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Published: June 15th 2010
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Ian studying the book hard The bus unbelievably made it in early to Cochabamba (I thought everything was always late in South America?), at 5am, which was not what we wanted as we couldn’t go to the hostel till about 7am, so we had a 2 hour wait in the terminal. It was actually quite an interesting few hours as we people watched the whole time. The place was absolutely rampacked, even at that hour, and we saw crazy things like a sheep getting on a bus, ladies carrying round petrol jerry cans filled with tea and coffee for sale, lots of indigenous ladies, machine like in strength yet rather on the large side, kids running around playing the Daytona machine happily and helpful bus employees watching the women lug around their heavy bags while chatting to their mates. Outside the streets were just as packed too with street stalls selling breakfast and coffee and traffic rushing around like it was the middle of the day. We left the mayhem 2 hours later and slept for a few hours, showered and wandered into town.
Cochabamba is located in the geographical centre of Bolivia and is a young city, a university town, also known as the
“City of Eternal Spring” due to its pleasant climate. It's a nice city to walk around, with busy market squares and a good vibe genreally as the people seem happy and content with life here. We stopped for pancakes and waffles in Cafe Kausay, crossed over the river and eventually found Palacio Portales just in time for the last tour. This luxurious former house of Simon Patino - the "King of Tin" - is built in a random mix of styles, with lovely scupltured gardens. It was a good tour with lots of information (and all in Spanish again). On the walk back to the centre, we had a well deserved beer in a street cafe, followed by a tasty dinner at Casablanca - yummy enchiladas for Lisa and super cheesy gnocchi for Ian (and more beer of course!). A funky little find, with a jazz band playing and seemingly filled with students, it was a cool place to chill out/get drunk/eat/have fun. Walking back through Plaza 14 de Septiembre on the other hand, we saw lots of homeless guys sleeping under the arches of the square which brough us back down to earth after a great evening.
We
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Double yum! got up late after having watched a few DVDs when we got home, and decided to pay for half a day at the hostel so we didn't need to rush around and check out. Picked up our bus tickets to Sucre for a bus which we unfortunately had to get earlier than we wanted, and then went for lunch at Eli’s - pizza for Ian, a crappy soup and saltena (like a savoury stuffed pastry for me). Not best pleased. Went for a walk around in the sunshine, then got a taxi to the Teleferiqo, where we rose up to Jesus standing high on a mountain top looking out over his loyal subjects. We met some crazy Peruvians from Arequipa in our cable car, who wanted photos of me (???), and there was the terrible singing lady too. Oh dear god whoever told her she could sing and get money for it was either mean or deaf! The views were great though and you got a real sense of the size of the city (much bigger than expected). You wouldn’t want to walk up to it though and we'd definitely had enough of trekking uphill by then! We had an
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Ian in one of his fave places...a market! unhealthy but yummy dinner at Globos - a big American style diner/restaurant (and bizarrely there are about 5 of them in the small city centre - overkill!). It was packed out, with people gorging on ice cream and cakes. I had a bit of a mini-feast myself - pan de yucca (yes!! finally found some!) and other savoury pastry goods which were a hundred times better than my lunch time disaster, restoring my faith in baked goods, while Ian had pancakes. Naughty but soooooo nice!
It was then packing time and off to catch another bus. Sadly this one was pretty crappy compared to our Peru night bus experiences - there was no toilet, crap, uncomfortable seats which didn’t recline at all, irritating music people played from their phones without earphones so we all had to listen to it and no TV. We also stopped within half an hour so the drivers could get off and eat, so we waited patiently in the cold, watching men peeing everywhere, before continuing on our way over potholed roads and dodgy bridges. We even saw a family of 5 (2 adults and 3 kids) sharing 2 seats! How uncomfortable (and pikey!) on
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Palacio Portales a 10 hour journey??? Note to self (and others reading this), never travel with Flota Copacobana bus company. Crucero! You gave us a false sense of Bolivian bus security! But we're taking all these night buses to save on accommodation so that's something I guess....
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