Blogs from Tupiza, Potosí Department, Bolivia, South America - page 10

So we have been and gone through Bolivia in no time but really enjoyed it. We started in La Paz, a massive city at 3700m so walking up even the smallest hills got us peckin a wee bit! La Paz was crazy. Markets all over the streets but with some awesome bargains (alpcaca jumper for 6 quid!) and not so awesome bargains at the witches market (llama foetus´to bury under your house for good luck.. hmmm!). We had a good night out where the boys had "Mo livia" where they had to have some odd facial hair thing going on, so feeling left our I pencilled myself on a nice tache- check out the pic! After a good couple of days in La Paz and buying souveniers for next to nothing we headed off to Potosi. ... read more

Our stop in Uyuni was brief as we have become increasingly aware of time and so we spent half a day exploring the town, the markets, sussing out how to head south (yes south) and generally meeting the real life of Bolivia. We love Bolivia, the people are friendly and smiling and with un poco Spanish we are welcomed and accommodated for. Emma´s really glad she did that intro course and is learning a new word or two each day. Uyuni is truly an isolated desert town, apparently its supposed to be really cold but its nothing like what we experienced out in the wilderness to get here. We had a look at the few sights and thAfter our half day sight seeing we bought a ticket for Tupiza in the South West corner of Bolivia. ... read more

Tupiza is great! Bolivia has lived up to its reputaion of being cheaper than Argentina. we found a great hotel with cable TV, a swimming pool and the best breakfast we have had for 16USD (Hotal Mitur). We organized a Salar de Uyuni (salt flat) tour. We have been told this tour takes us up into some amazing environments although Leanne is slightly worried about the nightly -20degrees temperatures and the accomodation described as basic i.e no heating. After booking this we had a quick run down to the local market to stock up on winter woolies and Matt found a great barber for the bargain of the day. Hair cut costing 0.60USD. We couldnt leave town tomorrow without riding the the tracks of Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid, so we organised a horse ... read more

I´d heard a few things about Bolivia before arriving: the buses are rubbish and never on time, the food's decidedly dodgy and there's a general disregard for time.......forewarned is forearmed! My first conversation with a Bolivian, the taxi driver, went like this: 'Hola' 'Hola' '¿De que pais son?' 'Inglaterra' 'Ah, Bobby Charlton!' Brilliant! A similar conversation with a Thai taxi driver 7 years ago ended with 'Ah, David Beckham!' I think Bolivia are a bit behind the times. We caught a train to Tupiza which was actually very comfy, just not very speedy. The windows opened all the way down; perhaps not that safe but handy for buying ice creams from the sellers on the platform. The toilet was quite amusing - you could see the track whizzing along below! - and even surprisingly clean, with ... read more

As soon as we crossed the border into Bolivia, it was immediately obvious that we had entered a different country. Gone are the European influences of Argentina; the roads are dustier, the people's faces are broader and darker, and everywhere there is evidence that things are much much poorer here. We got off our night bus in the freezing morning air in the border town of La Quaica, without much clue where to go from there. We ended up getting a taxi (just a few hundred metres) to Villazon on the Bolivian side of the border, walking through the immigration office, which was a little shed at the side of the road, then into another cab to the bus station, where we booked our transport to Tupiza, our actual destination. It was a bit like being ... read more