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Imagine if you will the following 11 hour bus journey...
• no toilet
• baggage falling from the overhead storage area all night (down to some crazy driving skills) meaning we had to keep everything on our laps,
• incomprehensible issues with seating numbers resulting in us having to move seats twice and give up our functioning reclining seats to two of the most selfish travellers we’ve met who then proceeded to put the seats back so horizontally that their heads were in our laps, made worse for us both due to the fact my newly assigned seat didn’t go back at all and Ian had a woman with a small child on her lap behind him so couldn’t put his back anyway, even if he wanted to,
• windows that flew open all night (again down to the driving)freezing our butts off
• and a dog (actually the dog was no problem at all, just never seen one travel by overnight bus before!)
Suffice to say we will never travel with the 6 de Octubre bus company again!
But we arrived safely (and extremely grumpily in Lisa’s case!) in Tupiza, in southern Bolivia, at 5am in a tiny
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Random gig in the plaza terminal where we had to wait for a few hours as we couldn’t check into the hostel until 7am. So we joined the groups of people already a-kip on the benches (had they been there all night or were they waiting for a bus??) and attempted to sleep. Impossible...far too cold!!! So we just bided our time until we could go to the hostel and find some warmth and a bed. Hostal Bolivar was quite a little gem in this one-horse town, run by a nice old lady, where we stayed in a comfy room and finally got a proper sleep.
Once up again, we went on the hunt for tours of Salar de Uyuni. First up we tried at Tupiza Tours where we booked a horse tour but decided against the big Salt Lake tour as she was pretty grumpy and we didn’t fancy handing a wad of cash over to such a misery guts. Next was Torre Tours, which was run by a very pleasant chappy but we’d heard that the place was full of light fingered tealeafs so we thought it’d be wrong to line the pockets of thieves. Finally we found Hermoso Tours, where a
lovely lady bombarded us with information and jokes and our decision was made.
Lunch at a small place on the square was surprisingly good for me and just as surprisingly bad for Ian - his ubiquitous pizza was not good at all, while my burger and chips was. The food fairy works in mysterious ways....but there was nothing unexplained about what happened to Lisa that night as the bad belly fairy gave her a visit meaning she was in bed for the next 24 hours.
We had booked the horse riding tour for the following day which obviously was a no-go what with Lisa’s issues, so we postponed it until she was better and Ian spent the day chilling, playing Football Manager and keeping Lisa hydrated. He’d make a great nurse!
We were up late the next day and, as Lisa was feeling alive again, we went for some lunch at Bella Napoli , a nice little Italian place, where it was soup for Sicknote and, you guessed it, pizza for Ian! We then experienced the banking system in Tupiza which involves everyone standing in a queue outside until the bank opens after lunch, then everyone rushing
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Lisa and Morro riding the tracks in, explaining to the security guy that what they need is more important than the next person and causing a stampede in which a blind, crippled and slightly crazy old lady was nearly knocked over. Luckily, the security guy saw we were obviously bemused by the goings-on and ushered us in ahead of the madness. And all this happens everyday just because they don’t have a cash machine in the whole town, yet there are 3 banks. Go figure...
It was then finally time for some yee-haaaw! action as we met Eduardo, our riding guide, and mounted our steeds for the afternoon, Bronco and Morro. And once again, Ian was given the littley! We decided he needs to start saying he has experience so he will be given bigger horses! Unfortunately, Eduardo was a bit of a useless guide and couldn’t answer any of my questions about the landscape, the legends surrounding the area, the history...so we made up our own stories and had fun anyway. The landscape is an amazing brick red colour (natural apparently, according to Eduardo when I asked him why!!?) and we enjoyed riding through the arid land until we came to a dead end
in the rocks and stopped for a break. Morro, my independent and smart ride, wandered off into the crack in the rocks as soon as I got off him and we found him licking at a small stream of water trickling down the rock face. It was then back to town and to bed early as we had to meet at Hermoso Hostel the next day at 8.30am for the beginning of our Salar de Uyuni adventure...
See you in the Salt lakes!
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Dave Pavitt
non-member comment
Great adventure
Sounds like lots of surprises to make great memories. Look forward to following your travels.