We managed to have an ok nights sleep on the bus. Woke up at 7am and we were going through cactus country. The cacti were huge. We watched the scenery for s bit but both fell asleep again and got woken up by the conductor serving breakfast (which was a box with some Melba toast, jam, a stale cupcake and some super sweet local biscuit thing which seems to be the norm). I am going to have diabetes and no teeth by the time I leave here from all the sweet stuff they serve. Even the coffee on the bus is served black and really sweet.
We got to La Quiaca at 9:15am, what a place. Very dusty and all the buildings look the same colour as the dirt road. It was such a change from the rest of Argentina and we immediately felt like we were on another planet. We managed to get a Taxi the short distance to the border and found our way to customs to exit Argentina. We then made our way down the road to join the queue of people waiting to get stamped into Bolivia. We waited for about an hour before we got to the front. It was a bit unnerving doing this border crossing ourselves and not really speaking or understanding Spanish but it was fine.
It was fascinating watching all the people coming and going carrying their bags of goodies to sell. There were a lot of elder ladies dressed in traditional dress of thick stockings, pleated skirts with colourful tops and cardies and they all wore hats. Some were like top hats or Charlie Chaplin style bowler hats and others were straw with loads of colourful flowers in. They looked great. Most of the ladies have long black hair they wear in plaits. It is so different to anything we have seen and I’m so glad they keep up the tradition. These ladies also carried loads of stuff on their backs that they hold in place with colourful shawls – I felt quite lazy watching them and then wheeling my backpack around!!
Anyway we were stamped into Bolivia and crossed over into Villazon – this place is crazy. The road running up from the boarder was lined with busy market stalls selling everything from food to electronics to clothes. There were about 100 taxis lined up and about 101 money exchange places. There were just people (and stray dogs) everywhere and you couldn’t walk on the pavements due to the market stalls but if you walked on the road the taxis, busses, cars and trucks just hooted at you. It felt very chaotic. We just tried to get to the end of the road so that we could gather our thoughts.
We couldn’t find a bank or ATM so luckily we had some US Dollars on us which we exchanged and walked a little further up the road looking for the bus station. Just before we got there a lady was shouting out Turpiza which was where we wanted to go so I said yes – she started rattling on in Spanish and couldn’t speak English so we stood there for about 15 mins trying to work out what each other were saying. We eventually managed and got her minibus to Turpiza (2 hours away) for £2.50 each – bargain!
We were the only foreigners in the 8 seater minibus and the driver insisted on pumping the local music so loud we thought our ears were going to burst. At one stage he played a local song that just sounded like a bunch of people had grabbed any instrument they could find and start randomly playing – Pete and I couldn’t help but giggle. The rest was good though. The scenery was awesome, it started out with cactus country where people had built these cute mud huts. We then reached some great mountains and valleys. Some of the mountains were red sand and had dramatic shapes. We really do feel like we are in cowboy country.
We reached Turpiza safely after nearly having a head on collision with a big truck who was overtaking on a blind corner up a steep hill! We had booked ourselves into the best rated hotel in the town and we were very pleasantly surprised when we got there – it was really nice. We had a great big room with a lovely ensuite and the hotel had a nice swimming pool – all for £18 per night (so much cheaper than Brazil, Chile or Argentina). The town is quite sweet but it definitely feels like the Wild West. No wonder Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid roamed these parts!
Anyway after 30 hours of travel to get here we had a nice relaxing day and evening just enjoying our nice surroundings, comfy bed, hot shower and fluffy towels!!
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