May 2023

Arriving in Bolivia and first impressions

We crossed the border from Argentina to Bolivia at Oran, back at a normal altitude of 300m. The border was really nice, and the first one where everyone knew what was going on. After some speedy paperwork, we crossed over a bridge with half painted with the Argentinian flag and the other half with the Bolivian flag, and we were in Bolivia! As soon as we crossed, we had to pay for a toll so drove to the nearest town, which was a little hectic, to get some cash. 

The border staff were very helpful, informing us of speed limits in Bolivia (50mph max!) and that Emily has to be in the van whenever it is being driven as her name is on the import document. Unfortunately, we got bitten to death by our least favourite insects, borrachuda flies, which made a return to our lives as soon as we entered Bolivia!

We set off on the 3-hour drive to Tarija - the first half in the Yungas, snaking along the border following a river. After 90km, we reached a police checkpoint, where we had to show our documents. We can only assume they put the checkpoint this far over the border to punish those who do the process wrong making them drive 90km back. The road then climbed to 2000m, fairly gradually and not a problem for Pedro who had plenty of power at this altitude. That didn't stop us from being extremely anxious about it the whole way - understandably, given the issue we had the last time we climbed. 

We relaxed after reaching our max altitude for the day and the landscape had changed to semi-arid mountains with clouds rolling over them like a blanket. We took the Ruta 1 the whole way, which had been a great road in perfect condition. We arrived at a hostel in Tarija, and paid £5 to stay inside their gated gardens with access to WiFi, toilets, and showers. 

Walking distance to the town, we set off to try to get a sim card but the shop shut just as we arrived. We spent the evening walking through our part of the city amazed at how developed it felt. We walked through the University campus, with people selling food all down the street. We ate chicken wings and chips from a food market, then stopped at the cutest old lady selling homemade cakes on the way home. It felt very safe, maybe because the hostel was literally next door to a police academy. 

Overnight, there was a mixture of strange noises... a cockerell, a man shouting who sounded like he was saying "shut it up" in a Yorkshire accent, which definitely wasn't the case, trumpets and police drills! Overall, it was a much easier first day than we are used to when entering a new country. We always have an expectation of a new place that it will feel more dangerous and run-down, but we are always surprised to find that to not be the case. 

They do have some awkward rules for tourists here: high toll costs, restrictions on the number of fuel stations that can sell to foreigners (and at a higher price), and museums and attractions have a hugely inflated price. This all gives the impression that Bolivia isn't that friendly to tourists, but once again, everyone we have come across has been so nice and helpful. The roads (so far) have been amazing, we read that they can be in awful condition but have been pleasantly surprised for the most part. We fully expect that getting to higher altitude and smaller towns will bring us to worse roads but for now we are going to try to stick to the main routes.

Camargo

The drive to Camargo involved another police checkpoint, which we now believe to be on the border of every province in the country. These have been straightforward enough - we just show our temporary import permit and pay a small toll. The drive took us up to 3,500m then back down to 2,500m as we reached Camargo, with no van issues. This region is the biggest wine-producing region in the country, so we stopped at a winery to have lunch. Bolivia isn't exactly known for its wine and that's because it doesn't have a big export market, but from what we tried, it was up there with Argentinian and Chilean stuff! We tried an iOverlander spot which was parking outside a hostel with a pool, but it wasn't open due to it being off-season, so we ended up in the small town of Camargo, where we parked for the night at the side of the main square. 

This town really opened our eyes to Bolivia, it was like being in a different century. The traditions were still alive and thriving, with everyone wearing traditional Quechua dress, dancing in the square to live music and sitting around the markets driving wine and beer. Oddly, there were also Tuktuks everywhere, which seemed to be the town's preferred mode of transport! We spent a while in a wine shop and got a bottle of local red. The owner, Antonio, showed us some books on the history of the area. 

We really enjoyed being in a town that obviously doesn't get many tourists and felt very authentic. For dinner, we went to a very local restaurant and ordered some kind of mixed grill. A plate full of steak and chicken, some weird rice goo we couldn't decipher, chips, and salad - far too much food! Our night on the square would have been peaceful if it wasn't for some preaching that started with a megaphone from a nearby stadium at 4 am, followed by a group of men standing behind our van having a very loud conversation for several hours, like it was the middle of the day! Noone in this town seems to like sleep. 

The next morning, we popped into 'Snack Danny's' for a coffee, went to the market to get some fruit, and confused a pharmacist when Em tried asking for hand soap but instead asked for 'liquid flavour' in Spanish. He found it quite amusing. 

We set off into the mountains towards Potosi, obsessively tracking our progress on our new favourite app, OsmAnd. We drove through more vineyards and farmland where they still use oxs and farm by hand. The scenery was beautiful. We managed to fill up with diesel, despite not having some 4 digit pin we should have been given at the border, and the nice man at the garage agreed to fill up our tank on the Bolivian rate (40p per litre). He was chewing coca leaves, which a lot of people do here to alleviate altitude sickness. But it's also addictive and we could tell he'd had this habit a while as the side of his face was slumped. 

Sucre

We spent the next 3 days in Sucre, reached by bus. The bus itself was erratic, and someone got on with a cat, followed by someone else with a crate of 48 eggs. Why you would need to transport eggs 3 hours to Sucre we don't know - presumably there are chickens there too... We arrived and got one of the millions of Toyota Corolla taxis to our hostel, a very nice place, with an enormous room with 3 beds and a big bathroom with a weird bath in a cupboard -  £20 a night including breakfast. 

Sucre is one of Bolivia's capitals, with lots of white-washed government and historical buildings. We spent time exploring the town with its ornate, grand buildings - a beautiful city. We had lunch overlooking Plaza 25 de Mayo. There was a marching band going around the square, something we would discover is very common in this part of Bolivia! In Mercado Central, Emily bought some new earrings whilst Justin taught a funny Bolivian man how to say "How are you?" in English. After a few attempts he got it, but it started with something like "howreyoueiwee" with a weird Irish twang. We had coffee and cake atop a bell tower with views over the city 'Mirador San Miguel'. Getting to the top left us out of breath and our legs burning, and of course the bathroom was on the ground floor. 

There was another big brass band marching around the main square - this country must spend a fortune on trumpets! We went for dinner at "Probably the best bar in town". Food was good and they were playing some bangers that made us want to go out-out. 

Our room was over a very busy road with cars and mopeds constantly beeping their horns. The noise from the bar downstairs in the hostel also carried up to our room and through our flimsy glass doors. But we were so tired we fell asleep no problem - we couldn't even finish watching Madagascar!

After breakfast at the hostel, we caught the "Dinobus" from the main square to Parque Cretacico just out of town. The bus was £2 and entry to the park was £3.50. A small price to pay to see actual dinosaur footprints from 68 million years ago! We had a short but very detailed tour in English around the park where the guide showed us photos of when the footprints were discovered, taught us about the different types of dinosaurs, and showed us around the lifesize models. The attraction was all in the foreground of a huge cement works, which is how the footprints had been discovered. As they excavated the side of the limestone cliff they started to notice patterns that the factory's Ecologist identified as dinosaur footprints. With the help of Argentinian and American paleontologists, they ceased work on the cliff and excavated more land to reveal a total of 12,000 footprints of all different species - the largest collection of dinosaur footprints in the world! Unfortunately, erosion from rain on the fragile limestone destroyed a huge chunk of the cliff which contained lots of footprints, but this also uncovered a new set further into the rock. They have started to reinforce parts of the cliff with concrete to prevent future erosion. 

The guide was excellent and we were very excited, potentially because we had recently watched 4 of the Jurassic Park films! Adorning hard hats, we walked down the hill with the guide to get up close to the footprints. He showed us the footprints of the different species all going in opposite directions. The land had previously been a lake so had attracted lots of different species to drink there. Since the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs had hit, movement of the tectonic plates had pushed up the land to form the Andes and the once flat plain now sits nearly vertically, making it seem like the dinosaurs had run straight up a cliffside. It was really hot and there was no shade so after taking some photos we headed back to the museum cafe and got some lunch. Our return Dinobus was leaving in 10 minutes so we quickly gobbled down some chicken and rice and ran down to the bus with seconds to spare. 

Back in Sucre, we walked around Simon Bolivar park and met a cute dog named Petardo, who had a heartbreaking laminated note tied round his neck that read, "My name is Petardo. I am vaccinated. Don't mistreat me, I am defenseless. Please don't take my life." We went for dinner at a local Asian restaurant we'd been eyeing up called "Bunsik", which would turn out to be ironically named as the spiciest noodles ever to exist were consumed by Justin and then made him bum sick. 

We had one more day in Sucre which was very relaxing as we didn't have anything to do. We had a big lie in, wandered around the town in the sun, drinking coffee and befriending stray dogs in the park. Our favourite we nicknamed "Noddy", she was lovely. We went out for really good arepas and cocktails then went back to the hostel. We had another loud night. More constant car horns, more loud people talking on the street until the early hours, more trumpets. It seems Bolivia, and in fact every South American country we've visited so far, just loves to make loads of noise! 

We reluctantly got the bus back to Potosí after 3 very relaxing days in Sucre. As our taxi pulled up to Sucre bus station, three women thrust themselves in through the window wielding books of bus tickets and shouting "Potosí!" "Potosí!" in Justin's face. They were all competing for our business and he managed to get out and buy tickets from one of them. 

There was a sign in the bus station warning people of 'tourist police' that scam people by asking for their passport in the street, taking it, and then robbing them. We hadn't seen anything like this so far but had heard about it so it was quite strange to see it verified on the wall of the bus station. It was a very windy bus and we couldn't see out of the front as the curtain was pulled across. Em was nearly sick then we both passed out after taking travel sickness tablets. The roads are seriously crazy. 

The signs here have been making us laugh. There are 'Don't throw rubbish' signs next to a huge pile of landfill in the mountain, 'Don't overtake' signs where people are squeezing between you and an oncoming lorry on a narrow street. Our favourite though was a 'No horn' sign and a man with a trombone was walking past. 

Back in Potosí for the night, we saw a huge brass band parade to mark the 50th anniversary of education there. The budget for Bolivian schools' music departments must be enormous. Everyone has their own trombone and drum kit. All we get is a naff recorder.