Potosi and all its yoghurty goodness

Now that my horseriding was ticked off the list, I had no real reason to stay in Tupiza. The town was not that big and the dust n car/truck fumes were starting to get to me. My nose felt constantly molested and my poor little sensitive blue eyes were also starting to water. I prayed this was not the same in every town I visited in Bolivia.

I now had a travel companion to Potosi, R from Argentina, so that eased the prospective journey somewhat. As it was, we got a bus a little better than the norm, paying a bit extra but with seats at the front of the top level - ie BUENAVISTA!!!! It is probably the prettiest journey I will take by bus, and the sun was HOT on my feetsies, a welcome change to the coldness I had felt in previous destinations. But oh, my feet are GROSS at the moment. Que grosero...

We arrived without a reservation at a hostel so we jumped off the bus near the centre and found we had an uphill climb to the central plaza. With our backpacks. Q horrendo... The altitude was KILLING me, and my backpack was twice the size of R`s so I was lagging. Constantly. Eventually, we gave up and had a meal break at a random chicken shop. It was to be the first of many random chicken shops in Bolivia.

Energised and full of greasy food, we charge up the remainder of the hill and basically stopped at the first hostel we found. It wasn`t too exy, esp for a private room but the bathrooms were gross (flip flops please) and they had a curfew, like the one in Tupiza. Seriously, what`s the deal??

We ignored the curfew like the rebels that we are, and headed into town to see what it had to offer us on a Saturday night. Well, not much, it would seem. First stop was a call shop where R tried to call her sister, while I tried to buy a drink from a shop outside. We both failed miserably, me especially since I only got a drink in the back of my head, not in my mouth, thanks to some fucking ignoramus in the street that didn`t like the fact I couldn`t understand his question. And it was drinking yoghurt. In my rastas. En serio.

R was a lovely girl, cleaning me up as I sulked in a chair. We then headed to a local bar and got chatting to some drunk locals, who told us the reason we couldn`t see any tourists around was cos it was super dangerous for us types around this area. Geez, thanks for that piece of info, hostel reception man. They made us promise to get a taxi back to the hostel, all of 5 blocks, but we ended up just walking. Fuck it, I was already covered with drinking yoghurt, how much worse could it get??

So that was it. We were tired from our travels and not particularly enamoured with Potosi, the town famed for its mines (and subsequent tours, which I was NOT inclined to take as a semi-claustrophobic). It smelled strongly of urine near our hostel and the people didn`t seem particularly friendly towards us. So much for Bolivians being the nicest in South America. Mi culo they are.