The wild wild west!! Or actually south....

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So I couldn´t sleep my last night in potosi, not just cause it was freezing (but it WAS)... I don´t know why. In any case I got to the bus station really early and bought my ticket for Tupiza, a secret gem in Bolivia. Totally resembles the wild west from old movies (in fact many american flicks were filmed here, go figure) with dry hills covered in sporadic low laying bushes and tall cacti. Really cool!!

So as typical Bolivia, the bus was over an hour late to leave but thankfully we finally left. When I wasn´t sleeping I enjoyed watching the landscape dry out an cactuses pop up. In fact I loved in!! Once again I felt like I belonged here. I thought about a lot of things, as usual, and pictured myself out there on a horse hurding cattle or something... just living on the range... lol

So the total trip was suppose to take about 8 hours, however about 10 k from Tupiza the bus stopped. It was 3 pm and there was a sign, the road is closed till 6:30 pm for construction. lol. so everybody got off the bus to sit on the side of the road in a rut. I was actually amused and delighted in fact. Cool, I get to spend more time in this awesome place!! I went for a small walk, listened to cold play on my ipod, and wrote letters to the people I love. The time flew by and the sun began to set so I started to head back to the bus. The locals were periodically urinating in plain view, but what unfortunately caught my attention was the man who pulled down his pants to take a dump in front of me... nice. whatever..

Finnaly I arrived at my GORGOEUS hostel, complete with private room and a nice looking pool, plus buffet breakfast, but a little pricy at 6 dollars a night. I want to stay forever but there is no bank machine in this town, or bank... Anyhow, I went out for dinner with these two quebecois girls I met. Really nice girls. They would intermitantly speak in french with their quebecois accent and it reminded me of a french lover I once had many years ago. (i know, i know...). But I remebered how nice it was with all the frenchness and everything, and an interesting life lesson was learnt when I tried to recconect with him many years later. Let´s just say that sometimes we put things in the past for a reason, and its nice to have that past and remember it fondly but its often best to leave it there. I thought about this over dinner, since lately I´ve been having so much time to reflect that its not unusual to miss my past at times. But looking back at this lesson it comforts me to know the past is where it should be and I should be grateful at that.

Moving along. Next day I chilled by the pool and tanned. I met an American, Eric, a kiwi and his swed wife, Peter (pedro) and Tanya. The following day we decided to go horseback into the canyon. Great fun. Our 13 yr old guide wasn´t much help but I got to gallop alot, and Eric´s horse was a little nuts! He went off where ever and refused to slow down. lol. When we got to the canyon, deep red crevices, like a mini grand canyon, we got to get off and go climbing for about an hour. Climbing without gear ofcourse, but totally easy, even the small water fall (although slippery) was not too difficult to negotiate. We got back, had a nice dinner with beer of course to celebrate our blisters and great fun. I visited the tour agency and negotiated an awesome price for a 5 day tour in the remote parts of southern bolivia, including the world famous salar de uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. This amazing adventure appears in the next entry.

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