The American adventure

"It reminds me of the American adventure" I hear this for the third time in as many days, as we chug up the road on our way to Tupiza. We enjoyed our time in Tilcara and did a cool walk on the last day up into the desert like mountains. We get up early the following day and get ourselves prepared for the border crossing into Bolivia. The bus from Tilcara was not so luxurious as the last ones and the dust from outside was quite thick. We met a Argentinian who could speak a little English, so as we practiced our spanish, he practiced his English and I must say that his attempts were a little bit better than ours. Oh well, he was going the same way as us and made our border crossing alot easier, and didnt charge us for his translation skills.

The border crossing a lofty 3500 metres above sea level was very easy and our first impression of the Bolivians was a good one, when we were greeted at the immigration desk by the friendlist stamper man yet, shaking our hands with the biggest smile of the trip. The change in atmosphere, colours, faces and dress is immediate, with the local ladies waliking around in their bowler hats and coulourful atire. We pick up another translater, a swiss girl who knew far too many languages and booked ourselves onto a bus to Tupiza, a gateway to Salir de Uyuni the largest salt flats, a prehistoric salt lake in the world.

The bus journey to Tupiza re-emphasised that we were really travelling again, the road was one of the worst that we have been on and can be compared with the one from the Thai border to Siem Reap. We were surrounded by the locals, it was bumpy, it was dusty and at times we thought there was no way the bus could make it, just what we were after! The bus was oldskool and alot of the time we were not even on a road, it was either gravel or we were crossing or driving up the river. Through canyons and tunnels, the scenery was fantastic, red, gold mountains all round, like something out of a wild west film or "just like the American adventure" but with out the log flumes. Tupiza is quite cool and flanked on all sides by some more multlicoloured rocks, it has a few vegetarian restaurants so Zoe could indulge, for a few days anyway. The room is three pounds a night pp, you can find a meal for less than a pound, beer is cheap, I think I will like Bolivia.

We depart tommorow for our jeep safari 3 nights and four day tour of the Salt flats with some English guys we have just met, looking forward to it. We will soon be 5000 m above sea level where the air is fresh and the nights are freezing, Zoe has purchased a new hat and gloves especially for the occasion.