|
  | |  |
To Potosi
Entry 46 of 115 | show all | print this entry |
|
Our first bus journey in Bolivia and I am a little nervous to say the least!!! There are no toilets on these buses and I don´t know if I am going to manage 6 hours without a parada de piss!
It was a 6 hour bus journey to Potosí and it actually was not as bad as I had thought it would be. We stopped in a small village at 12.30pm for a quick lunch break and I was able to go to the toilet!!! It seems that this must be the main lunch stop for all the buses as there were loads of buses and loads of street vendors selling various Bolivian dishes. I asked one lady for a dish without the meat, she gave it to me, but she made some comment about me being crazy and she didn´t know how much to charge for the dish without the meat.
We finally made it to Potosi and to our surprise we were dropped quite far outside the village, just on the side of the road!! No one on the bus spoke English so we just had to go with it. I asked a guard how we could get to town and he said "taxi"! I thought he was going to be really unhelpful, but actually turned out to be really nice and made sure that the taxi we got was an actual taxi as there are quite a lot of horror stories you hear about Bolivia and taxis! We got to our hostel, but the rather unhelpful lady at reception said that not only did she not have our booking, but they did not have the room for us either. We had booked on line and paid a deposit on line, but she was having no of it, I suspect she spoke English, but this was all in Spanish and I discovered trying to get angry in a different language is hard!!! A nice couple told us there was a place over the road, so Epi went to check it out whilst I wrote a not too happy email to the booking company. We got a really nice room in the other place and for less than we were going to pay at Casona Hotel Potosi - don´t go there!!!!
The place we are staying in is a world away from the original place, it seems to be run by a small family, who are so helpful. We went out to explore the village, which is really nice and we are not feeling to bad despite the fact that we are at 4060m. We found a really nice place to eat that evening, for about a pound each and also a really cheap internet place, but we still can´t get skype to work. We were told to be in by 11pm as it is dangerous after this time, so we had to leave the night clubbing for another night, what a shame! Potosi is a mining village, the hills surrounding the town are rich in Silver and Zinc and other minerals. The mining methods are still very much as they have been from the time they first started mining and you can go and see the mine in action, so we are going to try and find somewhere. The second place we went into, Green-go tours, was a bit of a shock, the guy was completely pissed and tried to tell us that there tour was the best and all the other were bullshit! The guy was pretty offensive and I couldn´t wait to get out of there, needless to say we wont be booking with them. We booked with Silver Tours just down the road, they were sober and much nicer to deal with! Bit worried about it as they say you should not go if you have asthma or are claustrophobic - sounds like great fun!!!!
More thumbnails ...
Where I stayed:
Compaņia de Jesus
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries from Bolivia or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
Send a message
3 votes 
