Bolivia bound

By the time we'd reached the bus station, we'd decided to give the north of Argentina the wide birth, due to tales of dengue death and mayhem. We'd hoped to camp, but came to the conclusion that this was a bad idea. It was mainly Colette who had the doubt - I had been of the opinion that we should find out exactly where the outbreaks were and avoid those areas, not the whole region. However, 2 things made me realise we'd probably made the right choice; as we boarded the bus for Jujuy anyone boarding north bound buses was handed a free big bottle of 'Psst' mosquito repellent, courtesy of the Argentinian government, and during our 30 hour bus ride, I saw south bound traffic being stopped and fumagated by men in boiler suits and masks at least 3 times. Some people complained about over the top media scare mongering and claimed that it was nowhere near as bad as people were saying. We decided against finding out for ourselves. We really were due to be in Bolivia by this point anyway.

We arrived at La Quiaca after dark, and decided to stay the night and cross the border the next morning. Stepping off the bus we could imediately feel Bolivia's proximity. The indigenous blood was evident in the faces of the people and the traditional dress of the women, or 'cholas' who sat huddled in groups amongst their blankets and wears, chewing mouth fulls of coca leaves. As it was Easter saturday we could hear Mass being projected into the night by loud speaker from the church. The mountain air felt clean and crisp after so long in the city, and the beds in the chilly little hotel were necessarily equipped with layers of thick alpaca blankets.


After a good night's sleep we had breakfast and set off for the boarder, which was a 10 minute walk along a disused railway track. It felt like we were walking through the set of an old wildwest movie, rugged and dusty with mountains in the distance.

The boarder crossing was pleasant as far as boarder crossings go. There was no que, the official was cheery and it was all very straighforward and swift. The cheeky face of Evo Morales beamed down at us from a poster hung on the wall (Bolivia's first indigenous president). We walked over a bridge and saw people washing clothes in the river below. Walking up the street we passed Cholas selling fruit, street stalls selling anything from cigarettes to pliers and, behold, juice ladies! We'd being missing fresh fruit juice in Argentina, and hadn't really seen any since Colombia, so we were happy to see the juice ladies with their orange press mobile stalls out in force. Pomello for me, 25p. The street was colourful and buzzed with activity and we traded the last of our Argentinian pesos for bundles of ancient looking Bolivianos. We were in Bolivia.