Hello Bolivia!

I breathed a sigh of relief when I got to Bolivia; not just because it took a while to get to, but because compared to Argentina and Brazil ... it is CHEAP! 

I loved being in Bolivia, it has some of the most striking and varied scenery which I hadn't really been expecting.  We started our time here, in Santa Cruz, a major city in Bolivia.  We spent a few days just appreciating not being on transport and working out our travel plans for the country.  The first place to be explored was Samaipata, a small, sleepy town in the mountains.  We arrived here and immediately felt at home.  Everyone there was friendly, we chilled out in cafes and met locals and travellers in the bars.  We found another excellent hostel; Andorina Hostel with views across the mountains and tasty breakfasts. 

We walked around the town, sampled the street food ... lots of deep fried scrumptiouness!  We got chatting to an old lady who wanted us to come for dinner, Lucy offered to carry one of her bags only to find out there was a live chicken in there!  Transpired he was dinner so we graciously declined.  We spent an afternoon at an animal refuge playing with monkeys!  And another day hiking to the National Park, through the ancient fern forest and up to the cloud forest... surprisingly it was pretty cloudy!

Unfortunately we had booked a flight over to Sucre and so could only stay a few days ... or maybe it's fortunately, if we hadn't been forced to leave we could still be there now.

The view of Samaipata after a few hours hiking

We begrudgingly left Samaipata for the airport, where we commenced the biggest travelling debacle that I've had so far!  So, we arrive at the airport and complete the formalities; check in, security, coffee and watching the departures board for our flight to be called.  The departure time gets closer but there is no information about gate or whether there is a delay ... instead 5 minutes past departure we're told that the flight has been cancelled because it is raining in Sucre!  And there are no other flights for that day...

So, we have to claim our bags and queue to secure seats on a flight the following day.  The guy at the desk says we're on the flight and as we're the organised sort we make sure we get a piece of official looking paper to say so.  No big deal, we're not in a huge hurry and we at least know the area and where we can stay for a night.

The following day we head back to the airport and get in the queue to check in.  Funny thing is though, no one wants to check us in... every time we get close we're asked to move to one side... despite us waving our official looking piece of paper about.  At first we just thought this was typical Bolivian service, but as the flight departure time got nearer, we became increasingly concerned and with increasing concern comes more frantic paper waving!  5 minutes before the flight departs and having run up and down the check in desks trying desperately to get someone to talk to us we were told the flight was full!  'That cannot be!', we said, 'we have official looking paper to say we have seats on that flight!'

... 'errr, no you don't.  You're on stand by.'  they said. 
'oh!' we said. 

After a bit more back and forth we were told that we had only ever been on stand by (would have been wonderful if someone would have told us this, as we would have only showed up for a confirmed flight!) and that we could fly the following day.  As we had heard that one before, we demanded our boarding passes before we would actually agree to leave.  Boarding passes in hand we once again left the airport.

The following day we weren't taking any chances, we arrived 2 hours in advance of our flight, checked our bags in and got as close to the plane as security would allow us.  Even when we boarded the plane we couldn't believe we were actually going, only when we arrived in Sucre (3 days late) did we actually get excited about leaving Santa Cruz! 

Santa Cruz Hostel Toucan taking a hammock break

Being in Sucre was excellent ... a damn sight more enjoyable than the inside of an airport!  A very pretty city made of white buildings, which was lovely to wonder round and explore.  Unfortunately our time was short and we needed to move on quickly otherwise this would have been a lovely city to chill out in.

A quick bus ride (please read 8 hrs) and we were in Tupiza, the land of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Hot sun, rocky mountains and cactus, this place had some character!  And to really get in to the vibe, we went horse riding ... stetsons and chaps included!  In was an amazing afternoon as we hacked through the most amazing rock formations, the only thing missing was gun shots ricocheting off the rocks!

Some pretty amazing scenery to set us up for our 4 day tour to the Salt Flats...