Bolivia Boarder Crossing

I have arrived in Bolivia. All is well and it was a really easy and uneventful boarder crossing and drive to where we are staying. I am with Anne and Harry at this point. There is always talk amongst the travelers about Bolivia. Some hate it, some love it, some are afraid of it. Anyway our trip yesterday was great. We took the bus from Tilcara Argentina to the boarder town of La Quinta. Once we were there we hoped in a taxi for a $1 to get us to the boarder. Crossing was easy. I expected to have to pay $75 US to get in, but didn’t have to. Maybe it is only if you fly into the country? We are not sure. Once we were through the boarder crossing we walked straight into a Cambio, where you change your money. No problems there and we caught a taxi to the train station to go on to Tupiza. The train only runs certain days of the week so we stayed an extra day in Tilcara to be able to catch it. Not an issue thought I probably would have stayed another night anyway, but long story a little shorter. We get in this cab to take us to the train station in a broken Spanish conversation the cabby says he can drive us to Tupiza. So we look at each other, we all have a good vibe about the guy and say, yeah ok, what the hell. So we tell him we need to eat and he takes us to the place to eat and we are on the road, an hour before the train is “scheduled” to leave. The train takes close to three hours and we were able to drive there in an hour and a half. He was a cautious driver and we even had seatbelts. At one point we had to stop and wait as in numerous spots the road was under construction but it was fine. They had just blasted a new tunnel and were clearing the rubble, so that was neat to drive through.

We arrived at a great hotel that had rooms for three so that is what we had booked. The place even has a pool, it is luxury for $7 each a night. Who said Bolivia was a hard place to travel? Well I will touch wood as the next four days are going to be an overland Jeep excursion to the Salt Flats at high altitude, so here is hoping it goes smoothly and that I don’t get altitude sickness. I may be out of contact potentially for a week but at the end I should have a gazillion photos to upload. So here is the news and again the buzz with people, some afraid others are fine. The boarder was closed the other day between Bolivia and Argentina, we learned this after we crossed that it was the day before we crossed. There are protests throughout the country and guess who are protesting? The teachers, they are looking for a 15% pay raise. So people are talking about riots etc. some are just moving on as normal and others are trying to get out quickly. I will leave it up in the air.

The next four days are on this tour through the salt flats and then I can cross into Chile to go to Peru or go through Bolivia and cross into Peru. Basically I need to move a little quicker now as I fly out of Peru to Easter Island on May 1 and have to see Machu Pichu before that. Here’s hoping those teachers aren’t too rowdy.

Sorry I cann't get my photos to upload.