Anything worth doing...

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It seems anything worth doing in Bolivia involves a mission and a half! Lucky enough to secure the last three seats at the back on a local (know what that means) bus out of Uyuni to Potosi, we thought we had it made. That was until a man, the size of a seat and a half sat beside Irene. Not that he seemed overjoyed to be sitting beside her, but made it a point to regularly move over on top of her during the night - bearing in mind that he took up half of her seat in the first place, this meant that Irene is practically sitting on my lap. All the while this is happening I had to be constantly be on the alert to the weapon in front of me who wanted to move her seat so she could also lie on top of me. At a toilet stop we got our new friend Eoin to swap with fatso and spent the rest of the journey in relative harmony but without a modicum of comfort.
Gladly throwing our bags into a taxi once we got off the infernal bus, we all happily thought the horror was over. That was of course until we reached our hostel, had to bang on the door for about ten minutes before some dude eventually opens the door to tell us sorry, no he got our reservation but check-in isn´t until 10am - at this stage it is 4 in the morning with a horrendous bus journey behind us. Showing our reference number, pointing out that we said we would be arriving at 3am, that we would pay the extra seemed to make no impact. Only for the passing of a police car, seemed to move the prick into "allowing" us sleep in the common area. The hostel is all set around a courtyard, and being in that common room, two chairs, one couch, four people was like sleeping outside in the courtyard, don´t forget that Potosi is 4200 ft above sea level. We put on every single layer of clothing, I slept under a towel and it was still Baltic. At half six, Eoin and I gave up the ghost, had a shower to try and take the ice from our bones and went for breakfast. This was no easy feat as nothing seems to open in Potosi until the air has reached 0 degrees. We found the most lovely restaurant with two Americans we picked up in the hostel, they also couldn´t check into their rooms, and had another horrific story. Making the mistake of going to the toilet during the night, they came back to the bus to find their seats had been sold in their absence and had to spend the remaining 12 hours of the journey in the aisle.
Back at the hostel, we decided to do a legger - seeing as we had booked a bus out of Potosi that night, we had no need of accommodation! Irene and Eoin made it out but Teresa and I were caught, one foot out the door by the sweetheart who let us stay. Not a word of apology for the inconvenience of us having to sleep on a freezing floor in Baltic conditions. Rather he demands we pay full whack for the nights accommodation!!!

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