On February 15th David and I crossed the Bolivian border on foot, from Quiaca on the Argentine side to Villazon in Bolivia. The crossing was oddly easy; wed prepared for much worse but apparently us foreigners got to head to the front of the line, to our own little window that the manyother people in line did not have the privilege to use. Its good to be gringo. Having already gotten our visas together in Salta, the whole thing took minutes, and we stepped into Bolivia (noting that oddly there was absolutely no one that would have stopped us if wed just chosen to cross the border sin visa or ID, no guards, no cops, no nada). Walking into Bolivia is like entering a whole new...country. Right. Anyways, it was crazy. Way different. Action everywhere, people selling everything, Bolivian women in bowler hats, stockings, and a million layers of traditional clothes (often with a baby in the front and/or a bulging sack on their back), people mawing on coca leaves, empanadas, fruit, crackers, fresh juices, whatever. Lots of snacking, always eating or drinking something.
We head to the bus station for a ticket to Tupiza. Immediately were bombarded with vendors trying to sell us tickets to everywhere/anywhere. We tell them our destination and they point to someone else, send us over with a holler to their buddy. Very possible that we were screwed on the price of our ticket as we had no idea what was what but the good thing is that screwed here means you pay 3 or 3.50 instead of 2.50. Not a bad screw. The 3 hour ride to Tupiza is pretty much ridiculous. All dirt roads, even the big ass coach buses cant negate the very bumpy road. And we stopped about every minute for the first part headed out of town - either wed be picking someone else up on the side of the road or someone would holler to the drivers as we went past and theyd stop to chat or we were picking up the drivers lunch at a little house along the way or we were getting gas or... yeah pretty much any reason to stop we did. And so we went to Tupiza.
We get dropped off outside Tupiza and walk into town, on the way passing a dry riverbed serving as a garbage dump for the town. Dave takes a picture of a guy wheeling a cart with a bunch of garbage bags and then spontaneously dumping them all out and wheeling away. Unbelievable. Tupiza is a small western style town with names for stuff like the Alamo restaurant and tours of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid spots (apparently one version of their life is that they were shot down in a nearby Bolivian town). Not much to see or do there, just a starting point for various popular tours. We stayed at an HI Hostel in Tupiza, nothing great. They were set on selling tours - we went for the 4 day Salar de Uyuni tour for $125 per person leaving the next day, based on recommendations from fellow travellers and lonely planet. We already knew what we wanted to see and everything is so sprawled that a tour is actually pretty neccessary (4 days though? not so sure, more on that later). And as it turned out our tour was delayed by one day, so we got a free nights stay at the hostel and therefore had two full days to check out Tupiza, which was really our first chance to really see Bolivia. This is what we did:
-The wee mini almuerzo. Everywhere you look in Bolivia theres a cheap set lunch (almuerzo) available for anwhere from $1 to $3 (lots of countries have their version of the set lunch, usually a good budget option). Bolivias generally consists of a starter with veggies or salad, a soup, an entree, and dessert (hello jello!). No drink. A filling complete meal for cheap. We called our almuerzo the wee lunch because our salad was a veyr small plate with a transparent boiled slice of a mini carrot, a cooked brocolli floret, and a small pile of onion shavings. Then the entree was a single tuber-potato thing, steak, corn on the cob and beans in the pod. All were miniature sized, quite tiny, except for the beans which were surprisingly huge. The oddest plate ever. I passed on the green jello dessert. We left the restaurant both satisfied and also a bit perplexed over what wed just eaten.
-The markets. Throughout Bolivia there are markets selling just about anything. Street food next to CDs next to socks next to tires next to faucets. Our first look at these markets was in Tupiza. And they were pretty cool looking, all sorts of fruits and beans and cow heads and snacks in the food market we walked around. Wed been advised to watch out for street food, which is both smart and stupid. My experience has basically taught me to spend some time looking around and talking to locals before deciding what to eat. Obviously hygiene is not top priority here, cant say how many times Ive witnessed, for instance, a vendor dropping a piece of bread on the ground and then picking it up and shoving it in the bin with all of the rest. Or friends passing by carts and reaching their grubby hands into the barrel of popcorn while they chat away with their buddy selling that popcorn. Gotta love that. (Update: Weve since had the chance to get our own grubby little hands into some La Paz street food. Tamlaes and fresh squeezed grapefruit or orange juice and greasy sandwiches and humintas, which are like amazing little corn bread things wrapped like tamales but better mmm).
-Canyon walk. On the 2nd unexpected day that we had to spend in Tupiza, we took a suggested excursion to "El Cañon." Hostel girl said it was easy, a straight shot walk out of town. Um no. We got lost at just about every corner and asked for directions about a trillion times. Finally found the canyon and wondered around for a bit, up dry riverbeds and over boulders and such. Great view, but a bit anticlimactic for the difficulty reaching it.
-Coconut ice cream. This deserves its own little blurb. Brilliant, rich, creamy, homemade, 50 cents for 2 cute lil scoops on a cute lil cone. Damn tasty. Dave had it twice in one day. And we took a picture of it too.
-The twin menu conundrum. Pastipizza and Bella Napoli, two different restaurants with separate and independent owners, yet practically an identical menu. And not a typical menu either, there was stuff like the "Gypsy" pizza and bacon and egg sandwiches and chocolate banana pancakes. In other words, not a coincidence. I tried to get an answer from both restaurants about why this was. Neither seemed to have an explanation. And yet the restaurants were not related. Hard to believe that it could all be chalked up to blatant copying. Especially when no one seemed to really care. Very odd.
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