Bye bye Bolivia

After our last basic week in Bolivia, it's time to move to regain some energy in Argentina. Both of us were very tired of the Uyuni tour and we were really looking forward to this. However, it didn't go as smooth as I hoped...

From Tupiza to Salta is around 10 hours, but there's no direct bus. So first we had to take a 3 hour busride from Tupiza to the border town Villazon. Man, this was the worst bus we ever saw. It must have had over one million kilometers, nothing was working anymore and it smelled like hell in there. This bus wouldn't even get a chance in Belgium, but in Bolivia it is all they have. Of course, there wasn't a paved road, so we were constantly asking ourselfs when the weels would fell off or when the windows would break. Surprisingly, we made it to Villazon without any problem.

Next stage was to walk over the border en get all formalities done. The formalities at the Bolivian side were easy, but in La Quiaca on the Argentinan side, we had to stand in line for a luggage control. Every bag had to be opened. It took ages before we actually crossed the border... While we were waiting we met an Israelean girl that shared a taxi with us to the bus station of La Quiaca.

We immediately got a comfortable bus to Jujuy. It was so nice to ride on paved roads again and to sit in a bus where you don't have to bear the stench all the time.

In Jujuy we had real bad luck. still not recovered from Uyuni, we were really tired of sitting in busses all day. And we had to wait two hours until our last bus to Salta. Right before we left, Joke and I went to the bathroom while the Israelean girl was watching our backpacks. when we came back, Joke´s backpack was missing. Luckily enough not the big one, but a smaller backpack with an iPod, our travel guides, books, a notebook, sunglasses, some usb sticks with pictures and other small stuff... After the hard days in Bolivia, this was too much for Joke and she crashed. Nice detail: this all happened 45 minutes before her birthday...

The Israelean girl really felt bad and she told us that an old lady came to ask her a question. This is quite a common approach in South-America: an old lady asks something and while you´re distracted for a few seconds, someone else takes away your stuff. She even offered us to pay for the loss, but of course it wasn´t her fault... We learnt a valuable lesson: never leave your stuff alone, even if there is someone to watch it.

So our first idea of Argentina wasn´t really nice. But we still had our passports, money, credit cards and our camera... so time to forget all this and to enjoy the last weeks of our trip.