The T Towns

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*Traveling has been hectic. All this actually happened 2-3 weeks ago, but enjoy nonetheless. This was another one of those entries with technical difficulties (to make a long story short), so unfortunately there won't be any pictures for this one. Sorry about that (just let your imagination go).*

After the mesmerizing Salar de Uyuni, it was time to keep going. Two people from my tour group, one guy from Mexico and one girl from Chile, and I decided to continue on together to the town of Tupiza, southeast of Uyuni. We were scheduled to take an overnight train, my first use of non-bus transportation (not counting the boat ride on Lake Titicaca) on the whole trip. With luck I managed to get a ticket, with first-class being the only ones left. I groaned at the price, 102 Bolivianos, as I had become spoiled by how cheap everything is in Bolivia (102 Bolivianos is only about $13 US, mind you). After the treacherous bus ride from Potosi to Uyuni, I finally knew what they meant about Bolivian transportation being so bad. I had further revelations on the matter when the train was only an hour away from Tupiza. There was a torrential downpour during the night (which I was totally unaware of) and a 40 meter section of the track was flooded. The conductor explained everything in detail. There were a few other gringos in my train car and, knowing I spoke Spanish, they all immediately asked me what was going on. This lead to shouting questions and answers from one end of the car to the other, much to the chagrin of the Bolivian passengers. After waiting two hours for the track to be cleared, we were on our way again, only to be stopped by another flooded section of track 20 minutes later. Luckily they were quicker in cleaning up this time. To keep us sane, they showed various bad American movies, including one about a kidnapped baby who escapes his captors and then traverses the city of New York while the bumbling criminals ran after him. Keep us insane, more like it.

After arriving in Tupiza (5 hours late), the three of us explored the town, which isn't much really. There's a beautiful mirador (lookout point) that overlooks the city and the surrounding red rock, but other than that there's not much. The star attraction in the area are the quebradas (there's no exact translation, but something like depression, gully, ravine, etc). We did a full day tour in a Jeep and were able to see almost everything, including formations like Puerta del Diablo (Devil's Door) and Valle de los Machos (Valley of Men), with numerous, you guessed it, phallic-like rock formations. The scenery reminded me a lot of the red rocks of Arizona and Utah. After only one full day in Tupiza, the three of us went our separate ways, the Mexican and the Chilean to Argentina and I to Tarija, a big city in southeastern Bolivia. In Tarija, I was under 2000m (6, 561 feet) for the first time in about 5 weeks. A couple towns in Bolivia had been under 3000m, but most were well over that. You end up getting used to the altitude, but being born at sea level your body only gets used to it so much. The weather in Tarija was very warm, and with that came beautiful people, palm trees, and even some great food. I can't really complain about Bolivian food, but neither in Peru nor in Bolivia did I have any good meat. Tarija's proximity to Argentina gave me juicy steaks and other delicacies. Not bad.

On a Saturday I took a trip to nearby Coimata, a small town with a beautiful waterfall that is popular with locals on weekends. After the locals got a kick out of watching a gringo jump off a small cliff several times, I struck up a conversation with a group of friends on the shore of the river. I thought the one guy, Rodrigo, was just really friendly, but it turned out he was pretty drunk and I often had no clue what he was talking about. He mentioned he was in a band, and after telling him I also played guitar, he started to wax philosophical on guitarists like Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen etc. Although I wasn't an expert on either of them, Rodrigo was so happy to talk to someone who at least knew of them. After that, it was time for him to talk about the SS and World War II, Bolivian President Evo Morales, the highs and lows of being a struggling rock musician, the stars and the galaxies, the...you get the point. There was no limit to his topics of conversation, and as we left the falls, I was glad he caught a ride on a motorbike and I could take a bus back to Tarija in peace. Two of his friends invited me to hang out some ¨dude´s house¨ and I obliged. It was cool to be invited to someone's private home to have some drinks and listen to music, but after a few hours I had had enough of feeling out of place and quietly made my exit.

My experiences in the T towns were interesting to say the least, especially in the second T town, but by that point I was ready to leave Bolivia and catch the next bus to Argentina. Here's to a new country and new beginnings.

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Comments

[Victor]

Nice Meeting You!
Bernie, It was a pleasure meeting you in Potosi. Thank you for sharing your TravelBlog with us. I enjoyed it. I just came back from my easter trip from the Dominican Republic. I had an awesome trip. I am getting ready for my trip to Rio at the end of the month and my major trip to India the 3rd week of May. Live is great! I hope to hear from you soon. Let's keep in touch. Un abrazo, Victor (Your Bolivian Friend) who lives in Texas