Boliva Part Two: Potosi and Sucre

I woke up early and went to the bus station with the girls. They were back off to Peru to catch a plane from Cuzco. There were no morning buses to Sucre or Potosi, because apparently the locals only travel between the two to shop. Fine. So I took a bus to Oruro, which is where I am writing this now ironically. Spurs somehow lost 1-0 against Wolves at home. Fucking shit. Man City drew and Villa beat Man U of all teams. I have a feeling I have covered this already. Never mind. There was a bus to Potosi. So I took that one. I got there and walked uphill in the highest city in the world to the hostel. Its a charming enough, tiny town, but deadly boring. Nothing to do at all. I was suffering from a chest infection and worried about the cramping for the 'mine tour'. I knew that Ollie had bottled it and I was seriously considering doing the same. In the end I opted out and then found out they don't run the tours on a sunday anyway so I could not have gone if I wanted to. Yeah that's my excuse, but really I am just a bit of a pussy with this. Maybe I will go see the mines in Chile as the couchsurfer I am meeting in Iquique is doing some sort of research on this.

I met an Aussie guy in the morning and we grabbed some lunch. I decided to write and then check out the town. Ah yeah I wrote there so I had mentioned the scores before. There is not actually much to see in the town so the walkaround was quick. Real Potosi won the Bolivian league and the celebrations were a bit pathetic. Paled into significance with being in Seville when they paraded the Copa Del Rey. Assured me that town has crap nightlife. Liverpool lost to the Gunners. Hahahah. They suck right now. Will probably come back to bite me at the end of this trip. I arrived in Sucre and everything was dark and foreboding. Decided to just grab a cheap place by the bus station. Found a really shitty place, but it was cheap. Got chatting with some local girls in the restaurant place and they wanted to know why I was not choosing to work in Bolivia. Was not a hard decision.

In the morning I overslept, because I had set the alarm for 7.30pm instead of 7.30am. Ah damn teething problems. I paid for another night and then walked into town. Would miss the Aussie guy for the dinosaur tour thing. Wow Sucre is a really pretty little town. I like it a lot. Bolivian girls are also much better than Peruvian girls and possibly shade the Ecuadoreans. Then again maybe not. I took the dinosaur tour with a random bunch of tourists. The tour guides English is overly dramatic. The footprints are quite cool to see, but I figured we would be allowed to get much closer to see them. That was a little disappointing. I decided to go and rent a room in the downtown so I had effectively paid for luggage storage. Still it was not too expensive. I did see a woman stand over a drain and piss directly down into it. Classy. Like a streetside waterfall. I was now slightly worried about making Uyuni and whether the tours would make it for christmas. Claudia could not meet up and Sofia was not going to make the gig so I figured I would head on to Sant Cruz the next day. I wanted to sample the nightlife here, but there was noone around and not much going on, so I just watched Surrogates instead, which was ok.

I got chatting with a Dutch guy over breakfast the next day. Interesting old dude. I went to visit the museum in town. It is recommended to eat less at altitude so I started to do that as was feeling a bit shitty. I am sure there is something wrong with my stomach. Hoping its not the hernia. Museum was ok. Nothing you couldn't miss. Graham had headed into town, but I did not have time to meet him as I was leaving. They are having a campaign to get Rage Against the Machine's 'Killing in the Name Of' to christmas number one over the X-Factor in the UK. Nice campaign. Wrong song. Should have gone for 'Wake Up'. Less offensive, about mind control, which is what they accuse the X Factor of more or less and comes from the Matrix films so will be remembered. Bus station bullshit was to follow. They fucked around with the tickets and then said the bus was leaving and blocked off the ways down, while I still needed the toilet as they don't believe in toilets on buses in Bolivia. They would not put the bag in the old as I had no ticket, so I just started whacking people and then stored it inside. Shit organisation. I have not lost my temper in ages, but have snapped twice in the last two days in this country and I think this started it. I wrote 'shittest, dirtiest bus in Bolivia with no toilet. Fuck this shit.' The roads out of town were awful. It was like driving in a quarry. We had a toilet and dinner stop, but I did not want to eat there. Someone kept touching my face like John Travolta from 'Face/Off' and someone looked like a moomin. Anyway. Onwards we go.