Potosi to la Paz - hijack scenario


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South America » Bolivia » La Paz Department » La Paz
August 2nd 2012
Published: August 2nd 2012
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In a desperate state of despair, we had to leave Potosi.

Although pleasant in many ways, one could loose the will to live as boredom sets in heavily just 4 hours after arriving.

Potosi is famous for its silver mines, but if you don't fancy taking a mine tour (which both of us did not, after having visited several of the beasts in our country by force of academic conditioning) there is naff all else to do!

Andys list of 'fun' things to do in potosi:

1. Befriend stray dogs. One such dog, which I named jeff and G named toffee, so as an amalgamation of the two names the vagrant flea bag was christened joffee! Joffee was a pleasant wee beast, after we befriended him he became very protective, overly protective to be honest and as a result he attacked everyone who passed us! We left the park pronto to screams of anger from the locals! He was a good dog.



2. Eat up to 3 double scoop coconut ice creams a day, 18 pence a pop, value you can't pass up I say!



3. Eat a 5 course meal for £3.20



4. Sleep on park benches, acquiring a real local vagrant look. I call it cultural integration...



5. Leave potosi.



Thank you andy, that was a lonely planet worthy list.



So, having endured andys ridiculousness for 2 days, it was time to get the 9 hour 'local' bus to la Paz. Woohoo!

This however turned out to be harder than the regular sly exit. Firstly the Nuevo potosi bus station staff didn't seem to know where la Paz was and tried to make us buy tickets to an unknown location for 20p, which was when andys stomach decided to start tap dancing, and he fled to the bathroom , leaving myself stood waiting anxiously at a possible terminal, whilst an unpleasant lady/man shoved crackers in her face and occasionally gave me hope that a bus would eventually turn up. Oh and I'm sure she accidentally smiled at one point, but that may of just been wind..

Eventually! We boarded a bus, yay! An hour late but who cares. We were enroute to lapaz, bye poohtosi..

Or so we thought..

It turns out we would only get 2 hours away from potosi before our bus just stopped. And no, this was not a gas stop, or a rather tedious set of traffic lights. It was just a stop.

Traffic in front and behind could be seen for about a mile. We presumed it was roadworks and slept reasonably well on our bump free stationary bus 😊

9 hours later...

Waking up and looking out of the window to see a couple of 70 year old campesino broads weeing on the roadside is definitely up there with the top ten things you shouldn't see first thing in the morning. Yes, the bus was still stationary and had turned into a local memorial hall, babies screaming, toddlers sprinting up and down the bus whilst desperate mothers tried to de nappy them, andys belly making noises similar to the north America bull frog, and oaps Shouting profanities at each other sucking on pigs ears that we're being bought from vendors appearing at the windows.

Why oh why we're we stationary?? Then suddenly "bang bang".. We looked at each other. Was that a gun? Yes it was a gun.

I could see the fear growing in andys face, and I looked round to see unbemused passengers. Which drew me to one of two conclusions. Either we were panicking over nothing, or, the locals we going to use us as randsom to get away safely from the dangerous highwaymen that lay before us.

There was nothing to do but wait. But what to do with your last few hours.. Eat toffees, sleep and listen to morrisey of course! How one truly appreciates life when it coming to an end...the gun shots continued..

Hello, Webby here, along with listening to morrissey and eating toffees I also threatened to hit Georgi witha hammer. This amused us both, and in fits of giggles I made a song up to lighten the mood... Here it is, (gee-gore is G's new nickname)



There once was a crab called gee-gore, who spent all here days on the sea floor, her head was rambunctious and her shell all scrumptious, so I smashed it open with a hammer and ate it. Pescatarian innit...The end....

Thank you andy, that was lovely.

Ps. It turns out we weren't getting hijacked. The gun shot were fireworks for a forthcoming festival and there was no roadworks, crashes or highwaymen.

It's a mystery as to why we were still for so long, I think a hijacking scenario would of been less stressful!!

Chao for now, love to mother cow!

Peace.

Shanti dem



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