Blogs from Villazón, Potosí Department, Bolivia, South America

Here we are, last day in Bolivia. After Tupiza (and a nice hot shower..) I am heading to Villazon to cross the border and go to Salta, Agentina This country was amazing. It is told to be the most authentic country of South America. Well, this is mainly because it is the poorest ! But somehow it is one of the richest: Life is like nowhere else, friendliness of people, landscape, .. Of course this is very cheap: You sleep for less than 10euros, and with 15euros you are like a king. Food is similar, for 10-15euros you have an amazing dinner with lots of wine (like one bottle each) in the top range restaurants. What was amazing is the lack of infrastructure: Most of the towns and roads are unpaved and you heavily depends of ... read more

Geo: -22.0801, -65.5887In a spur of the moment decision we added another day to our trip north and headed for Bolivia. Do you know you can walk right into the country? Right past the checkpoints like you owned the place? But first we had to get there.The highway follows the Humahuaca gorge north through some pretty bizarre country (see photos). It's a geologist's dream. It changes from one ridge to the next. I couldn't believe how varied it was. It looks like Arizona in some places, like eastern Montana in others, southern Utah in others and in some--like nothing any of us had ever seen before. Looking at photos is like having only a grain of it--it's too vast--too odd--too different to put in photos or words. Sorry, I tried.When we were all sitting at dinner ... read more

Coca in cheek and my meanwhile 30kg backpack in tow (where am I accummulating this stuff from!), I cross (on foot) the border Argentina/Bolivia (to the first town called Villazon). Immediately, without warning, we (I travelled with a Canadian lady called Maude) are greeted welcomely by sand dust, rubbish flying through the air, stinky smell, and about a million people. Utter chaos. Dogs are running through the streets stopping at every piece of rubbish in search for food, often bumping head on into our legs. Maude and I make our way express to the Bolivian Bus Terminal. I couldn´t believe what I saw. Women with babies hanging from their backs, 10 year old boys ... just about every local, were attacking us from all sides, shouting ´Tupiza!´ (this is the town we want to get to), ... read more

On all that we’ve gone through the past 2 weeks we could probably easily write a 100-page novel - not quite fitting for this little blog. However, writing just a short paragraph or two would not do justice in describing this final journey - the climax of our year-long escapade, perhaps. So, we’ve deviated from the usual format for this blog entry, and instead are going to put down some summarized extracts from our personal diaries. Day 1 - Too Easy! We arrive in Uyuni, a remote town of 10 000 people nearby the world’s largest salt plane, to investigate the possibility of an off-road trip in the beautiful south of Bolivia, but first we need to get the car revised and look for a guide who knows the region. As we check in to a ... read more

Where have the last three months gone? It seems that only yesterday we were up in Bermejo renewing our visa. This time we headed up to La Quiaca and crossed into Villazon, Bolivia. It was a terrible journey as the bus wasn't overly comfortable and all the people around us snored loudly all the time (except two people who chatted on their phones with brightly illuminated screens!). That's what MP3 players were invented for eh!! What did we do before they came along?! We arrived at the border at 7.30am Argentine time, and hour ahead of Bolivian time. Just as we got to the Argentine police window, the cleaner arrived, and the window was closed in our faces! We had to wait about half an hour for the border guard to have his mate and for ... read more