!” This hit me with a start as we climbed up onto the last peak before the ridge, hand over hand and rested on the ledge that was much narrower than we had imagined and then the realization that we would have to go down the same way we came up. Looking down at the steep path that dropped precariously away below, we realized we would have to lower ourselves back down, so crab crawling slowly down the side of the mountain, dislodging rocks that rolled and dropped away over the edge, we finally made it to safer ground where we could stand and slide down the shale. The views from the top were incredible though as we gazed around the circle of hills and the valley and town below. Cactuses dotted the landscape and we watched as a bird of prey circled in front of us searching for its afternoon snack. The brilliant blue sky was a sharp contrast to the brown muted hills and the clouds were large puffy white clouds that looked as if you could reach out and touch them.
The next day we set off for our jeep adventure through the South west Bolivia. We had heard from other travelers about the salt flats and that is one of the main reasons we decided to travel in Bolivia as it was not originally part of the itinerary, however in those first hours in Bolivia we fell in love with the country and the people. Our 4 day tour as with all of our Bolivian experiences exceeded our expectations.
