We crossed into Bolivia this morning. It was all too easy really. A very comfy night bus to La Quica. A short walk over the bridge. Immigration and money changing took less than 5 mins, and as we walked up to the bus stop, there was a bus going to Tupiza right that moment. Even that ride only took 1.5 hrs, when we were expecting 3.
The only other foreigner on the night bus dissapeared pretty quick though. They had two enormous bags each, which they could barely even carry! It was almost funny to watch, and reminded me again to always travel light. My bag right now is 35L and weighs around 12kg. A lot of this is warm clothing, cos we expected it to be a lot cooler than it has been.
Climbing to 3,000n as we had I expected to finaly get to use some of these clothes. But no, its still bloody hot!! I am actualy dreaming about the day we hit the lowlands of Peru and will post them home. Then my bag should weigh about 6kg, which is a bit more like it..
Anyway, first impressions are usualy wrong, but here goes...
Bolivia seems a lot more organised, developed, relaxed and wealthy than I had ever immagined.OK the roads between towns today were all gravel, but not overly rutted. THe bus itself seemed to tick over fine. For lunch we went to a restaurant where we were the only foreigners. It was packed and all the locals were well dressed and smiling. This could have been because its sunday..
So I know that everything I just wrote will prove wrong,but those were my first impressions...
Also, its cheap here! We got the nicest room yet, including a TV with cable (from Peru) for all of 70 $14NZ, which is cheaper than most we had in Argentina. More precisely, it was 70 Bols, which is 27 Argentinean pesos. (We usualy paid 35-50 pesos in Arg)
I can tell I´m going to like Bolivia...
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