Where am I now? How did I get here?
Trip Start
Mar 05, 2009
1
5
20
Trip End
Aug 05, 2009
Huancayo, Peru
Thursday, March 26, 2009
So, Salta ended as well as it started. Basically with me getting kicked out the rooftop bar at the hostel as I was catching a bus at crazy o´clock and had had 2 large bottles of Quilmes (love those things!) then moved onto mojitos with a Dutch guy in the bar. A lovely American girl called Abby eventually persuaded me that I'd feel all the better in the morning if I hit the sack so big up to Abby. During my time in Salta we saw some amazing folklore dancing on St Paddys (another very drunken night) where turns out people think my highland dancing version of the Irish Jig is real, therefore EVERYONE was very impressed with my dancing. Yes, the highland dancing has been unleashed on the South American people, however, only after a good few beers. St Paddys was so much fun, a big group of us went to a restaurant where there were live dancers and we were all wooping and shouting and going mental when the guys were doing all their footstomping. There were loads of live bands changing throughout the night as well and due to us all being a bit rowdy the last band invited us to a party which turned out to be next door in a club. Excellent night, very random, very funny, too much beer.
To get to Bolivia obviously I had to cross the border and what happens when I rock up to immigration after having checked out of Argentina and carried my luggage across the bridge at over 3,000 m above sea level therefore am wheezing away like an asthmatic when the grass gets cut.....they close up shop for an hour!!!! Great. So I'm the only English speaking person there (although there is this crazily dressed girl with legwarmers and multiple woolen items on who I was trying to avoid) and am bored stiff. Eventually they allow us in and I am now in Villazon in Bolivia. It is a riot and a hellhole. Not the best combination. So I lug my luggage up the hil (it says in the guidebook there are chicos who offer to carry your bags for 1 boliviano but surprise surprise, no chicos when I arrive!!!) and buy a bus to La Paz. Looking back, this was not my wisest move. I had been wanred numerous times that buses in Bolivia are, to put it in the kindest word I can, crap. And I can concur that yes. They are crap. I would use a stronger word here but there are a number of family members reading my blog and I do not want to the taint the angelic picture they have of me ;-) (haha). I have never been on a worse bus in my life. Everything was stuck together with sellotape, it made UNBELIEVABLE amounts of noise and I was SO COLD. To make things worse an hour into our journey we tumbled into a ditch and I looked out the window to see the ground a little too close to my window for my liking. So everyone had to get off the bus and stand in the pitch black on a massive mud verge at the side of the road and watch the guys who work for the bus company dig and push the bus back onto the road. And it is cold on the altiplano at night, believe me.
Wake up at 7am in the morning to discover I have almost lost my feet to the cold and I am now the only non Bolivian on the bus! Excellent!!!! The proper Bolivian ladies who wear skirts with loads of layers and carry babies on their backs in multicoloured blankets are all around me. The bus stops and a guy tells me we're having cafecito in the raodside cafe where once more I am the only 'gringa' and I am stared at from one side of the shop to the other. Doesnt stop me enjoying my cup of Bolivian tea though. Nothing puts me off my tea!!!!
To try and limit this blog so I dont bore everyone stiff, I have never ever seen anything like La Paz. Imagine a big bowl with houses built around all the edges as well as the bottom. Then imagine driving from the rim of the bowl in a big spiral down to the bottom and thats what its like arriving in La Paz in a bus. Awesome. And it is so polluted. The air just feels dirty. I arrived and basically spent the next 15 hours sleeping due to the altitude. The next day I went off to see if I could fly to Lima from La Paz....I could....if I were a millionaire. Another bus for me then!!! Then I bought a phone card and the guy at the hospedaje tried to help me with it then we discovered you can only use it from a Bolivian cell phone. Typical! Bought a new lock seeing as mine had bust in Salta (now that was a panic in the morning when I was leaving Salta. Broken lock with all valuables inside locker plus hangover do not a good match make) and basically did as little as poss as walking around Paz was knackering. Had a menu del dia in a cafe frequented only by men apart from me.....was unbeliavably happy when the desert was a banana. Once more, small things are becoming the highlights of my days. At night was lying on my bed, probably wheezing trying to breathe and the Bolivian guy from the hostel knocks on my door and asks me if I want to go out that night. Sure! Why not! Think he might have been feeling sorry for me. People are always surprised that I'm travelling alone. So that night me and my Bolivian friend go to a cafe for some te, I manage to learn an entire card game using only the Spanish language then I get taken to an authentic La Paz discoteca. To describe the discoteca; imagine a restaurant with a dancefloor and a DJ and thats pretty much it. And it was dingy. But it was again somwhere where I was the only 'gringa' and I was stared at like a freak. It was a really good experience though, I would probably never had gone there had I talked to other travellers and the only other travellers in the hospedaje were couples who never seem to be the most communicative of gringos. I'm heading back to La Paz in May so at least I know it wont be such a visual and culture shock for me but I'll still have to mentally prepare myself for the return. It was completely loco. I shall need to video the roads when I go back and stick the video up just to let everyone know the level of noise and stimulation that you're subjected to as soon as you step out the door! Amazing.
Thanks for the emails and messages. Im in Peru now and the internet here is, like, 25p for an hour. Just thought I'd throw that info in there. Speak soon!
Comments
Gringo girl
All I can say shona is there seems to be alot of drinking going on in this travelling malarky!
Glad to hear all is well though my wee gringo.
Take care as always x
drunken girl?
yes, theres been a couple of occasions where drink and i have been good friends. However, the drink got the better of me on Saturday night...thats as far as Im going with that statement.xx